Whether you’re creating a new PowerPoint presentation or editing an existing one, knowing how to efficiently manage your slides is an important skill. In this article, I’ll walk you through the basics of adding, deleting, and reordering slides in PowerPoint.

Adding Slides

Adding new slides to your PowerPoint deck is simple. Here are a few different ways to do it:

Insert New Slide – Go to the “Home” tab and click the “New Slide” button. This will insert a new blank slide after the currently selected slide.

Copy and Paste – You can copy an existing slide and paste it to duplicate the slide. Right click on the slide you want to copy, select “Copy”, then right click on the slide after where you want the duplicate, and click “Paste”.
Reuse Slides – If you have existing slides in another PowerPoint file that you want to add to your current deck, you can reuse those slides. Go to the “Home” tab, click the bottom half of the “New Slide” button, and select “Reuse Slides”. Navigate to the PowerPoint file with the slides you want to add and insert them.
Slide Layouts – When inserting a new slide, you can choose from various predefined slide layouts like Title and Content, Comparison, Blank, etc. Click the top half of the “New Slide” button on the “Home” tab to see layout options.

Deleting Slides

Deleting unwanted or unnecessary slides is just as easy:

Right Click – Right click on the slide thumbnail you want to delete and select “Delete Slide” from the menu.
Cut – You can also cut the slide to remove it instead of deleting. This places the cut slide on your clipboard so you can paste it back in later if needed.

Delete Key – With the slide selected, simply press the Delete key on your keyboard. This acts the same as right clicking and selecting Delete.

Changing Slide Order

The slide order in your presentation likely matters, so here is how to easily rearrange the sequence:

Drag and Drop – Click on the slide thumbnail you want to move, then drag and drop it to the location you want. The other slides will automatically shift accordingly.

Cut and Paste – Cut the slide you want to move, then paste it to the new position, just like reordering paragraphs in a Word doc. The other slides will reposition around the pasted slide.
Move Up/Down Arrows – Select the slide thumbnail, then go to the “Home” tab and use the up or down arrow buttons in the “Slides” group to shift the slide’s position.

Helpful Tips

Here are some additional pointers for efficiently managing your PowerPoint slides:

Use keyboard shortcuts to save time – cut (Ctrl + X), copy (Ctrl + C), paste (Ctrl + V), undo (Ctrl +Z)
Name your slides meaningfully to keep organized when building larger decks
Add section divider slides to visually separate major topics or themes

Use slide sorting view (“View” tab > “Slide Sorter” button) for easy rearranging
Be consistent with slide transitions and slide layouts for a polished look
Leverage slide master to globally format slides and enforce branding

Recap

Whether you need to add new content, trim away outdated material, or rearrange your storyline, manipulating slides is critical to perfecting your PowerPoint presentations. With just a few clicks – inserting, deleting, reordering – you can take a rough draft and transform it into a visually compelling, logically flowing masterpiece!

The techniques we covered, from drag and drop to copy and paste, make it simple to get your slides organized just the way you want. With the help of PowerPoint’s intuitive tools and this guide, you’ll be managing slides like a pro in no time.