How to Make a Slideshow in Canva: Full Guide

Canva makes slideshow creation fast, and you don’t need any design experience to get a polished result.

Whether you’re building a photo slideshow with music, a looping video for social media, or an auto-advancing presentation, knowing how to make a slideshow in Canva saves you hours compared to traditional tools.

This guide covers everything from picking a template to exporting your finished slideshow as an MP4 video. You’ll learn how to add slide transitions, set timing, record voiceover, and share your presentation online.

By the end, you’ll have a complete, export-ready slideshow built entirely inside Canva’s browser-based editor.

What Is a Canva Slideshow?

A Canva slideshow is a multi-page design that auto-advances through slides using set timing, transitions, and optional audio. It runs under Canva’s Present mode or exports as an MP4 video file, which separates it from a standard presentation you click through manually.

This distinction matters more than people realize. A slideshow in Canva is built for continuous playback. A standard Canva presentation waits for a click to advance. Both use the same editor, but the output and purpose are different.

Canva’s platform supports over 260 million monthly active users as of 2025, across 190 countries (DemandSage). As of May 2024, users had created 1.85 billion presentations on the platform, a 310,404% increase from 2015 (Whop).

Most of those weren’t simple click-through decks. A large share were photo slideshows, video exports, and auto-play presentations built for social media, education, and marketing.

What output formats does a Canva slideshow support?

Canva produces 4 output types from a slideshow project:

• Live presentation link: shareable URL that runs in any browser
• MP4 video: exported file with transitions, animations, and embedded audio
• PDF: static export, no transitions, suitable for print or email
• GIF: short looping animation, 1-minute max on Canva Free

MP4 is the right pick if your slideshow has audio, runs longer than 10 seconds, or needs to be uploaded to YouTube, Instagram, or any video platform. PDF works for handouts. The live link works for real-time presenting directly from the browser.

Which Canva plans support slideshows?

Canva Free, Canva Pro, and Canva for Education all support slideshow creation. The plan differences show up in export quality and feature access, not in the ability to build the slideshow itself.

Free accounts export MP4 at up to 1920x1080px. Pro accounts push up to 3840x2160px (4K). Canva Pro also unlocks premium transition types, the background remover, Brand Kit, and unlimited audio uploads (Canva Help Center).

85% of Fortune 500 companies use Canva, with education (23%) and marketing (20%) as the top sectors for presentation-based work (Cropink, Whop).

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What Are the Slideshow Starting Options in Canva?

Canva gives you 3 entry points for a new slideshow project. The one you choose affects your default canvas dimensions, available template styles, and how much setup work you do upfront.

Most users default to templates. That’s not wrong, but starting from scratch gives you cleaner control over dimensions and layout from the first slide.

Starting From a Template

Canva’s template library holds over 600,000 presentation templates as of 2024, filtered by category, style, color palette, and industry (Canva).

To find them: go to the Canva home dashboard, search “presentation” or “slideshow” in the search bar, then use the filter panel to narrow by style (minimalist, bold, corporate) or format (16:9, square, vertical).

Key things to check before committing to a template:

• Whether the default dimensions match your target platform (YouTube uses 1920×1080, Instagram Stories use 1080×1920)
• Whether the fonts used are available on your plan (some are Pro-only)
• Whether the template includes placeholder animations or transition styles you want to keep

Canva held a 46% market share in presentation software in 2024, ahead of Microsoft PowerPoint at 23% and Prezi at 5% (Whop). A big part of that lead comes from the template library’s depth.

Starting From a Blank Canvas

Default canvas size for presentations: 1920x1080px (16:9 widescreen). This matches most display screens and video platforms, so it’s a solid starting point.

To start blank: open the Canva dashboard, click “Create a design,” then type in custom dimensions or select “Presentation (16:9)” from the format list.

Blank canvas is the better choice when you’re building a slideshow that will become a video with specific platform export requirements, or when you’re working with an existing brand kit and don’t want to spend time stripping template elements.

Understanding alignment and visual hierarchy before you start a blank design saves a lot of repositioning later. Both directly affect how your slides read at a glance.

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How Do You Add and Organize Slides in Canva?

Slide management in Canva runs through the page panel on the left side of the editor. Every slide in your project appears there as a thumbnail. You add, reorder, duplicate, and delete slides entirely from that panel.

Users create an average of 38.5 million designs on Canva every day as of 2024, which means the editor’s bulk slide tools get real daily use (Backlinko).

How do you add and duplicate slides?

Click the “+” button at the bottom of the page panel to add a new blank slide. Right-click any existing slide thumbnail to access the duplicate option, which copies the slide layout, background, and all elements.

Duplicating beats adding blank slides when you’re maintaining a consistent layout across multiple slides. Change only the content, keep the structure locked.

Bulk actions: hold Shift and click multiple slide thumbnails to select a group. You can then delete, duplicate, or move the entire selection at once. Most users overlook this. It cuts repetitive slide setup time significantly on decks with 15+ slides.

How do you reorder and hide slides?

Hidden slides stay in the project file but don’t appear in presentations or exports. This is useful for keeping backup slides or alternate versions without cluttering the exported output.

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How Do You Add Content to Canva Slides?

Canva’s editor works on a drag-and-drop system. Every content type (text, images, video, shapes) lives in the left sidebar under labeled tabs. You click to add or drag directly onto the slide canvas.

By late 2024, Canva’s asset library included over 100 million photos, graphics, and video clips available to users (Famewall). Practically, this means you rarely need to upload your own assets unless you’re working with brand-specific images.

Adding Text and Fonts

Open the Text tab in the left sidebar. You get 3 options: Heading, Subheading, and Body Text. Each inserts a pre-styled text box with default font sizes matched to typographic hierarchy conventions.

Font controls (family, size, weight, color, spacing) appear in the top toolbar when a text box is selected. Canva’s font library includes over 3,000 options, with a subset available to Free users and the full library open to Pro.

Pay attention to kerning and leading when working with display-size text on slides. Canva’s defaults are fine for body copy but often need manual adjustment at 60px and above.

Adding Images and Video

3 ways to get images onto a slide:

• Upload from your device via the Uploads tab (supports JPEG, PNG, HEIC, WebP, up to 1GB)
• Search Canva’s stock library via the Photos tab (100M+ images, free and Pro tiers)
• Use Canva’s AI image generator (Text to Image) under the Apps tab for custom visuals

Video clips work the same way. Upload MOV, MP4, MPEG, MKV, or WEBM files via the Uploads tab, or pull from Canva’s built-in video library. Drop the clip onto a slide and it becomes an element you can resize, trim, and position like any image.

For image-heavy slideshows, understanding pixel dimensions and the difference between vector graphics and bitmap files matters. Vector assets scale without quality loss at any slide size. JPEG and PNG files can look soft if stretched beyond their native resolution.

Canva exports JPEG images at up to 300 DPI for print-ready downloads on Pro plans.

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How Do You Apply Transitions and Animations in Canva?

Transitions and animations are two separate systems in Canva. Transitions control how the presentation moves between slides. Animations control how individual elements enter, exit, or behave on a single slide. Both are accessed from the top toolbar, but they work independently.

Getting this distinction wrong is one of the most common setup mistakes. Animating elements but forgetting transitions results in snappy individual elements inside jarring hard cuts between slides.

Slide Transitions

Click “Transitions” in the top toolbar (visible when no element is selected). Canva offers these transition types:

• None: instant cut between slides
• Dissolve: fade blend from one slide to the next
• Slide: incoming slide pushes in from a set direction
• Circle: outgoing slide shrinks to a point as the next appears

Apply a single transition to all slides at once via the “Apply to all pages” toggle in the Transitions panel. Or set each slide individually by selecting it first, then choosing a transition. The per-slide approach is slower but gives you more control over pacing on longer decks.

Element Animations

Select any element on a slide, then click “Animate” in the top toolbar. Canva’s Animate panel offers 2 categories: Page Animations (animate the entire slide as a unit) and Element Animations (animate the selected object independently).

Using emphasis to guide attention is exactly what element animations are designed for. Rise brings in supporting text after a headline has already settled. Pop draws the eye to a key number or call-to-action. Used selectively, these reinforce visual hierarchy on each slide.

The general rule: use 1 animation type per slide, maximum 2. More than that and the slide starts to look like a 2008 PowerPoint demo.

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How Do You Add Music or Voiceover to a Canva Slideshow?

Canva supports 3 audio input types for slideshows: background music from its built-in library, uploaded audio files from your device, and recorded voiceover captured directly in the editor. Each serves a different purpose and is added through a different path.

Canva’s audio library contains over 500,000 tracks and sound effects searchable by mood, genre, and style (Canva). For most slideshow use cases, the built-in library is enough. You rarely need to upload custom audio unless you’re working with branded audio or a specific licensed track.

Adding Background Music

Open the Audio tab from the left sidebar. Browse by mood (Calm, Energetic, Happy) or genre, or use the search bar to find a specific style. Click any track to preview. Click again to add it to the slideshow. The track attaches to the entire project, not to a single slide.

Controls available after adding audio:

• Trim start and end points by dragging the audio clip edges in the timeline
• Adjust volume via the volume icon on the audio clip
• Enable fade-in and fade-out from the audio toolbar
• Loop the track automatically across all slides

Canva Free users can access a subset of free tracks. Pro unlocks the full 500,000+ library and allows custom audio uploads (MP3, WAV, M4A files up to 500MB per file). You can also add music to Canva from third-party sources if you have the rights to the file.

Recording a Voiceover

Canva’s built-in voiceover tool records audio per slide directly from your browser microphone. No external software needed.

To access it: click the three-dot menu on any slide thumbnail in the page panel, then select “Record yourself.” A recording overlay opens with a microphone input selector and a waveform preview.

Voiceover workflow: record one slide at a time, preview immediately, re-record if needed. Each slide stores its voiceover independently, so replacing one slide’s audio doesn’t affect any others.

Voiceover recordings auto-set the slide duration to match the recording length. This is one of the fastest ways to time a multi-slide deck accurately without manually adjusting each slide’s duration setting.

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How Do You Set Slide Timing in Canva?

Slide timing controls how long each slide displays before the presentation auto-advances to the next one. Canva sets a default duration of 5 seconds per slide. You can change this per slide or apply a uniform duration across the entire deck.

Timing is the part of slideshow setup that most people underestimate. Five seconds is almost never right. It’s too short for text-heavy slides and too long for simple image transitions.

How do you set per-slide and uniform durations?

Click the clock icon that appears on each slide thumbnail in the page panel when you hover over it. A duration field opens. Type in a value in seconds (minimum 1 second, no upper limit). Hit Enter to confirm.

To apply the same duration to every slide at once: open the Transitions panel in the top toolbar, set the duration value there, and click “Apply to all pages.”

Timing interactions to know:

• If a slide has a voiceover recording, Canva auto-matches the slide duration to the recording length
• If background music runs longer than the total slide duration sum, the track gets cut at export
• Element animations play within the slide duration, not after it (the slide won’t wait for animations to finish before advancing)
• In Autoplay mode during a live presentation, timing runs exactly as set; in Standard Present mode, the viewer controls advancement manually

How does timing behave in Autoplay mode vs. standard Present mode?

Autoplay mode uses your set slide durations exactly. The presentation runs on its own, no input needed. This is the mode to use for trade show displays, background loops, or any context where someone isn’t actively driving the deck.

Standard Present mode ignores slide timing entirely. The presenter advances manually with arrow keys or by clicking. Slide duration settings have no effect here.

When exporting as an MP4 video, Canva renders the slideshow using the per-slide durations you set. A 10-slide deck with each slide set to 4 seconds produces a 40-second video file. The slide timing set in the editor is the video timeline.

How Do You Present a Canva Slideshow Directly in the Browser?

Canva’s live presentation runs entirely in the browser. No download, no external app. Click the “Present” button in the top-right corner of the editor and choose one of 3 modes: Standard, Autoplay, or Presenter View.

Each mode serves a distinct purpose. Picking the wrong one is a common source of confusion, especially for first-time presenters who expect Autoplay behavior but select Standard.

Autoplay Mode

Best for: trade show loops, background displays, unattended kiosks, social video previews.

Autoplay runs on the slide durations set in the editor. No keyboard input needed. The deck cycles through and restarts automatically when it reaches the last slide.

One thing to check before going live: make sure every slide duration is set intentionally. The default 5 seconds is almost never the right call for text-heavy slides.

Presenter View

Presenter View opens 2 browser windows simultaneously. The audience window shows the full-screen slides. The presenter window shows the current slide, speaker notes, next slide preview, and a timer (Canva Help Center).

This works best on a dual-monitor setup. One screen faces the audience, one stays with the presenter. On a single screen, both windows are visible to everyone in the room.

Speaker notes added per slide in the editor appear automatically in Presenter View. You cannot edit notes during a live presentation, so write them before starting.

Canva also supports a Remote Control feature that lets presenters advance slides and view speaker notes from their phone, completely untethered from the laptop (Canva Design School). Useful for walking around during a presentation.

Keyboard shortcuts during live presentation

• Arrow keys (left/right): advance or go back one slide
• F: toggle fullscreen
• ESC: exit presentation mode
• Type a slide number + Enter: jump to a specific slide

Canva Live, an audience interaction feature, lets viewers submit questions and react in real time during a presentation by visiting canva.live and entering the session code (University of South Carolina Library). It turns a one-way slideshow into a two-way session without any third-party polling tools.

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How Do You Export a Canva Slideshow as a Video?

Exporting a Canva slideshow as a video produces an MP4 file with transitions, element animations, and embedded audio rendered at the per-slide durations set in the editor. The export path is: Share > Download > MP4 Video.

Users have created over 30 billion designs on Canva as of 2024, with 38.5 million new designs per day (Backlinko). A significant portion of those exports target social platforms that require MP4 input, making video export one of the platform’s most-used output paths.

Free vs. Pro video export quality

For most social media exports (YouTube, Instagram, TikTok), 1080p is sufficient. The 4K export matters for digital signage, conference displays, or any context where the video plays on a large screen.

How do transitions and animations render in the exported MP4?

All transitions, page animations, and element animations render in the MP4 output. The video timeline mirrors the slide timing exactly: a 10-slide deck with 4-second durations exports as a 40-second file.

Common export issue: element animations that were set to play within a slide’s duration may appear cut short if the slide duration is too tight. Fix this by checking that each slide’s duration is at least as long as its longest animation sequence.

Canva Free users should select MP4 Video rather than GIF when audio is included. GIF format does not support audio. Any audio embedded in the project gets dropped silently in a GIF export (Canva Help Center).

How do you select specific pages to export?

In the Download panel, a page selector appears before you click Download. Deselect any slides you want to exclude from the video. Canva renders only the selected pages in sequence.

This is useful for exporting different versions of the same deck, for example, a short 3-slide teaser and a full 15-slide version, from the same project file without duplicating it.

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How Do You Share or Publish a Canva Slideshow?

Beyond MP4 download and live presenting, Canva offers 5 distribution paths for a finished slideshow. Each one outputs something different and suits a different audience scenario.

Users have created over 2.5 billion presentations on Canva to date (Embryo). A large share of those are shared via link rather than downloaded, which reflects how central Canva’s sharing infrastructure is to its actual workflow.

Sharing via link and embed code

View-only link: generates a shareable URL. Recipients open it in any browser and see the slideshow as a live presentation they can click through. No Canva account needed to view.

Editable link: grants full editing access to anyone with the link. Use this carefully. There is no expiry date on shared links unless you revoke access manually from the Share menu.

Embed code: available via Share > More > Embed. Paste the iframe code into any website. The embedded slideshow updates automatically when you edit the original Canva file (Canva Help Center). No re-embedding needed after changes.

Private embeds are only available on Canva Enterprise and Education District plans. Free and Pro embeds are public by default.

Exporting as PDF and sharing to social platforms

PDF export removes transitions and animations entirely. The result is a static document, one page per slide, suitable for email attachments, printed handouts, or upload to document platforms. Two quality settings: PDF Standard (screen resolution) and PDF Print (300 DPI, suitable for physical printing).

Understanding DPI matters here. PDF Standard outputs at 96 DPI. PDF Print at 300 DPI. For anything going to a printer, always choose PDF Print.

Canva also supports direct publishing to Instagram, Facebook, and Pinterest from the Share menu. You can also make YouTube thumbnails on Canva for any slideshow exported as a video, keeping your entire workflow inside one tool.

You can learn more about the full range of Canva statistics and platform capabilities to understand where slideshow sharing fits within the broader product.

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What Are the Differences Between Canva Free and Canva Pro for Slideshows?

Canva Free covers the full slideshow workflow: build, animate, add audio, and export. Canva Pro unlocks higher output quality, more assets, and branding tools. The plan you need depends on what you’re making and where it’s going.

Canva Pro costs $15/month or $120/year per user as of 2025. Teams pricing runs $10/month per user with a 3-user minimum (Orb Billing, CloudEagle). The free plan has no time limit and no export cap on number of projects.

Feature comparison: Free vs. Pro for slideshows

What Pro features most affect slideshow quality?

The Brand Kit is the most underrated Pro feature for slideshow work. It stores your logo, brand colors, and approved fonts so they’re accessible from every new slide without manual re-applying. Teams using Canva for recurring presentations save significant setup time per deck.

Aegis Living, a senior assisted living company, saved over $100,000 in design costs annually by adopting Canva across their team (Embryo). A consistent Brand Kit was central to maintaining visual standards across locations without a dedicated design department.

Magic Resize (Pro-only) reformat a finished slideshow into different dimensions in one click. A 16:9 presentation becomes an Instagram Stories-ready 9:16 vertical version without rebuilding it manually. Useful when the same slideshow needs to go out across multiple platforms.

When does Canva Free cover everything you need?

Free is enough when your slideshow is a one-time deck for internal use, a school project, or a personal photo montage. The 1080p export ceiling is fine for screen viewing, YouTube, and most social media.

Pro makes sense when you’re making slideshows regularly, managing brand assets, exporting for large-format displays, or need 4K output for professional video delivery. The per-year cost is low enough that one or two client projects typically justify it. You can read a more detailed Canva Free vs Pro comparison to decide which plan fits your specific use case.

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What Are Common Canva Slideshow Problems and How Are They Fixed?

Most Canva slideshow issues fall into 5 categories: animation rendering, audio sync, font display, accidental reordering, and slow exports. Each has a specific cause and a direct fix.

Canva processes roughly 38.5 million designs per day (Backlinko), which means their export infrastructure handles enormous volume. Most issues users hit are configuration problems on the user side, not platform failures.

Animations not playing in exported MP4

This is the most-reported export issue. The cause is almost always a slide duration that is shorter than the animation’s total play time. The export renders the animation mid-sequence and cuts it.

Fix: Check each animated slide. Add 1-2 seconds of buffer beyond the last animation’s end point. For element animations set to “continuous” (Bounce, Pulse, Blink), they play throughout the full slide duration, so no buffer is needed there.

Audio cutting off before the last slide

Background music stops early when the total slide duration sum is shorter than the audio track length. Canva cuts the audio at the point where the last slide ends.

Fix: Add up all slide durations (visible by hovering over the clock icon per slide in the page panel). Match that total to the audio track length. Adjust individual slide durations or trim the audio clip until the two values align.

Fonts displaying incorrectly after PDF download

Cause: Non-embedded fonts in the PDF Standard export. Some system fonts and custom uploaded fonts do not embed correctly in PDF Standard mode.

Fix: Switch to PDF Print export, which uses a higher-quality rendering pipeline with proper font embedding. If the font still shows incorrectly, convert text to outlines before export by using Canva’s “Flatten” option where available, or replace the font with a Canva-native option from the font library.

Understanding font licensing also matters here: uploaded custom fonts must be licensed for the type of export you’re producing. A font licensed for print use only cannot legally be embedded in a web-distributed PDF.

Slides reordering unexpectedly

Accidental drag events in the page panel are the cause. The panel is touch-sensitive and responds to slow drags during scrolling, especially on trackpads.

Fix: Scroll the page panel slowly. If slides reorder by accident, use Ctrl+Z (or Cmd+Z) immediately to undo. For large decks over 20 slides, lock the slide order by screenshotting the thumbnail sequence before editing so you have a reference to restore from.

Slow export times

A 20-slide deck with 4K images, complex element animations, and background audio can take several minutes to export. This is normal. The render is done server-side by Canva.

3 things that extend export time the most:

• High-resolution uploaded images (compress to 2MB or under per image for faster processing)
• Multiple continuous animations running simultaneously across a slide
• Exporting at 4K resolution on large decks (switch to 1080p for draft exports)

Keep the browser tab open during export. Closing or navigating away cancels the render and requires restarting it.

FAQ on How To Make A Slideshow In Canva

Can you make a slideshow in Canva for free?

Yes. Canva Free supports the full slideshow workflow: adding slides, applying transitions, setting slide timing, and exporting as MP4 at 1080p. The free plan gives you access to over 2 million templates and Canva’s basic audio library at no cost.

How do you make a Canva slideshow auto-play?

Set a duration for each slide using the clock icon in the page panel. Then click Present and select Autoplay mode. The presentation advances automatically using your set timings without any manual input needed.

Can you add music to a Canva slideshow?

Yes. Open the Audio tab in the left sidebar and select a track from Canva’s library. The music attaches to the entire project and plays across all slides. Canva Pro users can also upload custom MP3 or WAV files.

How do you export a Canva slideshow as a video?

Go to Share, click Download, and select MP4 Video as the file type. Canva renders all transitions, animations, and audio into the video file. Free accounts export at 1080p. Pro accounts export at up to 4K resolution.

How do you add transitions to a Canva slideshow?

Click the Transitions button in the top toolbar while no element is selected. Choose a transition style and apply it to individual slides or all pages at once. Available types include Dissolve, Slide, and Circle.

What is the difference between a Canva presentation and a slideshow?

A Canva presentation advances manually with clicks. A Canva slideshow auto-advances using set slide durations and is typically exported as an MP4 video or run in Autoplay mode. Both are built in the same editor.

How do you record a voiceover in Canva?

Right-click any slide thumbnail in the page panel and select “Record yourself.” Canva opens a recording overlay using your browser microphone. Each slide stores its own voiceover, and the slide duration auto-adjusts to match the recording length.

Can you share a Canva slideshow online without downloading it?

Yes. Click Share and copy the view-only link. Recipients open it in any browser and can click through the slides without a Canva account. You can also generate an embed code to place the slideshow directly on a website.

How do you set slide timing in Canva?

Hover over any slide thumbnail in the page panel and click the clock icon. Type a duration in seconds and press Enter. To apply the same timing to every slide at once, use the Apply to all pages option in the Transitions panel.

Does Canva have a slideshow maker for photos?

Yes. Upload images via the Uploads tab, place them on slides, add background music from the audio library, set slide durations, and export as MP4. Canva also offers dedicated photo slideshow templates for weddings, graduations, and other occasions.

Conclusion

This conclusion is for an article presenting how to make a slideshow in Canva, a process that covers everything from slide timing and element animations to voiceover recording and MP4 video export.

The platform handles the full workflow in one place. No extra software, no complicated settings.

Whether you’re publishing a photo slideshow to Instagram, embedding a looping deck on your website, or running an auto-advance presentation at an event, Canva’s online slideshow creator gives you the tools to do it without a steep learning curve.

Start with a template, customize your slide layout, and use Autoplay mode or direct video export depending on where your slideshow is going.

The result is a clean, shareable presentation built entirely in your browser.

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Bogdan Sandu

Bogdan Sandu is a seasoned designer who has been designing websites since 2008.

Renowned for his expertise in logo design and visual branding, Bogdan has developed a multitude of logos for various clients.

His skills extend to creating posters, vector illustrations, business cards, and brochures. Additionally, Bogdan's UI kits were featured on marketplaces like Visual Hierarchy and UI8.

He also wrote in the past years on sites like Design Your Way, WebDesignerDepot, WPDean, Designmodo, Speckyboy, Slider Revolution, and more.

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