Powerpoint Integration: Combining Presentations with Differing Designs

There is no fool-proof way (that we know of) to combine presentations with different design schemes into one cohesive presentation in Powerpoint, but you can do the heavy lifting in six easy steps.

You should first get the design in place. Perhaps one of the PPT files already has the right background, colors, and fonts in place: If that is true…

1. Open that file, save it under a new name, and put it into ‘slide sorter’ mode by clicking on ‘View’ and ‘Slide Sorter’
2. Open the other file and put that one into slide sorter mode
3. Click on one of the thumbnails and then hit CTL-A to select all of them and CTL-C to copy
4. Go back to the other file (the one that has the right design) and click on the last thumbnail
5. Press CTL-V to paste the slides. A clipboard icon will appear: click on it and choose ‘Use Destination Theme.’ This will apply the desired design rules to the slides you’re pasting in.
6. Arrange the slides in the proper order using slide sorter mode.
7. Save.

Repeat that process on any other files you wish to integrate and save again.

You now must go through the presentation, from start to finish, making adjustments as needed. The slides you pasted in may have unwanted line breaks or improper colors. Text you’ve bolded or italicized may have reverted to plain text. Keep the original files open so you can refer to those as you correct the new ones.

If neither of the original presentations have a design template you’re happy with, you want to start by creating a new file into which you’ll paste the contents of the originals. Press CTL-N and choose a design scheme from the gallery that opens

You could also start with a plain slide and design the template yourself from scratch by altering the master slides. However, if you’re unfamiliar with master slides, this isn’t the way to go.