How to Change to Portrait in PowerPoint? The Easy Steps

By default, PowerPoint presentations are landscape-oriented for reasons like viewing comfort by matching the screen’s aspect ratio. However, some projects are more suited to portrait orientation, which requires you to understand how to change.

Changing the orientation is simple, and you can do it by selecting the “Design” tab. Under the “Customize Section” (right side of the ribbon,) click “Slide Size” and then on the “Customize Slide Size” option. A “Slide Size” dialog box will pop up. Click “Portrait” under orientation and press the “OK” button.

In some instances, you may want to change one slide’s orientation to portrait while others remain landscape. Read on for steps to follow and achieve this.

How to Change Project’s Orientation to Portrait in PowerPoint?

The PowerPoint program’s purpose is to allow users to create presentations presented on wide screens. This fact is why the slide’s orientation is usually landscape by default, which fits the screen’s aspect ratio.

However, portrait orientation is more suitable when working on various projects, like creating printouts or handouts. In other cases, the landscape orientation is unsuitable, like when dealing with long-flow charts.

The following steps discuss how you can change the project’s orientation from landscape to portrait.

• Step 1. On the top ribbon, click on the “Design” tab.

• Step 2. Under the “Customize” section, click on the “Slide Size” option.

• Step 3. A drop-down will appear under the “Slide Size” option. Click on “Custom Slide Size.”

• Step 4. A “Slide Size” dialog box will pop up in the middle of the screen.

• Step 5. Under the “Orientation” section, click on the “Portrait” option.

• Step 6. Click the “OK” button to change the orientation to portrait.

• Step 7. You can also use the options on the left side of the “Slide Size” window to customize the slide’s “Width” and “Height.”

• Step 8. After clicking the “OK” button, a new window will pop up requesting you to maximize or ensure fit. Click on the “Ensure Fit” button.

• Step 9. In this case, if you click on the maximize button, the content may spill out of the page, as shown below.

How to Change a Single Slide’s Orientation from Landscape to Portrait?

At times, you may need to change only one file’s orientation to portrait in the project. However, PowerPoint cannot mix the two orientation types in one project.

In this case, you’ll need to create the projects separately and link them together. Follow the steps below to achieve this.

1. Create The Second Presentation

The first thing to do is to create the second presentation and link to the first one. Follow the steps below to create the second presentation. 

• Step 1. Create a new presentation by clicking the “New” tab on the left ribbon.

• Step 2. Click on the “Blank Presentation” option.

• Step 3. Change the project’s orientation from landscape to portrait. Follow the steps discussed in the last section to change the slide’s orientation.
• Step 4. Add details to your new slide.

• Step 5. Save the presentation. Ensure the save location is the same as the presentation you want to link to. Click on the “File” bar on the ribbon.

• Step 6. Click on the “Save As” tab.

• Step 7. Click on the “Browse” button and navigate to the location where your other presentation is located.

• Step 8. With the presentation saved, click the content in the slide and select the “Insert” tab on the ribbon.

• Step 9. Click on the “Action” button in the “Links” section.

• Step 10. An “Action Settings” dialog box will pop up. On the “Mouse Click” tab, click “Hyperlink to:”.

• Step 11. Click on the “Next Slide” section, and more options will appear. Select the “Other PowerPoint Presentation” option.

• Step 12. A new window will appear. Locate the first presentation that you’re linking with the current one and click it. In my case, it’s called “How to Change Landscape to Portrait.” “Link me” is the current file.

• Step 13. The “Hyperlink to Slide” dialog box will pop up. Under the “Slide title” section, click the title of your first presentation.

• Step 14. Click the “OK” button to save.

• Step 15. On the “Action Settings” dialog box, click the “OK” button and save.

2. Link The First Presentation To The Second

The next thing to do when creating a presentation with portrait and landscape-oriented slides is to link the first presentation. 

In the above steps, you created the second presentation (with portraits) and linked it to the first (with landscape). In this section, you link the landscape to the portrait presentation. 

• Step 1. On the first presentation, select the information or object you want to link to the second presentation.

• Step 2. Follow the steps discussed in the earlier section to link the information. However, in the step where you click the file to link to (step 12,) select the second presentation. In my case, this is the file named “link me.”

• Step 3. Click the “OK” button on the “Action Settings” dialog box to close it.

3. Presenting

With both files linked, click the “F5” key on the keyboard to start the presentation. When you are on the slide with the link, click on the link object or information to jump to the next presentation slide.

Usually, the people you’re presenting to won’t know that they just read information from another presentation. Click the escape key on the keyboard to return to the original presentation slides.

Can You Add Multiple Portrait and Landscape Slides in PowerPoint?

If you would like to add multiple portrait slides to different slides within a landscape presentation, follow the same steps discussed above. You can add more slides to the second presentation (the presentation with portraits) and link each to the first one.

However, double-click the “left mouse” button when selecting the presentation file.

Double-clicking allows the “Hyperlink to Slide” dialog box to pop over, and you can select a specific slide to link to. This pop-up is crucial when the second presentation has more than one slide.

Also, when presenting, remember there are more slides for other sections. Therefore, remember to press the escape key on the keyboard to return to the presentation and avoid showing other slides prematurely.

Alternatively, you can create new portrait presentation files for each portrait slide to avoid confusion. However, ensure all the presentations are within the same folder as the first one (that with landscape files).

The following video shows how to combine landscape and portrait slides in the same presentation.

Final Thoughts

As it is, you can change the presentation orientation to a portrait by following the steps listed in the article. Changing the orientation is done for all the slides in the presentation.

You can also mix portrait and landscape orientations in the same presentation by linking them together. Create a presentation file with the portrait slides and link them to the main slides. Follow the various steps discussed in the article to link the two files and present them together.