How do I switch between slides in PowerPoint?

You usually work with only one presentation at a given time. But occasionally, you may need to open two or more presentations at once. E.g., to copy text or slides from one presentation to another.

To open another presentation, in the File tab, choose Open or click Ctrl+O and select the presentation.

When more than one presentation is open, you can switch among them by selecting the one you want to see from the taskbar in Windows. E.g.:

Learn how to switch views between multiple presentations in PowerPoint 2016 for Windows. Switching can sometimes be easier than tiling or arranging slide decks.

Author: Geetesh Bajaj

Product/Version: PowerPoint 2016 for Windows

OS: Windows 7 and higher

Date Created: February 3, 2016
Last Updated: November 10, 2017

If you want to work with more than one presentation in PowerPoint, you can open two or more presentations next to each other. This arrangement makes it easy to compare presentations and edit them as well. This is also helpful when you want to copy or move slides from one presentation to another. Let's imagine you have four presentations open and you can only see the one that is active. What about the other three presentations? How do you navigate to those presentations without having to close, or minimize the active presentation?

In this tutorial, you will learn how to switch between multiple open presentations in PowerPoint 2016. With this option, you can easily switch between different presentation windows, without reducing the window size. Follow these steps to learn more:

1. Open multiple presentations in PowerPoint 2016. As shown in Figure 1, only the last opened presentation is visible. Are you wondering about where the other presentations disappeared?
2. 
   
   Figure 1: Only one of the multiple open presentations is visible
3. There are two ways in which you can access other open presentations.

Way 1

4. a. Access the View tab on the Ribbon, as shown highlighted in red within Figure 2.
5. 
   
   Figure 2: View tab on the Ribbon
6. b. Within the View tab, click the Switch Windows button, as shown highlighted in blue within Figure 2, above.
7. c. This opens the Switch Windows drop-down menu, as shown in Figure 3.
8. 
   
   Figure 3: Switch Windows drop-down menu
9. d. This drop-down list displays all the presentations which are open. To navigate to any of these open presentations, click on the name of the presentation within this menu.

Way 2

10. a. When your presentations are open, you will find an instance of PowerPoint on the Taskbar (highlighted in red within Figure 4).
11. 
    
    Figure 4: PowerPoint instance on the Taskbar
12. b. Hover your cursor over the PowerPoint instance to see a preview of all open presentations, as shown in Figure 5 below. Then click on the preview of the presentation you want to access now.
13. 
    
    Figure 5: Preview of all open presentations
14. Save your presentation often.

See Also:

Switch Views Between Multiple Presentations in PowerPoint 2016 for Mac
Switch Views Between Multiple Presentations in PowerPoint 2013 for Windows
Switch Views Between Multiple Presentations in PowerPoint 2011 for Mac
Switch Views Between Multiple Presentations in PowerPoint 2010 for Windows

You May Also Like: Answer The Question Asked: by Claudyne Wilder | Bolivia Flags and Maps PowerPoint Templates

Popular Posts

Pictures in Presentations

Is a picture is worth a thousand words? You probably have heard this adage so often that we decided not to repeat this phrase throughout this book! Now here’s some more info: the human brain uses a larger part of its area to store visual information rather than textual content. And that’s possibly because a picture describes so much more than text.

Go and get a copy of our Pictures in Presentations ebook.

This is the original page. An AMP (Accelerated Mobile Page) version of this page is also available for those on mobile platforms, at Switch Views Between Multiple Presentations in PowerPoint 2016 for Windows.