How to Change the Slide Size in PowerPoint

If your slides sit inside black bars on a TV or projector, or the edges get cut off when you print, the slide size does not match the screen or the paper. In PowerPoint for Microsoft 365 (Windows, Mac and the web), open the Design tab, select Slide Size, and pick Standard (4:3), Widescreen (16:9) or a custom size. The new size applies to every slide in that file.

Standard or Widescreen: match the screen first

The two one-click choices differ in shape, which PowerPoint calls the aspect ratio (the width compared with the height). The actual measurements matter less than the shape, because a projector or TV stretches or shrinks the slide to fill whatever it can. When the shapes do not match, you get empty bands on the sides or on the top and bottom.

• Widescreen (16:9) is 13.333 x 7.5 inches (33.867 x 19.05 cm). It is the default for new presentations in current PowerPoint, and it matches most modern monitors, laptops, TVs and video calls. Common 16:9 screen resolutions include 1920 x 1080 and 1366 x 768.
• Standard (4:3) is 10 x 7.5 inches (25.4 x 19.05 cm). Older versions of PowerPoint used it as the default, and it still suits older projectors and screens with resolutions such as 1024 x 768.

A quick way to decide: if the deck will be shown on a recent display or shared in a video meeting, keep Widescreen. If a conference organizer, school or older room projector asks for 4:3, switch to Standard before you build the slides. Choosing the size first saves you from fixing layouts later, because a resize can scale or move what you already placed.

Switch between 4:3 and 16:9 in PowerPoint for Windows

These steps match PowerPoint for Microsoft 365, PowerPoint 2024, 2021, 2019 and 2016 on Windows. PowerPoint 2013 uses the same Design > Slide Size button and Slides sized for dialog.

1. Open the presentation you want to change.
2. Select the Design tab on the ribbon.

3. At the far right of the ribbon, in the Customize group, select Slide Size.
4. Choose Standard (4:3) or Widescreen (16:9). For any other size, choose Custom Slide Size and follow the next section.

5. If PowerPoint asks how to handle the existing content, choose Maximize or Ensure Fit (explained below).

To confirm the change, look at the slide thumbnails on the left: their shape changes right away. If the result looks wrong, repeat the steps and pick the other size.

Pick a paper size or type a custom size

Printed handouts, posters and banners usually need something other than the two screen shapes. The Custom Slide Size option opens the Slide Size dialog box, where you can pick a preset or enter exact measurements.

The Custom Slide Size dialog also holds the Number slides from box, which matters if you plan to add page numbers in PowerPoint that start at something other than 1.

1. Go to Design > Slide Size > Custom Slide Size.
2. Open the Slides sized for list and choose a preset. The Width and Height boxes fill in for you.

3. For a size that is not listed, type into Width and Height directly. Enter a number, a space and the unit: in, cm or px (for example, 11.69 in). PowerPoint converts the value to the unit your system uses.
4. Under Orientation, choose Portrait or Landscape if you need to.
5. Select OK, then answer the scaling prompt.

Custom sizes must be between 1 inch (2.54 cm or 120 px) and 56 inches (142.24 cm or 720 px) on each side.

Presets in the Slides sized for list

Microsoft lists these sizes (width x height). Some paper presets are smaller than the sheet they are named after; Letter, for example, is the same 10 x 7.5 inches as On-screen Show (4:3).

Preset	Inches	Centimeters
On-screen Show (4:3)	10 x 7.5	25.4 x 19.05
Letter Paper (8.5×11 in)	10 x 7.5	25.4 x 19.05
Ledger Paper (11×17 in)	13.319 x 9.99	33.831 x 25.374
A3 Paper (297×420 mm)	14 x 10.5	35.56 x 26.67
A4 Paper (210×297 mm)	10.833 x 7.5	27.517 x 19.05
B4 (ISO) Paper (250×353 mm)	11.84 x 8.88	30.074 x 22.556
B5 (ISO) Paper (176×250 mm)	7.84 x 5.88	19.914 x 14.936
35 mm Slides	11.25 x 7.5	28.575 x 19.05
Overhead	10 x 7.5	25.4 x 19.05
Banner	8 x 1	20.32 x 2.54
On-screen Show (16:9)	10 x 5.625	25.4 x 14.288
On-screen Show (16:10)	10 x 6.25	25.4 x 15.875
Widescreen	13.333 x 7.5	33.867 x 19.05

Two worked examples

• Edge-to-edge A4 handout. The A4 preset is smaller than a real A4 sheet. To match the paper itself, type 11.69 in for Width and 8.27 in for Height (297 x 210 mm converted to inches) for landscape, or swap the numbers for portrait. Check that your printer can print that close to the edge.
• Legal paper. There is no Legal preset in the current list. Type 14 in by 8.5 in (landscape) or 8.5 in by 14 in (portrait) instead.

Also note that a Widescreen slide will not fit on an 8.5 x 11 inch sheet unless it is scaled down when printed, so a deck meant mainly for paper is easier to handle at a paper size from the start.

Maximize or Ensure Fit: what the prompt does

When you change size, PowerPoint may ask what to do with the text boxes, pictures and shapes already on your slides. The choice only affects existing content.

• Maximize keeps your content large. It suits a move to a bigger slide, but some items can spill past the slide edges and need dragging back in.
• Ensure Fit shrinks the content so everything stays on the slide. Nothing is lost, but text can end up smaller than you want.

A rule of thumb: going from 16:9 to 4:3 (or to a smaller paper size), pick Ensure Fit and then enlarge the few items that became too small. Going to a larger size, pick Maximize and check each slide for content that runs off the edge.

Change orientation to portrait

Orientation lives in the same dialog box. Go to Design > Slide Size > Custom Slide Size, select Portrait, select OK, then choose Maximize or Ensure Fit. There is more on tall layouts in this walkthrough on making PowerPoint slides vertical.

PowerPoint for Mac

The Mac version uses slightly different names.

1. Open the presentation and select the Design tab.
2. Select Slide Size, then Standard (4:3) or Widescreen (16:9).
3. For anything else, select Page Setup. Choose a preset from Slides sized for, or type a Width and Height (in, cm or px), then select OK.
4. When prompted, choose Scale to resize the content to fit, or Don’t Scale to keep content at its current size (some of it may then sit off the slide).

PowerPoint for the web

In a browser, go to Design > Slide Size and choose Standard (4:3), Widescreen (16:9) or Custom Slide Size. The preset list is the same, and the scaling prompt offers Maximize and Ensure Fit. Two differences: custom sizes are entered in inches only (1 to 56 inches), and Microsoft does not document a way to set a default size for new presentations in the web version.

Make a size the default for new presentations

A size change only affects the open file. If every new deck should start at, say, 4:3 or A4, save the size inside a theme and make that theme the default. On Windows:

1. Go to File > New and open Blank Presentation.
2. Set the size with Design > Slide Size.
3. In the Themes group on the Design tab, select the More arrow, then Save Current Theme.
4. Give the theme a name and select Save. Leave the folder as it is.
5. Open the More arrow again, right-click your theme under Custom, and choose Set as Default Theme.
6. Close PowerPoint without saving the blank file, then reopen it. New blank presentations now use your size.

On a Mac the steps are nearly the same: set the size with Slide Size > Page Setup, use Save Current Theme from the More arrow under the themes, then right-click the theme under Custom and choose Set as Default Theme. A related setting, which view PowerPoint opens in, is covered in changing the default view in PowerPoint.

Fix stretched logos and crowded slides after a resize

A resize can leave a logo squashed, a background picture cropped, or white bands down the sides after moving from 4:3 to 16:9. Fix these once on the slide master instead of slide by slide:

• Open View > Slide Master. Changes to the master and its layouts carry through to the slides based on them, so resizing a logo or swapping a background picture there fixes every slide at once. If some slides still look old, reapply the layout to them in Normal view.
• Replace badly stretched pictures by inserting the original file again, rather than dragging them back into shape by eye.
• Check text that Ensure Fit shrank. Small text is hard to read on a projector, so split crowded slides in two rather than accepting tiny type.
• If the deck will open on another computer, embedding the fonts in the file stops a font swap from undoing your layout.

Guides make the final check much quicker. Turn on guides in PowerPoint and look for pictures and text boxes that no longer line up with the margins.

Slide size questions

Can one slide have a different size or orientation?

No. Microsoft states that all slides in a presentation share the same size and orientation. If you need one portrait page inside a landscape deck, keep it in a separate file and link to it, or export it as a PDF page.

Does changing the size affect printing?

Yes. The slide shape decides how each slide sits on the sheet, so set a paper size before printing handouts, whether you print several slides on one page or print slides with speaker notes.

Why did nothing ask me about Maximize or Ensure Fit?

The prompt appears when existing content cannot simply be scaled to the new size. A deck with little or no content may switch without asking.

What about Google Slides?

Google Slides has its own page setup with similar ratio choices; see how to change slide dimensions in Google Slides.

Microsoft’s own page on changing the size of your slides has the current preset list for each platform, and its orientation article covers portrait layouts.