Combine Slides from Multiple PowerPoint Templates

We’ve had questions about the possibility of combining several of our templates into one presentation.  Essentially, how do you mix and match slides from different animated templates?

It’s actually very easy to do if you are using PowerPoint 2007 or newer.  I’ve put together a video tutorial about how to use the “Reuse Slides” function in PowerPoint 2010 and PowerPoint 2007 to combine slides from various templates.

Click Play to watch Video Tutorial

Note For Combining Several Animated Templates Together.

Remember that the more animated templates you combine the larger your presentation will become.  A number of video files will make your presentation quite bulky.  This could be a problem if you are distributing the completed presentation.

Please leave a comment if you find this tutorial helpful or have any questions.

You can download the templates used in this video here.

Mac PowerPoint 2008 and 2011 instructions.

In Mac PowerPoint, inserting slides from other presentations or templates work pretty much the same way but the command is labeled differently.  The function is located under the “Insert” menu.  Look for Insert/Slides From/Other Presentations.  See screen shot below:

Insert slide from other presentation Mac PowerPoint

Insert Slides from other presentations in Mac PowerPoint 2008 and 2011

In the slide finder, be sure to check “Keep Design of Original Slide” to retain the formatting, animations and other graphic elements.  Otherwise PowerPoint will only copy the text and not slides design.

Insert Slides from other Presentations

Check Keep Design of Original Slides

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78 Responses to “Combine Slides from Multiple PowerPoint Templates”

  1. Thank you this was an awesome tip and it worked perfectly!

  2. David says:

    Excellent tip. Thank you for training and art work. Please keep it up.

    David

  3. This was EXCELLENT and very helpful!!!!! Thank you for taking the time out to do this.

  4. Muhammad says:

    Art :

    Thanks for the tutorial. I am so excited to get started. The slides look fabulous.

    Thanks

    Muhammad

  5. Stacey Gantt says:

    Thanks so much for everything you guys and gals do. You guys make me look so darn good at meetings with your creations…no joke.

    • Art Holden says:

      Hi Stacey, Thank you for the nice comment. We sure do appreciate you as a subscriber as well.

      Art Holden
      PresenterMedia

  6. stephanie says:

    this just saved my life at work; thanks!

  7. Free Man says:

    Very helpful. Nice job.. Thanks for sharing

  8. Ankur says:

    Thanks for the nice tutorial. There is so much to learn on Powerpoint. Keep them coming!

  9. Mark B says:

    Hi,
    Struggled with no sound on viewing the video – any thoughts?

    Thanks

    • Art Holden says:

      Hi Mark, The tutorial video is published using Flash, perhaps you need to update your Flash player?

      Art Holden
      PresenterMedia

  10. frank says:

    thanks. Im so thankful for this. I was like putting my hair out trying to find out how to do this. the video is pretty useful.

  11. Lesley says:

    Thanks for this very useful – I am a PhD student and new to presenting at conferences – I have one coming up in a couple of weeks and am basing my presentation on several of your slides. I would like some pictures of buildings (not houses) as I am talking about offices – not sure if this would be a popular enough idea for you guys to take the time though?
    Thanks again.

  12. Jennifer says:

    I clicked on the video tutorial but, the video wasn’t working. :(
    any thoughts?? Thank you Art!!

    • Art Holden says:

      Hi Jennifer, we had a couple of other people comment about this tutorial not playing right, so I rebuilt it and replaced the old video. Does it play for you now?

      Art Holden
      PresenterMedia

  13. Jennifer says:

    No! there are no images just a bunch of colorful lines…. it looks like the images are trying really hard to be able to display… :(

  14. Molly says:

    You’re a lifesaver! Thank you for this easy tip on combining multiple 2010 PowerPoint presentations into one.

  15. Maria says:

    Thanks for such a quick and easy tutorial. Wish I had discovered this years ago, it would have saved me hundreds of times! It worked perfectly!!

  16. Dalia ! says:

    woooow ,, great tip , I was wondering how to do that

    still learning new things in ppt

    you’re the best ^^

    thank you

  17. Tom says:

    Is it possible to Combine Slides from Multiple PowerPoint Templates while using powerpoint 2003??

    • Art Holden says:

      Hello Tom, Yes you can combine slides in PowerPoint 2003. Under the Insert tab, choose “Insert Slides From Files”. Browse to the template or presentation you want to add a slide from. Be sure to check the box “Keep Source Formatting” in order to copy the entire slide design and not just the info on the slide.

      With our animated templates and PowerPoint 2003, you’ll also need to be sure you are copying the video files into the same directory as your presentation, if you are combining animated templates together.

      Hope this helps.

      Art Holden
      PresenterMedia

  18. Julia Keegan says:

    Great tutorial for combinig slides from presentations. Gives so much more versatility.

  19. Rachel Thomason says:

    I needed to combine non-animated slides from different presentations while still keeping the backgrounds/elements that students chose to represent themselves. This made my job SO very easy. Thank you very much for this! You are also very easy to listen to – that can’t be said for all oral presenters. Keep up the great work!

  20. Suzan Moody says:

    So appreciate how quick and easy this was. Thank you much.

  21. Alyn says:

    Thanks, you rock

  22. Bob Rhoades says:

    You guys are doing a fantastic job and I’ve used tons of the graphics and PPT presentations. I still need a couple more firefighter images. If you need suggestions, I’d be happy to make some.

    Thanks again for this wonderful site.

  23. James says:

    Hi,

    Is this tip available for openoffice? I have a lot of powerpoint templates. Thank you in advance.

    Regards,
    James

    • Art Holden says:

      Hi James, We are currently not supporting Open Office, as Open Office does not yet support many of the PowerPoint features our templates utilize.

      Art Holden
      PresenterMedia

  24. Rohit Arora says:

    Thanks for helpful presentation…..u saved me from lot of trouble…

  25. Laura says:

    Thanks for the tutorial! Great video. Very informative and easy to follow.

  26. Anna Condit says:

    I love your product. It has been a great joy to make my presentations. However, I need your assistance. I am using PP 2011 on MAC. I am including a slide from your police car flashing. It works fine until I save the presentation and open it again. I have a copy of the entire Police car slide show on my MAC and it is saved and it works just fine. It is only when I combine one of the slides into another slide show.
    Please help.

    • Art Holden says:

      Anna, let me do some research on this. I have not heard of any issues with combining slides on Mac PowerPoint causing it to drop the added animation.

      Art Holden
      PresenterMedia

      • Art Holden says:

        Is it possible you saved the presentation as a .ppt instead of the normal .pptx? Saving the presentation as .ppt (compatibility mode) would remove the animation.

  27. Francesco says:

    Hi Art,
    I have kept source formatting, but it seems the combination doesn’t work with different screen presentations like 16:9 with 4:3.
    Have I missed something?
    Thanks.

    • Art Holden says:

      Hi Francesco,

      PowerPoint should automatically squash or stretch the layouts to fit. The resulting slide insert may need some tweaking if you are not inserting from the same resolution as your main presentation.

      What version of PowerPoint are you using? I will see if I can replicate the issue you are having.

      Art Holden
      PresenterMedia

  28. Francesco says:

    Hi Art,
    I am using PowerPoint 2010 and trying to combine some slides of the following template:
    Strike A Pose Toolkit
    with:
    Risky Tightrope

    • Art Holden says:

      I tested it using the “Reuse slides” feature from PowerPoint 2010. I was able to insert the 4×3 formats into the 16X9 version and also insert the 16X9 formats into the 4X3. In both cases there was some slight stretching or squishing that occurred as PowerPoint accommodated the different aspect ratios. However, the slides still looked correct and everything played properly.

      What exactly is happening for you?

      Art

  29. Francesco says:

    Yes, Art. There are stretching and squashing, but they are not so slight…

    Francesco

    • Art Holden says:

      Since you are not importing from the same aspect ratios, squashing and stretching will occur. In most cases it isn’t too noticeable. You can tweak each image separately after the slide is inserted if the effect is too noticeable.

      Ultimately, its best to insert from the same aspect ratios instead of mixing 4×3 and 16×9 together.

      I will have a 16×9 version of the Risky Tightrope template added to the site.

      Art Holden
      PresenterMedia

  30. Francesco says:

    I have made a video using a combination of some of these slides. It has been posted on YouTube (search for “Synergies between ISO 31000 and ISO 26000 [Risk Management and Social Responsibility]“.

    Thanks a lot, Art.

    Francesco

  31. manoj says:

    how do i upgrade my power point software to a new version

  32. manoj says:

    how do i download the video from presenter media software in with ou any fee. please tell me if any option is there to download

    • krjones says:

      Our content is not free to download unless you are a subscriber. To subscribe, simply click the “Join Now” link at the top of the page. Once subscribed, you are allowed unlimited downloads of our content.

  33. Travis says:

    I know how to combine slides from different presentations but how do I do this, still have the animation work but integrate a common color and font scheme? I looked through the string above but couldn’t find the answer.

    Cheers!

    • krjones says:

      Travis:

      Combine the slides using our tutorial. Once you have the content moved into your presentation you should be able to apply the layout to the various slides without losing the animations (GIF or MOV) or video backgrounds.

  34. MsBeardsClass says:

    A genuine thank you from a teacher who is trying to make content more engaging for her students. I have been wondering how to do this. My video lectures and movies will be SO much cooler now!

    • krjones says:

      Great to hear! Let us know if you ever have suggestions or requests for content, our artists just came out with a multitude of educational clip art, animations and templates.

  35. Cindi says:

    Thanks for the assistance, this was a good, thorough tutorial.

  36. Christine says:

    Very useful indeed. Thanks a lot!

  37. Majette says:

    Thank you. Somehow I seem to bluff my way through creating PP Presentations simply by chance. Now I feel so confident with what to do – and to be able to take presentations to the next level of including animations is a dream come true! Especially for an amateur like me. Thank you sincerely! My first day with you and my first attempt on the ‘Global Unity’ templates – so far looking great!

  38. Dhara says:

    Hi Presnter Meida Team,

    First if all a BIG THANKS for this application! Its simply amazing!
    Just a little challenges in custimizing for our needs. Of course with a little assistance from you, can overcome that obstacle.

    1) How do I use the quiz templates to define different categories of questions in your 6 or other Category Templates for Quiz?
    2) How do I input my answers to those questions?
    3) Is there any way I can display it only when I request for answer (so that when I hit any key on my PC or presenter accidentally, it doesn’t display the answer) to verify response of the participants?

    Thanks in advance!

    I am eager to have answers to implement in my sldes.

  39. Eoin Keenan says:

    I really wanted this feature but after upgrading to Mac OS 10.7.4 it doesn’t seem to work. Any ideas ???

    • krjones says:

      I’m sorry, I’m not using Lion as of yet (which would be 10.7.4 I believe) and the ability should be native to PowerPoint, I’ll check into the compatibility between PowerPoint 2008/2011 and Mac’s Lion OS. Thanks for bringing this to our attention.

  40. Flavio Alves says:

    Great tip! Works perfect on Power Point Mac 2011. Wonderful job you did.

  41. Andrew Laird says:

    Hi guys,

    have just recently subscribed and have to say brilliant.

    Great tutorial – thanks – was wondering how to do this exact thing.

    Will keep you posted with how impressed everyone is with your presentations

    Regards

    Andrew

  42. Marisol says:

    BEST tutorial EVER! I’ve been searching for help for about an hour and am SO HAPPY I found your website! Thank you!!!!!!!!!

  43. Nicole from Australia says:

    Thank you so much. This just saved me a whole lot of heart ache of merging 40 slides I received from people with different templates. Thank you!

  44. tolu says:

    This was a great help! Thanks so much! Been battling wit how to do this or hours.
    Thank so much!

  45. vikas says:

    Thank you very much

  46. [...] of the presentation, you may certainly do that.  Simply download our template, and use the Combine Multiple Slides and Templates tutorial to guide you through how to properly combine multiple [...]

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