The Easiest Way to Combine Your Powerpoints

Are you looking for ways to combine multiple PowerPoint presentations into one file?

This article has all the answers for you.

If you’re in sales, customer service, or even an independent consultant, there are times when you need to use the same presentation slides in different PowerPoint files.

You don’t want to create the same slides again and again, of course.

And it can be really frustrating and time-consuming if you can’t find a way to quickly combine them.

Thankfully, PowerPoint gives you more than one way to combine different presentation files and use them independently.

You can even choose to keep the formatting of your original slides as it is or change it to fit the design and theme of your destination files.

It’s all pretty easy.

Let me show you how.

Your Options for Combining Powerpoints

There are 3 different ways to combine multiple PowerPoint files into a single presentation.

Both are pretty simple to use.

But which one is better for you depends on your end goal and how you want your presentation slides to appear (I’ll explain this later).

Let’s first look at our options for combining PowerPoint files.

Option#1: Combine PowerPoint Files With “Reuse Slides”

If you want to insert new slides into your presentation or combine multiple PowerPoint presentation slides without opening another file, “Reuse Slides” is the option you need to use.

Using this option you can combine as many presentations into one file as you want.
It has another advantage as well.

Every presentation file has its own theme, slide design, formatting, text font, colors, etc. Using the “Reuse Slides” theme, you can insert the slides from another presentation and automatically change its formatting and design to match your presentation style.

However, this doesn’t include slide transitions or any other animations used in the slides. For that, you’ll need to use the “Insert Object” option in PowerPoint.

But if you only want to combine the contetn of multiple slides into one file, the “Reuse Slide” option is ideal for you.

Option#2: Copy/Paste PowerPoint Slides To Combine Different Files

You can also combine different PowerPoint files by manually copy/pasting the slides from one file to another.

It works just like you copy/paste files in Windows File Explorer.

But for this method, you’ll need to open all the presentation files from where you want to copy the slides.

Just like the first method, this approach also allows you to automatically adjust the formatting and design of the slides you’re copying from the other files or keep them in their original state.

Once you copy the slides to your presentation, any changes you make to the original files will not reflect in the presentation where you copied the files.

If you want the slides to automatically update when you make any changes to the source files, you’ll need to link the slides to your presentation.

Option#3: Combine PowerPoint Slides Using “Insert Object”

If you want to combine different PowerPoint slides while keeping their animations, transitions, and formatting intact, use the “Insert Object” option.

It is slightly more complicated than the previous two options so I only recommend using it when you need to preserve the animations of the slides you’re inserting into your presentation file.

Other than that, this option does everything else that the previous two options offer.

Let me show you how to combine PowerPoint files in Windows and Mac operating systems.

How To Combine Powerpoints on PC

If you’re a Windows user, here’s how you can combine different PowerPoint slides into one file.

Method#1: Reuse Slides

As I described earlier, the Reuse Slides option in PowerPoint is the easiest way to combine different presentation files. Just make sure all the files are saved using the same version of MS PowerPoint to avoid any problems.

Here are the steps you need to follow.

Step#1: Open the Powerpoint presentation file in which you want to combine the slides from other presentation files.

Step#2: In the thumbnail section on the left of your screen, click on the point where you want to add the new slides.

Step#3: To add one or more new slides to your presentation, click on Home→ New Slides (in the Slides group)→ Reuse Slides.

Step#4: In the Reuse Slides section, click either on the Browse button or “Open a PowerPoint file” and choose the PowerPoint file that you want to add to your presentation file.

Step#5: When you choose a presentation file from your computer, PowerPoint will show you thumbnails of all the slides from it. Below the thumbnails, you have the option to “Keep source formatting”. Select this option if you want the slides that you’re adding to your presentation to retain their original formatting and design. But if you want the imported slides to adjust to the formatting of your existing presentation, leave this option unchecked.

Step#6: Finally, click on the slides you want to add to the presentation and they’ll immediately start showing in the left section of your screen in the thumbnail section of your presentation. If you want to add all the slides to your presentation at once, press Right Click on any slide and select “Insert All Slides”

That’s it.

You’ve now successfully combined two different PowerPoint presentations into one file. Using this same process you can combine as many presentation files as you want.

Method#2: Copy and Paste Slides To Your Presentation

You can also combine multiple PowerPoint presentations into one file by copying the slides manually to your presentation.

Here are the steps you need to follow

Step#1: Open the presentation file in which you want to add new slides.

Step#2: Open the presentation files from which you want to copy slides. Make sure both files are saved using the same MS PowerPoint version.

Step#3: In the thumbnail section of the PowerPoint file on the left of your screen, click on the slide you want to copy. If you want to copy multiple slides, press the SHIFT button, and click on all the relevant slides to select them.

Step#4: Now press Right Click and select Copy.

Step#5: Go to the presentation in which you want to paste the slides.

Step#6: In the thumbnail section of your presentation on the left of your screen, click on the slide after which you want to paste the copied slides.

Step#7: Now take your mouse point just below the slide you’ve selected, press Right Click and select Paste.

Step#8: At this point, MS PowerPoint will give you two options. To adjust the copied themes automatically to the formatting and design of your presentation, choose “Use Destination Theme” while pasting the slides. If you want the copied slides to retain their formatting, choose “Keep Source Formatting”.

That’s it, you’ve successfully combined two different presentation files by copying the relevant slides manually. Using this same process, you can combine as many presentation files as you want.

Method#3: Combine PowerPoint Presentations Using “Insert Object”

The third method to combine PowerPoint presentations for PC/Windows users through the “Insert Object” option.

As I said earlier, this is a slightly longer method and you should only use it if you want to merge your presentations while keeping their animations and slide transitions in their original form.

Here are the steps you need to follow to use this method.

Step#1: Open your main PowerPoint presentation file in which you want to merge other presentations.
Step#2: In the thumbnail section of the presentation on the left of your screen, click on the slide after which you want to insert the other presentations.

Step#3: In the main menu under the Home section, click on New Slide–>Blank to add a new blank slide to your presentation.

Step#4: Delete the text boxes in this slide so that it is completely blank
Step#5: In the main menu, click on Insert→ Object (in the Text group)

Step#6: Before clicking the Browse button, select the option “Create from file”.

Step#7: Click on the “Link” option next to the Browse button if you want to insert a PowerPoint file in your presentation in a way that it’s still linked with the source file. If you choose this option, any changes you make to the inserted file will also reflect in your main presentation. But if you want the inserted presentation to become a part of your main PowerPoint file, leave the Link option unchecked.

Step#8: Now click Browse and choose the file you want to add to your presentation, then click Ok.

Step#9: The file has been added to your presentation but right now you can only see its first slide. Don’t’ worry, all the slides are there, you just can’t see them right now.

Step#10: Click on the inserted presentation and adjust its size according to your main presentation slides.

Step#11: Now click on the inserted presentation again, go to the main menu and click on Animations→ Add Animation→ OLE Action Verbs

Step#12: This opens up a dialog box. Just select “Show” and click Ok.

Step#13: Go to the main menu and click Animations→ Animation Pane. This opens up a section on the right of your screen which shows the inserted object (presentation).

Step#14: Click on the arrow next to the object in this list and choose “Start With Previous”.

Step#15: Now click on the same arrow again and choose “Effect Options”. This opens up a new dialogue box.

Step#16: Here, go to the “After Animation” dropdown list, choose “Hide After Animation”, and click Ok.

Step#17: Now click on Insert→ Text Box and click anywhere on the object slide to add a text box.

Step#18: Right-click on the text box and click “Send to back”.

That’s it, you have now successfully merged two different PowerPoint presentations while preserving their original animations and slide transitions. You can combine as many presentations as you want using the same process.

How to Merge Powerpoints on Mac

Merging different PowerPoint presentations into one file is easy on Mac.

Here’s how you can do it.

Step#1: Open the PowerPoint presentation in which you want to insert other files.

Step#2: Click on the slide after which you want to insert new slides from other presentation files.

Step#3: Now go to the main menu and click Insert→ Slides From→ Other Presentations.

Step#4: Choose the presentation file that you want to add to your main presentation and click ok.

Step#5: You can now see the new slides in your main presentation. You can delete any slides that you don’t want to keep selecting it and pressing the Delete key on your keyboard.

That’s it, you’ve successfully merged two different PowerPoint files. Using this method you can merge as many presentations as you want.

How to Merge Powerpoints Online

Both PC and Mac users can merge multiple PowerPoint presentations into one file using different online services.

For this method, you don’t even need to have PowerPoint on your computer.

I’ll use GroupDocs to merge PowerPoint files in this article but there are many other free online services you can use as well.

Step#1: Go to GroupDocs free PPTX merger

Step#2: Drag & drop or Browse and select all the PPT files you want to merge.

Step#3: Put the files in the right order so that the file listed on the top comes first.

Step#4: Click Merge Now to combine the files.

Step#5: Once the files have been merged, click on Download Now to download them immediately or enter your email address to get the download link.

Are You Ready To Combine Your PowerPoint Presentations?

As I’ve shown you in this article, merging multiple PowerPoint files is easy no matter what device you’re using. Plus, PowerPoint gives you multiple methods to merge files so that you can use the one that suits you the best. And in case you don’t want to merge your presentations using PowerPoint, you can do it with a free online tool as well.

Let me know if you have any questions.