Change a name once across the step plan

The step plan for Project Alpha has twelve slides, and NewCo ApS is on nine of them: in the boxes, in the step titles and in the explanations beside the chart. Two days before signing, the client registers the company as Delta Holding ApS. Renaming it slide by slide is how one "NewCo" survives into the version the bank receives.

Linking the slides makes the same company one entity across the deck, and gives it a merge field. Change the name in the merge field once and it changes everywhere. Two questions decide how you go about it. Is it really the same company on every slide? And does the name also appear in the slide texts, or only in the boxes?

Link the company across the slides

1. Open the structure. On the Layout tab of the ribbon, click Link slides. If you use the modern toolbar, it is under Settings. The button appears once the structure has two or more slides.

   

2. Wait for the message. It says how many entities were linked across the slides and how many merge fields were added, "so renaming one there reaches every slide". If everything was linked on an earlier run, it says Every entity on these slides is already linked.

   

3. Read the second line if there is one. Entities that looked alike but were left unlinked are the ones Juristic was not sure of: Gamma ApS on one slide and Gamma Holding ApS on another may be one company or two. Check them against the register extract before you rename anything. If they are the same company, give the box the same name on each slide and click Link slides again.

Rename it once

1. Open the Slides pane, click More (the three dots at the top of the pane) and choose Show merge fields.

2. The Merge Fields dialog lists a field for each linked entity, labelled with the role it plays and its name, with the current name as its value. Find NewCo ApS and type the new name, Delta Holding ApS.

3. Click Apply merge fields. The old name is replaced in the boxes, the slide texts and the line labels on every slide. Cancel closes the dialog without changing anything.

   

Make other changes follow the company

A name is not the only thing that changes late. The shareholding drops from 100 to 80 per cent from step 4 onwards, or the company moves to another jurisdiction. Because the entity is linked, Mirror Mode carries a change to it through the deck.

1. In the Slides pane, click the first slide the change applies to.

2. Turn on Mirror Mode and untick any later slide the change must not reach.

3. Make the change. It follows the linked entity on every ticked slide after this one.

4. Turn Mirror Mode off again before you carry on building steps.

Tips from practice

• Undo straight away if the links are wrong. One undo takes back every link a run of Link slides made.
• Link again after adding slides. A new run keeps the links already made and adds only what is new, and it does not add a second merge field for a name that already has one.
• Your own merge fields work the same way. Type a word between braces in any box or text, {Purchase price} or {Closing date}, and it appears in Merge Fields for you to fill in when the figure is agreed.
• Read the texts after renaming. Every occurrence of the old name is replaced, including a sentence that should still say "NewCo ApS, to be renamed Delta Holding ApS". Check the explanations before the plan goes out.

Building the plan itself is in build a step plan for a reorganisation. To fill the slides with the firm's standard texts, see fill step slides with the firm's standard texts. When the names are right, send the structure as an editable PowerPoint.