Apr 25 2009
Keep the Formatting of an Inserted Slide in PowerPoint
How do you keep the formatting of a slide you're inserting?
When you’re building PowerPoint presentations, you may need to copy slides from one PowerPoint slide deck and insert them into another. Sometimes these slides may have different templates, themes, or other formatting options. Whenever you insert slides from another presentation template, the inserted slides will default to the new presentation’s template and formatting options. In most cases, you’ll want to modify the inserted slides to the new presentation’s formatting in order to keep your slides consistent.
However, there may be times when you want to retain the original formatting of the inserted slides. You may realize that it will be too much work to reformat the inserted slides to match the new presentation’s formatting. You may be presenting with someone from another company or business division, and that person may want to retain their own presentation template.
How to keep the original formatting of an inserted slide in PowerPoint
Paste Options - Blink and you may miss it.
Keeping the source formatting is surprisingly simple. After you copy and insert the new slide into the thumbnail section of your presentation, there is a small “Paste Options” icon that appears at the bottom-right of the insert slide’s thumbnail. It is pretty subtle and actually disappears after a few minutes so it is easy to miss. However, if you click on the Paste Options, you’ll see two options:
- Keep Source Formatting
- Use Destination Theme (default)
When you change the default setting to “Keep Source Formatting”, the slide will revert back to its original formatting instead of using the new destination theme. This feature is so inconspicuous that I didn’t realize this feature was also available in PowerPoint 2003.
After pasting a new slide into the slide thumbnails on the left, look for the "Paste Options" icon at the bottom-right of the new slide's thumbnail. Click on the icon and change the default setting to "Keep Source Formatting". Voila - two templates in the same presentation.
As an added bonus, you now have both templates to choose from in the same presentation if you retained the source formatting. You can now build a new slide using either template in the same presentation if needed. Booyah!
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April 25th, 2009 at 7:28 pm
YEA! Ellen Finkelstein (@efinkelstein)sent me this link – this is EXACTLY the problem I had with a client’s PPT last week. Now I know how to fix it! Thank you!
Now I’m following you in Twitter @phylliskhare
April 25th, 2009 at 9:10 pm
I’m glad you found this post helpful. Thanks for the follow on Twitter!
April 29th, 2009 at 8:48 am
I just had this problem this morning. I’m not sure why they hid it like that instead of adding it to the ‘paste special’ menu. And I had to dig through help to find it too.
June 2nd, 2009 at 3:45 pm
‘Keep Source Formatting’ has always been useful BUT what if you want to bring over the format of the copied slide without having to also bring in a new slide master as well (and unecessarily bulk up your file size)? Anyone know how to do this?
June 4th, 2009 at 7:43 am
PowerPoint 2007′s new file format automatically compresses files as it combines XML with ZIP compression. The “fat” PPT file problem of previous versions isn’t as much of a problem now.
The main source of “extra bulk” will be any background image in a slide master that you have. Unless you reduce the image file size, I don’t see any way around adding some extra size to your file. But as I stated earlier it shouldn’t be as big an issue with the current PPTX file format. My two cents.
June 25th, 2009 at 5:15 pm
And opening the file in any earlier version just adds to the file size, right!
July 11th, 2009 at 4:53 pm
Bazunga! This was the answer to all of my problems (well, not quite, but it definitely made my life a whole lot easier)
September 8th, 2009 at 2:18 pm
Anyone know how to do this via macro or API?
January 28th, 2010 at 9:33 am
Thank you so much!!!!!
April 8th, 2010 at 10:50 pm
Oh my gosh! What a lifesaver! I was going nuts trying to figure out how to do this!!! YAY : D
April 18th, 2010 at 10:11 pm
How can I set this to be default, so I do not have to click paste options all the time?
April 18th, 2010 at 11:00 pm
I couldn’t find an option to set this as the default.
Maybe if a Microsoft PowerPoint Product Manager visits this site, they’ll consider it for PPT 2010.
April 19th, 2010 at 3:51 pm
OMG. Thank you so much!
September 22nd, 2010 at 10:43 am
THANK YOU!!!!!!
January 5th, 2011 at 6:25 pm
WHY can’t MS help be this simple!!!! I know the answer…bc they are MS. Thanks…problem has haunted me for a while…frikking Gates sucks…
January 24th, 2011 at 5:51 am
Thank you so much!
January 25th, 2011 at 3:31 pm
I’m using 2007 and I’ve used this little trick for the longest time but now the Paste option icon has disappeared on me. I get it when I cut and paste individual elements from a slide but not when I cut and paste the entire slide. This was working up to a few weeks ago. Any suggestions?
January 29th, 2011 at 7:05 am
Thanks you! Saved me hours. Hugely helpful tip.
March 7th, 2011 at 5:27 am
After pasting a new slide into the slide thumbnails on the left, look for the “Paste Options” icon at the bottom-right of the new slide’s thumbnail. Click on the icon and change the default setting to “Keep Source Formatting”. Voila – two templates in the same presentation.
I cannot find the ‘paste options’ icon at the bottom-right of the new slide’s thumbnail….it does not appear??? please help
March 8th, 2011 at 12:00 am
I ran into this issue recently. I pasted in several slides (30+), and the paste options appeared further down the page (floating in a spot further down the thumbnails than I was expecting). I almost missed it myself.
Note: The paste options will disappear after a while so you need to look for it before it does.
March 27th, 2011 at 2:41 pm
Your Paste Options menu will disappear or not appear at all if you have hidden objects on your slides. Some embedded items from third party software developers can also cause this. However, someone please help me (us): What is the cure for this? If you go to Office Button … Inspect Document … then Remove Hidden Items … you will lose functionality of your third party embedded software, once you paste into ppt 2007.
May 11th, 2011 at 7:57 am
you ROCK!!!
May 11th, 2011 at 9:48 am
THANK YOU!!!
June 1st, 2011 at 8:59 am
Dancing naked on my desk!!!
June 14th, 2011 at 9:13 am
AWESOME!
June 14th, 2011 at 3:35 pm
Thanks a million!!! Not quite as excited as Maggie but close!!!!
July 12th, 2011 at 3:16 pm
Someone already said it, but I’ll say it again: You rock! Wish I’d found this answer years ago.
July 12th, 2011 at 4:37 pm
People dancing naked on their desks and pastors saying I rock. I don’t know what to say, but I’m glad my tips are helpful.
September 13th, 2011 at 7:02 am
This saved my life…it’s taken me years to figure this out! Thank you so much!
September 28th, 2011 at 9:40 am
Brilliant. Panic over…
October 19th, 2011 at 10:05 am
You are a PowerPoint God! Thanks so much, this has bothered me for years.
January 23rd, 2012 at 10:02 am
Mega Thanks! It saved me a lot of time.