Selecting multiple slides in PowerPoint is an essential skill that can save you a lot of time when working on presentations. Whether you want to apply formatting changes across several slides, rearrange their order, duplicate them, or delete a group of slides, being able to multi-select is key.
In this comprehensive guide, you’ll learn several methods for selecting multiple slides in PowerPoint quickly and easily.
Why Select Multiple Slides?
Before jumping into the step-by-step instructions, let’s look at some of the key reasons you’d want to select multiple slides in PowerPoint:
- Applying global formatting changes – Rather than styling slides one by one, multi-select them to update the font, colors, effects, etc. across several slides at once.
- Rearranging slide order – By selecting a group of slides, you can drag and drop to reorder them in the presentation.
- Duplicating slides – Copying and pasting a selection of slides is way faster than duplicating them one at a time.
- Deleting multiple slides – When you need to remove a batch of slides, multi-select them and hit delete once.
As you can see, being able to select multiple slides saves a ton of repetitive actions!
Method 1: Select All Slides
The quickest way to select all slides in your PowerPoint presentation is using the keyboard shortcut Ctrl + A (or Command + A on Mac). This will highlight all slides in the left-hand slide thumbnail pane instantly.
Alternatively, you can manually select the first and last slides:
- Click on the first slide thumbnail
- Scroll to the end and Shift + Click the final slide
All slides in between will be multi-selected too.
Method 2: Select a Range of Consecutive Slides
If you only want to select a group of consecutive slides, here are two options:
Option 1
- Click the first slide you want to include
- Hold the Shift key
- Click the final slide in your desired selection
This will highlight that slide range.
Option 2
- Click the first slide thumbnail
- Hold left mouse button
- Drag cursor over thumbnails until last slide is selected
Release mouse button once your slide range is selected.
Method 3: Select Multiple Non-Consecutive Slides
To multi-select slides that aren’t next to each other:
- Click the first slide you want
- Hold the Ctrl key (Windows) or Command key (Mac)
- Click additional slides you want to include
Repeat step 3 to keep adding individual slides to the selection.
This technique lets you build custom groups of non-adjacent slides.
Method 4: Use the Selection Pane
PowerPoint has a dedicated tool for precision selection and deselection of slides:
To access it:
- Go to Home tab
- Open the Select drop-down menu
- Choose Selection Pane
This opens a list of all slide thumbnails on the right of the screen.
To select slides:
- Check the boxes beside slides you want
- Click a slide thumbnail to select it
- Ctrl + Click thumbnails to select multiple slides
- Shift + Click to select a range
The Selection Pane gives you maximum control over which slides are actively selected.
Method 5: Select in Slide Sorter View
Slide Sorter view displays all your slide thumbnails at once for easy reordering.
It also facilitates multi-select:
- Go to View tab
- Click Slide Sorter button
Now you can use the selection methods above to choose slides:
- Ctrl/Command + Click for multiple slides
- Shift + Click for ranges
- Drag cursor to highlight consecutive slides
Slide Sorter gives a great overview for slide management.
Final Tips
- You can select slides across multiple PowerPoint presentations simultaneously if they are open at the same time.
- Use keyboard shortcuts like Ctrl + C and Ctrl + V to quickly copy and paste selected slides.
- Try not to select too many slides at once, as PowerPoint’s performance may drop. Stick to working with 10-20 slides selected maximum.
I hope this guide has helped you master multiple slide selection in PowerPoint! Let me know in the comments if you have any other handy tips or tricks.
