3 Ways to Combine Multiple PowerPoint Presentation Files

So you made two different PowerPoint presentations and are stuck with merging them together? Don’t worry. You want to match their themes or keep them original? Covered. You want to drop/keep transitions? Cool.PowerPoint got it all covered for you. However you want to merge slides, you can do it all in PowerPoint itself. This article will take you through different methods and options that will let you combine multiple PowerPoint Presentation files the way you please.

3 Ways to Combine Multiple PowerPoint Presentation Files

3 Ways to Combine Multiple PowerPoint Presentation Files

Method 1: Reuse Slides

When to use:

  • If you do not want to keep the transitions and animations of the inserted presentation after merging it into the main presentation.
  • If you want to merge only a few slides of inserted presentation and not the whole presentation.

How to use:

1.Open the main presentation in which you want to insert another presentation.

2.Decide the two slides between which you want to insert the new slides and click between them.

3.A red line will appear.

Red line will appear on the presentation

4.Click on the ‘Insert’ menu.

5.Open the drop-down menu by clicking on ‘New Slide’.

6.At the bottom of the menu, click on ‘Reuse Slides’.

At the bottom of the menu, click on ‘Reuse Slides’

7.On the right-hand side, the Reuse Slides tab will appear.

8.If you want to keep the theme of the inserted presentation, check the ‘Keep source formatting’ checkbox at the bottom of the tab. Else, if you want it to take the theme of the main presentation, uncheck the box.

9.Now, browse the file you want to insert and click on OK.

10.You can now see all the slides of the presentation to be inserted.

See all the slides of the presentation to be inserted

11.If you want a few particular slides from this presentation to appear in the main presentation, simply click on the thumbnail. Else, right-click on any thumbnail and click on ‘Insert all slides’.

Right click on any thumbnail and click on ‘Insert all slides’

12.Adding a slide while having ‘Keep source formatting’ checked you will get something like this.

Adding a slide while having ‘Keep source formatting’ checked

And unchecking ‘Keep source formatting’ will give you.

And unchecking ‘Keep source formatting’

13.If you want the whole presentation with the theme of the inserted presentation, right-click on any thumbnail in the ‘Reuse Slides’ tab and click on ‘Apply theme to all slides’ and you will then get:

Right click on any thumbnail in ‘Reuse Slides’ tab and click on ‘Apply theme to all slides’

14.If you want to insert the new slides at different positions in the main presentation, then before clicking on any particular slide to be inserted in the ‘Reuse Slides’ tab, just click on that main slide thumbnail (on the left-hand side of the window), below which you want your inserted slide. You can do this for every inserted slide to get this:

Click on that main slide thumbnail (on the left hand side of window)

Method 2: Insert Object

When to use:

  • If you want to keep the transitions and animations of the inserted presentation after merging it into the main presentation.
  • If you want to merge the whole presentation into the main presentation.

How to use:

1.Open the main presentation in which you want to insert another presentation.

2.Add a blank slide at the position you want your inserted slide to be. You can do this by clicking on ‘New Slide’ in the insert menu and then clicking on ‘Blank’.

Click on ‘New Slide’ in insert menu and then clicking on ‘Blank’

3.Click on ‘Object’ in the insert menu.

Click on ‘Object’ in the insert menu

4.Select ‘Create from file’ radio button and browse the presentation you want to be inserted and click on OK.

5.You will see the first slide of the inserted presentation in the center of the blank slide you had inserted.

See the first slide of the inserted presentation in the center

6.Resize the inserted slide to fit the main slide completely by dragging the corners of the inserted slide.

7.Click on the Object.

8.Go to the Animations menu and click on ‘Add Animation’.

Go to the animations menu and click on ‘Add Animation’

9.Click on ‘OLE action verbs’ at the bottom of the drop-down menu.

11.In the dialog box, select ‘Show’ and click on OK.

In the dialog box, select ‘Show’ and click on OK

13.Go to the ‘Animations’ menu and click on ‘Animation Pane’.

14.On the right-hand side, a tab will open. You can see the inserted object in the tab.

15.Click on the downward pointer beside the object name and a list will open.

Click on the downward pointer besides the object name and a list will open

16.Select ‘Start With Previous’.

17.Now, select the object in the tab and click on the downward pointer again.

18.Select ‘Effect Options’. A dialog box will open.

19.In the ‘After Animation’ drop-down list, click on ‘Hide After Animation’.

In the ‘After Animation’ drop down list, click on ‘Hide After Animation

20.Now insert some object like a text box or an image on the main slide containing the inserted presentation object.

An image on the main slide containing the inserted presentation object

21.Right-click on it and select ‘Send to Back’.

Right click on it and select ‘Send to Back’

22.You now have your presentations merged.

Method 3: Copy-Paste

When to use:

If you want to keep animations of the inserted presentation and want to keep/change the theme and transitions.

How to use:

1.Open the presentation you want to insert and select the slides that you want to insert into the main presentation.

2.Press ‘Ctrl+C’ to copy them.

3.Open the main presentation.

4.Right-click in the left pane wherever you want to insert the slides.

Right click in the left pane wherever you want to insert the slides

5.Here you get two paste options:

1.USE DESTINATION THEME:

Selecting this will cause the inserted slides to adopt the theme and transitions of the main presentation while keeping the animations of inserted slides intact.

2.KEEP SOURCE FORMATTING:

Selecting this will keep the theme, transitions, and animations of inserted file itself.

6.Select the option you want and you are done.

There you go! You can now merge your presentations with any possible combinations.

Recommended:

I hope the above steps were helpful and now you can easily Combine Multiple PowerPoint Presentation Files, but if you still have any questions regarding this tutorial then feel free to ask them in the comment section.

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *