Duplicate slides in your PowerPoint presentation can make it repetitive and boring for your audience. While PowerPoint doesn’t have a built-in feature to detect duplicate slides, you can easily find and remove duplicates manually. Here is a step-by-step guide.
Why Remove Duplicate Slides
Here are some key reasons why you should take the time to remove duplicate slides:
- Improves flow and pacing of your presentation
- Avoids repetition that can bore your audience
- Reduces overall file size of your presentation
- Keeps your presentation concise and focused
Overall, eliminating duplicate slides improves the clarity and effectiveness of your presentation.
How to Find Duplicate Slides
If you only have a few duplicate slides, locating them manually is easy. But for large presentations, here are some tips:
Use Slide Sorter View
The Slide Sorter view displays all your slides in thumbnail form, making it easy to visually scan for duplicates.
To activate this view, go to the “View” tab and click “Slide Sorter”.
Compare Slide Content
Carefully go through your slides and compare content to spot duplicates. Check for duplicate titles, text, images, charts or other content.
Review Selection Pane
Open the Selection Pane (Home tab > Editing group) to see a list of all slides. Scroll through this list to spot slides with the same title.
Delete Duplicate Slides
Once you’ve identified duplicate slides, deleting them is easy:
Delete a Single Slide
Right-click the slide and select “Delete Slide” or press Backspace/Delete key.
Delete Multiple Slides
Press and hold Ctrl (or Cmd on Mac) and select the duplicate slides, then press Backspace/Delete or right-click and select “Delete Slide”.
Prevent Duplicate Slides
Follow these best practices to avoid introducing duplicate slides in future:
Use Slide Master
Create a branded Slide Master with fonts, colors, and graphics you want repeated on all slides.
Limit Copies
When duplicating a slide to reuse content, edit the duplicate right away instead of saving multiple copies.
Organize Content
Group related slides in sections and use descriptive titles to make locating slides easier.
Review Before Presenting
Do one last check for duplicate slides using the Selection Pane before finalizing your presentation.
Conclusion
By taking the time to systematically remove duplicate slides in PowerPoint, you can greatly improve the flow and effectiveness of your presentations.
Following the best practices outlined here will also help you prevent the introduction of duplicate content as you build and edit your future presentations.
