Two Audiences, One Source Deck
You are rebuilding a 72-slide all-hands deck from two source files: a 40-slide finance deck and a 32-slide product deck built on a different theme. Executives will see slides 1–25 plus a 6-slide summary. The full company sees everything. A 12-slide appendix is never presented live but may be shown if someone asks a question. The executive version's slide numbers must read 'n of 25'; the full version numbers continuously. Two slides imported from the finance deck carry nearly identical titles and slightly different revenue figures, and one of them is the outdated version. The deck will be edited by two other people over the next month.
1. Would you build the executive version with a Custom Slide Show, hidden slides, or a separate file? Argue the trade-off given the numbering requirement and the month of editing.
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Three candidates, and the numbering requirement is what decides it.
- Custom Slide Show (Slide Show > Custom Slide Shows): one source file, zero duplication, instant. But the slide number field reflects the slide's real position in the file, so slides drawn from a custom show still display their true numbers - you cannot make slide 12 read '12 of 25' if it is slide 12 of 72. It also gives the presenter a menu to pick the wrong show from.
- Hidden slides: keeps one file, but hidden slides are one keystroke away from appearing (H during a show), and hiding the appendix is fine while hiding 47 content slides is fragile.
- Separate file: full control over numbering (Insert > Header & Footer > Slide number, with the total controlled by the length of the file), no risk of showing the wrong thing, and each file can be reviewed on its own.
Decision: keep one master file as the source of truth, and produce the executive version as a Save As copy in which you delete everything outside 1–25 and the summary. Use hidden slides only for the appendix inside the master. To survive a month of parallel edits, re-export the executive copy at each edit round rather than editing both, and use Review > Compare to see what changed between rounds.
2. How do you resolve the two duplicate finance slides with conflicting revenue figures?
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Do not edit either one blind. Find the authority first: the finance source workbook or the deck owner names which figure is current. Then:
- Confirm which slide is stale by checking its source note, its last-modified position in the original finance file, or by asking the owner - not by guessing from formatting.
- Keep the correct slide, delete the stale one, and if the two contained different supporting detail (a chart, a footnote), fold what you need into the survivor before deleting.
- Rewrite both titles so they can never look interchangeable again - near-identical titles are how duplicates survive a review.
- Note the change for the two co-editors, because one of them probably has a local copy with the old number.
Reasoning: the failure mode in a merged deck is not the duplicate itself, it is that two people later 'fix' different copies. A single named source plus an unambiguous title removes the ambiguity permanently.
3. The section numbers in the full version need to restart per section, but the footer must still show the overall total. What do you do?
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PowerPoint's slide number field is a single field placed in the master or layout; the starting number for the whole presentation can be set, but automatic per-section restart is not a native behaviour. So you have a choice:
- Native field, continuous numbering - honest and maintenance-free, but does not meet the restart requirement.
- Text boxes per section - you type '3 of 9' manually into each slide's corner. Meets the spec, breaks the moment anyone inserts a slide.
- Separate files per section, each with its own start number, assembled at presentation time - clean numbering, but now you are switching files mid-show, which is exactly what nobody wants in a live all-hands.
Recommendation: challenge the requirement. Explain that restarting numbers per section buys almost nothing for an audience while creating a deck that silently breaks when edited by two other people. If the stakeholder insists, implement it with per-section text boxes placed inside a dedicated footer-safe area on the master so they at least inherit position, and flag in the handover notes that adding a slide requires renumbering that section. The overall total stays as a native field on the title/master so it updates itself.