Great decks are consistent, and the fastest way to keep them consistent is to build new slides from ones that already work. Duplicating a slide takes one shortcut.
Step by step
- Select the slide you want to copy in the thumbnail pane on the left.
- Press Ctrl+Shift+D. The copy appears straight after the original.
- Edit the copy.
Tips & troubleshooting
- Ctrl+M adds a fresh slide instead.
- Ctrl+D duplicates the selected shape, picture or text box on a slide.
- F6 moves focus between the slide and the thumbnail pane without the mouse.
Other ways to duplicate
- Ctrl+D also duplicates slides when one is selected in the thumbnail pane.
- Right-click a thumbnail and choose Duplicate Slide.
- On the Home tab, open the arrow under New Slide and choose Duplicate Selected Slides.
- Several at once: hold Ctrl and click each thumbnail, or Shift and click for a run, then press Ctrl+Shift+D. The copies are placed together after the last one selected.
- Hold Ctrl while dragging a thumbnail to drop a copy exactly where you want it.
Move the copy into place
- Ctrl+Up Arrow and Ctrl+Down Arrow move the selected slide one position.
- Ctrl+Shift+Up Arrow sends it to the start of the deck, and Ctrl+Shift+Down Arrow to the end.
- For a big reshuffle, switch to Slide Sorter on the View tab and drag.
Copying to another presentation
Duplicate works within one file. To take a slide into a different deck, copy it with Ctrl+C and paste it in the other file's thumbnail pane. By default it adopts the destination's theme, so colours and fonts change. To keep its original look, press Ctrl after pasting and then K for Keep Source Formatting. Home, Reuse Slides does the same job with a browsing pane.
When duplicating is a warning sign
If you keep duplicating a slide to reuse its structure, such as a title with two columns and a logo, that structure belongs in a layout. Open View, Slide Master, build the layout once and it appears under New Slide for everyone using the deck. Change it later and every slide based on it updates, which a hundred duplicates never will.
In PowerPoint for Mac the shortcut is Cmd+Shift+D.