Using AI Imagery In PowerPoint
Have you heard of Mid Journey? Mid Journey is just one of the many AI Image generators you can access online. You are able…
Short answer: yes. PowerPoint can absolutely be portrait, and it takes about two minutes in the Design tab. No plug-in, no workaround, no separate piece of software. Just a different slide size.
Here’s an example. That’s what a proper 9:16 portrait slide looks like once it’s built for a phone screen instead of a boardroom wall. Vertical. Full-bleed. Made to be scrolled, not presented.
PowerPoint defaults to landscape because most of us present on a horizontal screen, projector, or Teams call. But that’s not the only place a presentation lives anymore.
If your slide’s final home is a phone screen, building it landscape and hoping it crops nicely later is a bit like buying a suit two sizes too big and planning to take it in. Get the shape right from the start.
1. Open the Design tab.
2. Click Slide Size. It sits at the right-hand end of the ribbon, in the Customize group.
3. Select Custom Slide Size…
4. Under Orientation, choose Portrait for Slides. (You’ll see Landscape and Portrait, Notes/Handouts have their own separate setting, ignore that one for now.)
5. Click OK.
6. Choose Maximize or Ensure Fit when PowerPoint asks. Maximize scales your content up to fill the new frame, which can crop things at the edges. Ensure Fit shrinks everything down so it all stays visible, which can leave odd gaps. On a blank deck it barely matters. On a deck full of text and images, Ensure Fit is usually the safer starting point, then you tidy up by hand.
Here’s the bit most tutorials skip. Ticking Portrait doesn’t automatically hand you a proper 9:16. It depends what shape you started from.
PowerPoint’s default Widescreen preset is 13.33 x 7.5 inches, a 16:9 ratio. Flip that to Portrait and the dimensions swap to 7.5 x 13.33 inches, which is exactly 9:16. That’s the ratio Reels, Stories and TikTok all want.
Start from the old 4:3 Standard size instead, and flipping it to Portrait gives you a stumpier, squarer slide. Not what you’re after for social video.
So the real answer to “how do I get 9×16 in PowerPoint” is: make sure you’re on Widescreen first, then flip to Portrait. Two clicks, correct ratio, no calculator needed.
Prefer to type the numbers in yourself? Set Width to 7.5in and Height to 13.33in (or 19.05cm x 33.87cm) directly in the Custom Slide Size box.
Switching orientation on a deck you’ve already built doesn’t just resize the canvas. It can wreck the layout. Text boxes overlap, images stretch, placeholders end up sitting half off the slide.
If you’re designing something new for vertical from scratch, build it portrait from the first slide. If you’re retrofitting an old landscape deck, go through every single slide afterwards. PowerPoint will happily resize the frame. It will not fix your layout for you.
Yes, PowerPoint can be portrait.
Design > Slide Size > Custom Slide Size > Portrait. Two clicks.
Start from Widescreen if you want a genuine 9:16.
Then check every slide by hand. Nothing ruins a good vertical video like a headline sitting half off the edge.
Can PowerPoint slides be portrait? Yes. Go to Design > Slide Size > Custom Slide Size and select Portrait under Orientation.
What size is 9×16 in PowerPoint? 7.5 x 13.33 inches (19.05cm x 33.87cm). You get this automatically by flipping PowerPoint’s Widescreen 16:9 preset to Portrait.
Can I mix portrait and landscape slides in the same PowerPoint file? Not directly, PowerPoint applies one slide size to the whole file. To mix orientations you’d need two separate files, or place a portrait-shaped design inside a landscape slide with blank space either side.
Does changing orientation delete my content? No, but it can badly rearrange it. Always review every slide after switching.
