Microsoft is dumping the long standing “Reuse Slide” part of PowerPoint 365 for no good reason, just the usual lame excuses.
Reuse Slides (Insert | New Slide | Reuse Slides) is (was) a way to quickly copy slides from another presentation and drop it into your existing deck.
It’s a slick and easy way to copy or recycle content from other presentations. Reuse Slides is so useful that Microsoft is removing the option completely! </sarcasm>
Instead, we’ll have to go back to the long-winded method of copying slides. Open the other presentation, select a slide/s, copy, switch to the current deck and paste. Microsoft originally promoted Reuse Slides as a better, faster way to copy slides but now they call it ‘redundant’.
When It’s Happening
The curtain closes on Reuse Slide by July 31, 2025.
The key word there is ‘by’, meaning Reuse Slide could disappear from your PowerPoint anytime from now on.
This applies to PowerPoint 365 apps for Windows and Mac plus PowerPoint in a browser.
The perpetual license versions of Office are not affected because they have fixed features i,e. PowerPoint 2024, PowerPoint 2024 for Mac, PowerPoint 2021, PowerPoint 2021 for Mac, PowerPoint 2019 and PowerPoint 2016.
Why is Reuse Slides being deleted?
Firstly, let’s be clear that Reuse Slides is not being deleted, dropped, removed or killed – the Microsoft approved euphemisms are “Deprecated” or “Retiring”.
According to Microsoft, Reuse Slides is being removed to
“streamline the user experience and reduce redundancy”.
Those are just excuses and not even good excuses. To quote Worf, son of Mogh
“You must think me a fool to make your lies so transparent“.
Copy/Paste slides is a more complicated ‘experience’ than Reuse Slides.
The most likely reason is cost cutting. Killing Reuse Slides means one less feature to maintain and can be explained away with insultingly implausible excuses.
In other words, the only beneficiary of this change is Microsoft.
What This Means for You
- After the rollout, Reuse Slide will quietly vanish from the Ribbon like a magician’s final act.
- Users will have to reuse slides the old fashioned way:
- Copy/paste between presentations OR
- Duplicate an entire presentation and work from that
We’ve said it before and say it again
“Microsoft giveth and Microsoft taketh away”
That especially applies to subscription software and services which can change features at Microsoft’s discretion.
