How to make slides vertical in powerpoint

March 20, 2019 By MattMYT

When you create a Powerpoint slideshow, the default settings will have it in the landscape orientation. This allows you to more easily fit more information on standard screens.

However, situations may arise where a slideshow would work better if it were vertical. Fortunately there is a setting in Powerpoint that lets you adjust the orientation. This allows you to switch from the default landscape option to the less traditional portrait option.

How to Switch to Landscape in Powerpoint for Office 365

The steps in this article were performed in the Powerpoint for Office 365 version of the program. However, these steps are similar in most other versions of Powerpoint. Additionally, this setting can only be adjusted for the entire presentation at once. You aren’t able to make a single Powerpoint slide vertical while leaving the rest of the slides horizontal.

Step 1: Open your presentation in Powerpoint.

Step 2: Choose the Design tab at the top of the window.

Step 3: Click the Slide Size button, then choose the Custom Slide Size option.

Step 4: Select the Portrait option under the Orientation section, then click the OK button.

Do you need to use a single slide from one of your presentations in another document, but you are having trouble copying everything over? Find out how to save that slide as an image so that it can be added, edited, or shared in the same way as any other image file.

You’ve probably had a few PowerPoint photo slideshows in your email already. They seem to be a popular topic for messages coming from friends and relatives with too much spare time on their hands. But have you ever tried creating one? It’s easier than you think, and it might actually be a good way to share pictures – just don’t abuse the slideshows with cute kitty images!

1. Open up PowerPoint, click the Insert tab and then the Photo Album button. Select New Photo Album to open the Photo Album settings menu.

2. In this new window, click the File/Disk button to select the photos you want to use in your slideshow. Remember you can select multiple files simultaneously by holding the Ctrl key while selecting them with your mouse.

3. Once you’ve selected all the photos, they’ll be listed in the “Pictures in album” box. You can rearrange them, preview them, rotate them and also adjust their brightness and contrast values.

4. The options under “Album Layout” at the bottom of the window let you choose how many photos you want to have on each slide and select a frame or border to decorate each one of them. You can also choose the theme for your slideshow here, but my advice is to leave it for later because this menu doesn’t allow you to preview the result.

5. The Picture Options let you set all images to black and white, and also insert a caption below them. Note this captions is just the file name, so if you want to customize it you’ll need to edit each one of them manually.

6. When you’re done configuring the Photo Album options, click the Create button and PowerPoint will automatically create a presentation with all your pictures.

7. The only thing left is to choose a theme for your slideshow. Click the Design tab and select one from the drop-down menu. Try picking one that fits with the topic in your photos.

Done! Now it’s time to save it to PPT and share it by email. You can do this the traditional way (saving the file to your hard drive first, and then sending it with a third-party email client) or use the built-in Save & Send feature in PowerPoint, which automatically saves the file and sends it with the associated email client.

Change orientation first so elements don’t drop off the slide

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What To Know

• In Windows: In Normal view, press Design >Slide Size >Custom Slide Size. Under Orientation, select Vertical, and set the Height and Width.
• On the web: Design >Slide Size >Custom Slide Size >Portrait >OK. Then choose how slides fit the screen.
• On a Mac: File >Page Setup. Select Portrait, adjust the size as needed, and press OK.

This article explains how to change the orientation of PowerPoint slides between portrait and landscape. Instructions in this article apply to PowerPoint for Microsoft 365, PowerPoint 2019, PowerPoint 2016, PowerPoint 2013, PowerPoint 2010, PowerPoint 2007, PowerPoint for Mac, and PowerPoint Online.

Change Slide Orientation in PowerPoint for Windows

The steps used to change the page orientation between landscape and portrait are the same in all versions of PowerPoint 2013 for Windows and newer.

In the Normal view, click the Design tab.

Select Slide Size.

Select Custom Slide Size.

Use the buttons in the Orientation section to select a vertical orientation or enter dimensions in the Width and Height fields.

Select OK to apply the changes.

Change Slide Orientation in PowerPoint 2010 and 2007 for Windows

Follow these steps to change from landscape to portrait slide orientation in older versions of PowerPoint for Windows.

Select the Design tab, and in the Page Setup group, click Slide Orientation.

Choose Portrait.

Press OK to save your changes.

Change Slide Orientation in PowerPoint for Mac

To change the page orientation from landscape to portrait in PowerPoint for Mac 2011.

Select the File menu and choose Page Setup.

In the Page Setup dialog box, across from Slides, select the Portrait orientation. As an alternative, select custom dimensions in the Size section, making the height greater than the width.

Choose OK to apply the changes.

Change Slide Orientation in PowerPoint Online

For a long time, PowerPoint Online didn’t offer a portrait orientation slide, but that has changed.

Select the Design tab.

Select Slide Size, then choose Custom Slide Size.

Select the Portrait orientation image.

Select OK to apply the changes.

You have the choice to either choose Maximize, which maximizes the use of the available slide space, or click Ensure fit, which makes sure that the slide content fits on the vertical portrait orientation.

Landscape and Portrait Slides in the Same Presentation

There is no simple way to combine landscape slides and portrait slides in the same presentation. If you’ve worked with slide presentations, you know that this is a basic feature. Without it, some slides won’t present the material effectively, such as with a lengthy vertical list, for example. There is a workaround if you must have this capability.

In this course:

PowerPoint slides are automatically set up in landscape (horizontal) layout , but you can change the slide orientation to portrait (vertical) layout .

Select the Design tab:

Near the right end, select Slide Size, and then click Custom Slide Size.

In the Slide Size dialog box, select Portrait, then select OK.

In the next dialog box, you can select Maximize to take full advantage of the space available, or you can select Ensure Fit to make sure that your content fits on the vertical page.

On the Design tab, in the Page Setup group, click Slide Orientation.

On the Design tab, click Slide Size.

Click Page Setup.

In the Page Setup dialog box, under Orientation, click the orientation that you want:

Portrait:

Landscape:

There are separate orientation settings for Slides (projected on-screen) and for Printed notes, handouts, and outlines.

Click the Design tab of the toolbar ribbon, and then, near the right end, click Slide Size.

On the Slide Size menu that appears, select Custom Slide Size.

The Slide Size dialog box opens.

In the Slide Size dialog box, select Portrait, and then select OK.

When PowerPoint for the web is unable to automatically scale your content, it prompts you with two options:

Maximize: Select this option to increase the size of your slide content when you are scaling to a larger slide size. Choosing this option could result in your content not fitting on the slide.

Ensure Fit: Select this option to decrease the size of your content when scaling to a smaller slide size. This could make your content appear smaller, but you’ll be able to see all content on your slide.

In this course:

PowerPoint slides are automatically set up in landscape (horizontal) layout , but you can change the slide orientation to portrait (vertical) layout .

Select the Design tab:

Near the right end, select Slide Size, and then click Custom Slide Size.

In the Slide Size dialog box, select Portrait, then select OK.

In the next dialog box, you can select Maximize to take full advantage of the space available, or you can select Ensure Fit to make sure that your content fits on the vertical page.

On the Design tab, in the Page Setup group, click Slide Orientation.

On the Design tab, click Slide Size.

Click Page Setup.

In the Page Setup dialog box, under Orientation, click the orientation that you want:

Portrait:

Landscape:

There are separate orientation settings for Slides (projected on-screen) and for Printed notes, handouts, and outlines.

Click the Design tab of the toolbar ribbon, and then, near the right end, click Slide Size.

On the Slide Size menu that appears, select Custom Slide Size.

The Slide Size dialog box opens.

In the Slide Size dialog box, select Portrait, and then select OK.

When PowerPoint for the web is unable to automatically scale your content, it prompts you with two options:

Maximize: Select this option to increase the size of your slide content when you are scaling to a larger slide size. Choosing this option could result in your content not fitting on the slide.

Ensure Fit: Select this option to decrease the size of your content when scaling to a smaller slide size. This could make your content appear smaller, but you’ll be able to see all content on your slide.

The steps in this guide are going to show you how to adjust the orientation setting for your Powerpoint slides in Microsoft Powerpoint for Office 365. This slide orientation setting applies to the entire presentation, so completing these steps will switch every slide in your Powerpoint presentation to the portrait orientation.

We cover the steps briefly at the top of this article, then continue below with additional information and pictures for the steps.

1. Open your presentation in Powerpoint.
2. Select the Design tab at the top of the window.
3. Click the Slide Size button, then choose Custom Slide Size.
4. Select the Portrait option under Slides.
5. Choose the Maximize or Ensure Fit option based on what you want Powerpoint to do with existing content.

When you create a new presentation in Microsoft Powerpoint, it is going to be in the landscape orientation by default. Since many of the screens on which you would display a presentation are going to be in that orientation, this makes sense.

However, situations may arise where you need your slides to be vertical, or in the portrait orientation. Fortunately this is an option that you can adjust, although it’s in a location that is difficult to find if you don’t know where to look. In some other Microsoft Office products, like Microsoft Word or Microsoft Excel, this option would be found on a Page Setup menu. In Powerpoint, however, it’s someplace else. Our tutorial below will show you how to make your Powerpoint slides vertical in Powerpoint for Office 365.

How to Switch to the Vertical Portrait Orientation in Powerpoint

The steps in this guide were performed in the desktop version of Powerpoint for Office 365. By completing these steps you are going to put your current Powerpoint slideshow into the portrait orientation. If the slideshow has existing content on it, such as a text box, or a picture, then that content may be adjusted based on an option that you select during this process. Alternatively some of your slide content may get pushed off of the slide, so be sure to go back and proofread everything to make sure it looks alright.

Step 1: Open the Powerpoint presentation that currently has landscape slides which you wish to convert to portrait slides.

Step 2: Select the Design tab at the top of the window.

Step 3: Click the Slide Size button in the Customize section of the ribbon, then choose the Custom Slide Size option from the drop-down menu.

Step 4: Click the circle to the left of Portrait.

Step 5: Select the Maximize or Ensure Fit option depending on what you would like Powerpoint to do with your existing content after it switches from horizontal slides to vertical slides.

As mentioned earlier, existing slides layouts are typically impacted by this change. Additionally, if you are using a Powerpoint template and making this change, and would like to use portrait orientation for future presentations with this template, be sure to save it after adjusting this setting.

If you are printing handouts of your presentation and would like to switch between portrait and landscape orientation, you can do so from the Print menu in addition to selecting the option from the Slide Size menu in step 4 above. Simply click the Full Page Slides button and choose the desired handout option, then click the Landscape Orientation option and choose Portrait orientation instead.

If you switch between orientations then switch back, it’s likely that your slide layouts won’t revert to their original states. You will likely need to go through and resize a number of the objects in your slides.

Find out how to print 4 slides per page in Powerpoint if you are either printing handouts for people, or if you want to work on your presentation from a hard copy and don’t wish to waste a lot of paper.

Kermit Matthews is a freelance writer based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania with more than a decade of experience writing technology guides. He has a Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in Computer Science and has spent much of his professional career in IT management.

He specializes in writing content about iPhones, Android devices, Microsoft Office and many other popular applications and devices.

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A PowerPoint 2010 presentation can either use a portrait orientation, which arranges the slides vertically, or a landscape orientation, which arranges them horizontally. By default, PowerPoint slide layouts are set up in landscape orientation. As a business owner, you want to create a presentation that will best serve your audience, whether you are speaking to customers (or prospective clients) or to your employees. No single presentation can contain both vertical and horizontal slides. If you want to include both types of slides, Microsoft recommends that you create two presentations and link one to the other. For example, a presentation that consists entirely of vertical slides may cut briefly to a second presentation that embeds a printed report onto a slide.

Step 1

Create a new PowerPoint file. Click “Slide Orientation” in the ribbon’s Design tab and click “Portrait.”

Step 2

Create a second PowerPoint file. Click “Slide Orientation” in the ribbon’s Design tab and click “Landscape.”

Step 3

Save both files in a single folder on your computer.

Step 4

Scroll to a slide in one of the presentations. Click “Shapes” in the ribbon’s Insert tab, click a shape and drag the mouse over the slide to add the shape as a button. You are doing this to create a link between the two presentations.

Step 5

Press “Ctrl-K” to open the Action Settings dialog box.

Step 6

Click “Hyperlink to” and select “Other PowerPoint Presentation” in the drop-down box to open a dialog box named “Hyperlink to Other PowerPoint Presentation.”

Step 7

Navigate to and select the second PowerPoint presentation.

Step 8

Repeat the process with the second file to add a button linking to the first presentation.

Step 9

Run the first presentation. Click the button to open the second presentation and then click the second button to return to the first file.

• Microsoft: Use Portrait and Landscape Slide Orientation in the Same Presentation
• PowerPoint Blog: A Good Old-Fashioned Workaround – Using Portrait and Landscape Orientation in the Same Presentation

• Microsoft PowerPoint 2010: Complete; Gary B. Shelly and Susan L. Sebok
• PowerPoint 2010 Bible; Faithe Wempen
• Microsoft PowerPoint 2010: Comprehensive; Gary B. Shelly and Susan L. Sebok

• Place both landscape and portrait files into a single folder on your computer before you create the links. Doing this will enable your files to link correctly, even if you copy your folder to a CD or if you move the folder.

Ryan Menezes is a professional writer and blogger. He has a Bachelor of Science in journalism from Boston University and has written for the American Civil Liberties Union, the marketing firm InSegment and the project management service Assembla. He is also a member of Mensa and the American Parliamentary Debate Association.

Microsoft PowerPoint is used to make presentations. And the orientation of the program is automatically set at the landscape. This means that when you open Microsoft PowerPoint, the template will be in a horizontal orientation, where the width of the page is greater than the height of the page. And for most of the professional presentations, this could be a preferred orientation. However, if you don’t want it, or don’t require a horizontal presentation, you can change it to a vertical orientation.

Portrait orientation (vertically oriented) is when the page of a PowerPoint file has a larger height than its width.

How to Decide which Orientation Would Fit your Presentation Better?

Depending on the data and the content in your presentation, you can decide whether you want your presentation to be oriented in a landscape form or a portrait form. When you want a lot of information on one slide, the only way to add it is to make your presentation in a portrait orientation. Even though you can add a lot of information on a landscape orientated slide, the font will not be readable when you are presenting your work.

Too much content can only be adjusted in one slide if the orientation is vertical. Portrait orientation gives you more space, although the size of pages in both the types of orientation is the same. However, in portrait orientation, you can make space to add more information in a very symmetrical manner. The main factor that affects how a presentation will look is the content that we try to adjust in one slide.

See the Difference in the following images when you add too much information on a presentation in a landscape orientation and a portrait orientation. You will able to see the difference yourself.

Presentation slide in a Landscape Orientation, which is a default setting when you open Microsoft PowerPoint. Presentation slides in a portrait format where the text and everything on the slides have been automatically adjusted according to the orientation.

The text in both the slides is different in size because of the orientation of the slide. To add images and text in one slide, this can make less space for the text and therefore the size for the font shrinks in a Landscape Orientation. That is why Microsoft PowerPoint gives its users the option to change the orientation to Portrait.

How to Change the Orientation of Your Slides to Portrait

1. Open your presentation. Whether you have already made the presentation and want to change the orientation, or you want to change the orientation first and then make the presentation, you can, either way, change the orientation at any time. The toolbar for PowerPoint
2. Locate the tab for ‘Design’ on the top toolbar for editing your slide as shown in the picture below. Design tab is where you will find the settings for changing the orientation of slides.
3. Find ‘Slide Orientation’ here, which is the second option from the left. Click on Slide Orientation to make your slides in Portrait Format
4. Click on Slide Orientation to change the orientation of your presentation. You cannot keep different orientations for different slides. The one you select here will be applied to all the slides in the presentation. Slide Orientation, you can access this option directly after you click on the Design Tab on the top toolbar.

Portrait and Landscape are the two options for orientation of a slide. You can preview the how your page in a presentation will appear with the image next to both the headings. Since we have to make it in vertical, we will click the option for ‘Portrait’. Likewise, if we want the slides in a horizontal orientation, we will select landscape.
If you want to adjust the slide size, you can do that manually. Click on the Page Setup option as shown in the picture below. Method two, to change the orientation of your slide to vertical.

A dialogue box will appear which will show you options for adjusting your pages in a presentation.

Options to set up your slides and notes. Each part of this set up can cater to the user in many ways.

You can manually add the width and the length and also select the orientation for the slides as well as the notes and outlines that are entered right below the slides.

This the notes/outline area where you write extra notes for your presentation.

Once you are don’t with the page setup, click on OK, and all the settings will be applied on your current presentation. I changed the orientation of this presentation to 20 cm by 20 cm. You can see how the program has made my page look like a square shape. You can add your choice of width and height, again, depending on the data that you need to enter.

PowerPoint has the option to display slides in landscape orientation (which is the default setting) or in portrait orientation. However, typically both settings cannot be used in the same presentation; you have to choose one or the other. The good news is that there’s a workaround for this situation. By creating two separate presentations (one in landscape orientation and one in portrait orientation), you can link them together for the effect you want.

Instructions in this article apply to PowerPoint 2019, PowerPoint 2016, PowerPoint 2013, PowerPoint 2010, and PowerPoint for Microsoft 365.

Create the Presentations

When you want to use slides in both landscape and portrait orientation, create two separate presentation files. Slides using the landscape orientation will be placed in one PowerPoint presentation while the portrait orientation slides will be placed in the second PowerPoint presentation.

Then, link the two presentations together using action settings from one slide in the landscape presentation to the next slide you want (a portrait orientation slide), which is in the second presentation (and vice versa).

The final slideshow will flow perfectly and your audience won’t notice anything out of the ordinary except that the new slide is in a different page orientation.

To change the orientation of slides in a presentation, go to Design, select Slide Size, and choose Custom Slide Size.

Create a folder and save any files you will add to this slideshow, including all sound files and photos that you will insert into your presentation.

Create two different presentations. Create one in landscape orientation and one in portrait orientation. Then, save them in the folder you created in Step 1.

Create all the necessary slides in each of your presentations. Add portrait style slides to the portrait presentation and landscape style slides to the landscape presentation.

Link From Landscape to Portrait Orientation

To switch from the landscape presentation to the portrait orientation during your slideshow, select either a text object, a photo, or another graphic on the slide and follow the steps below. When this text or object is clicked during the slideshow, the portrait slide opens.

Go to Insert.

Select Action in the Links group.

Choose either the Mouse Click or Mouse Over tab.

Select Hyperlink to, select the down arrow, and choose Other PowerPoint Presentation.

Locate the portrait presentation file in your new folder, choose it, and select Open.

Select the appropriate slide in the list of slides in that presentation.

Select OK twice to close the dialog boxes. The slide in the landscape presentation is now linked to the portrait slide, which is the next slide in your presentation.

Link From Portrait to Landscape Orientation

Follow these same steps above to link back from the portrait slide to the next landscape slide.

Then, repeat this process for any further instances when you need to change from a landscape slide to a portrait slide.