How To Change Slide Orientation Without Messing Up Pictures

It's an old question, but here is the easy solution that works with Powerpoint 2016.

1. Create a new presentation in your desired format
2. Open the old and new presentations in slideshow view
3. Select all slides in the old presentation
4. Paste into the new presentation

Images do not resize.

>> I was hoping for some hidden button that says "make sure to mess up all your pictures when you change the slide size" that I could unclick or something.

Nope,  When PPT makes up its mind that it wants to mess with you, it's not an optional feature as a rule.

>> Also, I wasn't really after changing from portrait to landscape. I was more after changing a 7x20 slide into a 7x25 slide (for example), without having to go through and re-add everything via copy / paste, etc.

Understood.  But the problem (and solution) are essentially the same.

>> I gave your add-in a try, but it only let me change between preset sizes.

Ah, you need to read the help file.  You can define pretty much any custom sizes you like and they'll appear on the list of "presets".  Actually, just click the Sizes button on the dialog box.  That opens up the file where you can define sizes.  The file itself contains extensive documentation on how to use it, and you'll find that some of the "hardwired" presets are actually pre-defined custom sizes.

But if you want to dump stuff onto one slide, arrange it, and from that determine the slide size you need, it shouldn't be that difficult.  You probably already know this, but you can add stuff off the slide, so just add whatever graphics/etc. you like to the default slide, select everything and group it.  Rightclick the group, choose Size and Position.  The size boxes will tell you how much space everything occupies.  Add a bit for margins if you like, and there's the slide size you need.

Thanks for your quick reply.

However, I was kind of hoping for an easier solution. I already figured I could copy everything, change the slide, and then paste everything back.

I was hoping for some hidden button that says "make sure to mess up all your pictures when you change the slide size" that I could unclick or something.

Also, I wasn't really after changing from portrait to landscape. I was more after changing a 7x20 slide into a 7x25 slide (for example), without having to go through and re-add everything via copy / paste, etc.

I gave your add-in a try, but it only let me change between preset sizes. Ultimately, I'd like to keep stretching out ONE slide, until I could fit everything on there I wanted.

For example, if I started with a really long one, I'd like to be able to shrink it (if I made it too long), or if I started out one that wasn't long enough, I'd like to be able to stretch it out, without having to deal with all the objects, text boxes, and pictures.

I was hoping there was an easy way to "decouple" the size of the objects/pictures/text box with the size of the slide.

I already tried to group objects together, and unclick the "align to slide" button, that still messes up their shapes when I change the slide orientation (e.g. circles become ovals, etc).

Thanks anyways.

There are probably several ways of doing it.  I'd try one or the other of:

Select everything on the slide, copy it to the clipboard, delete it, change the slide size/orientation, then paste everything back. 

Or in ShorthandSpeak: Ctrl+A Ctrl+X [change size] Ctrl+V

If there are lots of these to do, I'd save the original presentation to a new name, open both original and new, change the size of the new one, then set them up to view side by side.  From there it's just a matter of, slide by slide, deleting everything on the new (distorted) presentation then copy/pasting it back from the original and adjusting the size/placement.  Grouping after pasting will probably simplify that a bit.

To change the aspect ratio of entire presentations automatically, have a look at my Resize addin:

http://www.pptools.com/resize/