How to Embed a PowerPoint Slide in Microsoft Word

Word and PowerPoint are both part of the Microsoft Office suite, so it’s easy to copy a slide from PowerPoint into Word. A simple right-click on the slide in question, followed by a quick copy and paste, is all you need to get the job done. But what if you want more? What if you want to embed a PowerPoint Slide in Microsoft Word so that you can make changes to the slide in Word without affecting the original PowerPoint presentation?

That’s going to take a little more work. You need to embed the slide rather than copy and paste it over, with this article demonstrating how to do precisely that.

Embed a PowerPoint Slide in Microsoft Word – The Steps

Start by opening both your Word document and the PowerPoint presentation containing the slides you want to embed. There’ll be a bit of back and forth between these two apps as you follow these steps.

Method 1 – Use the Copy and Paste Tool in Word

Our first method sees you using some familiar copy and pasting techniques, only in a way you may have never used them before.

Step 1: Head to your PowerPoint document and click the slide you want to embed to select it. You should see a border around the slide.

Step 2: Press “Ctrl+C” or right-click on the slide and select “Copy.”

Step 3: Jump into your Word document and click the place in the document where you want to embed the slide.

Step 4: Head to the “Home” menu and locate the “Paste” icon.

Step 5: Click the downward-facing arrow under “Paste” and select “Paste Special.”

Step 6: In the pop-up box that appears, select “Microsoft PowerPoint Slide Object.” This text may also read “Microsoft PowerPoint Presentation Object” if you’re trying to embed multiple slides from your presentation at once.

Step 7: Make sure that the “Paste” checkbox is ticked on the left-hand side and hit the “OK” button.

After a few moments, your PowerPoint slide should pop up in your Word document. This is where the cool part comes into play. Once the slide is on your screen, you can double-click it to essentially open up a PowerPoint interface within Word through which you can tweak the slide as needed.

A quick double-click of the greyed-out area to the side of your document sends you back to the original Word doc.

Method 2 – Use the Insert Tab to Embed a PowerPoint Presentation in Word

This method required less back and forth than copying and pasting to embed a PowerPoint slide or presentation into Microsoft Word, though it’s also a little less versatile.

Step 1: Click the “Insert” option and locate “Object,” in the “Text” part of the Word Ribbon.

Step 2: Hit the little downward arrow next to “Object” and choose “Object…”

Step 3: Hit the “Create from file” tab and click on the “Browse” button.

Step 4: Navigate through your file system to locate the PowerPoint presentation you want to embed in your Word document. Select it and hit the “Insert” button.

Step 5: Check the “Link to File” checkbox and hit the “OK” button. You can also check “Display as Icon,” to create a little PowerPoint icon in your Word document that you can click to go to the original PowerPoint presentation.

You will see the first slide of your Presentation appear in your Word document:

This embedded slide works a little differently from the one you embed using the copying and pasting method. Double-click the slide and it’s open the presentation rather than allowing you to edit the slide inside Word.

You can then run through the presentation in the same way you would in Microsoft PowerPoint, with the presentation even closing out into the original PowerPoint document.

As a linked object, the embedded PowerPoint image also updates every time you make changes to the linked PowerPoint presentation. If those changes don’t occur in real-time, close out the Word document and reopen it. You’ll likely see a message asking if you wish to update the linked item inside your Word document.

Select “Yes” and the Word document updates to the most recent version.