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Reuse Slides in PowerPoint 2011 for Mac

Author: Geetesh Bajaj

Product/Version: Microsoft PowerPoint 2011
OS: Mac OS X

Date Created: June 23rd 2011
Last Updated: June 23rd 2011

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Excerpt/Capsule: Learn how to reuse slides in PowerPoint 2011 for Mac.

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Reusing slides that you already have is a good idea as long as you make sure you are not using outdated content! I always suggest you to first create and import an outline so that you have a structured presentation in place -- thereafter, use the option that lets you import slides so that you can add more slides or even replace existing ones. Finally you can add any new slides that you need to create from scratch.

PowerPoint provides a quick command that locates specific slides, and enables you to add it to the active presentation. While this process works the same way in all versions of PowerPoint, there are small interface changes -- in this tutorial, I'll show you how to reuse slides in PowerPoint 2011 for Mac:

1. Within PowerPoint 2011, open your existing presentation (see Figure 1).
   
   
   Figure 1: Presentation opened in PowerPoint 2011
   
   
   Note: Copied slides will always be inserted after the selected slide in the active presentation.
   
   
2. Select the slide after which you want to insert new slides. Then choose the menu option Insert | Slides From | Other Presentation (see Figure 2).
   
   
   Figure 2: Slides From Other Presentation option within the Insert menu
   
   
3. Alternatively, you can locate the Slides group within the Home tab of the Ribbon, and click the downward pointing arrow next to the New Slide button (highlighted in red in Figure 3) to bring up the menu that you can see in Figure 3 -- within this menu, select the Insert Slides from Other Presentation option.
   
   
   Figure 3: Slides from Other Presentation option
   
   
4. Either way you will bring up the Choose a File dialog box (see Figure 4). Locate the presentation file on your computer that contains the source slide(s) you want to insert into the open presentation.
   
   
   Figure 4: Choose a File dialog box
   
   
5. You need to choose between options to Insert all Slides or Select slides to insert (see bottom left of Figure 4 above). Unless you want to insert all slides from the source presentation, it is advisable to choose the Select slides to insert option which enables you to view the slides before inserting them. The rest of this tutorial assumes you chose that option -- click Insert in the dialog to proceed.
   
   
6. The selected file will be opened in the Slide Finder dialog box displaying the slide previews and corresponding slide titles, as can be seen in Figure 5.
   
   
   Figure 5: Slides in Slide Finder dialog box
   
   
7. Now you can select the slide(s) to insert (see Figure 6) and click the Insert button. Alternatively, if you want to insert all the slides in the presentation, click the Insert All button. Then click the Close to close the dialog box.
   
   
   Figure 6: Insert slides
   
   
   Note: To retain the design Theme of the original slide,, make sure to check the box beside the option Keep design of original slides, located at the bottom left of the Slide Finder dialog box (highlighted in red, refer to Figure 5 above). If you do not check this box, the copied slide will take on the slide formatting using the design Theme of the new presentation.
   
   
8. The selected slides will be added to the new presentation, as shown in Figure 7.
   
   
   Figure 7: Added slides sourced from another presentation
   
   
9. Save the presentation.