To repurpose a carousel for Instagram, LinkedIn and TikTok, build one master at 4:5 (1080 x 1350), write its beats down, then derive two versions from it: a 9:16 re-layout for a TikTok photo post and one PDF for a LinkedIn document post. The idea, the order of the beats and the brand stay fixed. What changes is the container, where the text sits, the words around the slides, where a link can go and how you post.
Most of the effort goes into the words around the slides, which people tend to paste unchanged, and into checking crops and margins on a phone.
Disclosure: Oakgen is our product. Oakgen Carousels exports all three versions from one carousel, and the limits of that are spelled out further down. Everything else here works in any design tool.
Make one carousel, export it three ways
Oakgen Carousels writes the slides from your brand and downloads Instagram 4:5, TikTok 9:16 and a LinkedIn PDF from the same approved carousel.
What changes per platform: the adaptation table
Each row is either a platform fact, with the page it comes from, or marked as our advice. Pixel sizes and the full limits live in our carousel sizes and limits guide; this table covers only what you change when one carousel goes to three places.
| What changes | TikTok | Basis | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| The post object | One feed post of up to 20 photos or videos you swipe through | A document post: one PDF shown page by page, up to 300 pages and 100 MB; animations show as still images | A photo post you swipe through; the API accepts up to 35 photos | Meta IG User Media reference; LinkedIn help 97459; TikTok photo post API reference |
| Aspect | 4:5 master, 1080 x 1350 | The same 4:5 pages; every page fitted to one size | 9:16, 1080 x 1920, re-laid out rather than padded | Sizes guide (recommended sizes); LinkedIn's one-page-size rule is official |
| Slide count | Keep your beats; the cap is not a target | Same beats; anything private comes out, because viewers can download the PDF | Consider dropping the weakest beat | Our advice; download rule from LinkedIn help 97459 |
| Text density | One idea per slide | Room for a little more explanation, still read on a phone | Fewest words; text must clear the app's own buttons and caption | Our advice |
| Tone | Your normal voice | First person: a lesson, a decision, a number | Spoken and casual | Our advice |
| Words around the slides | Caption: at most 2,200 characters, 30 hashtags and 20 @ tags | Post text, plus a document title you add at upload | Photo posts have a title (90 UTF-16 runes) and a description (4,000) via the API | Meta IG User Media reference; LinkedIn help 97459; TikTok photo post API reference |
| Links | Slide text is never a link; test any caption link on your own account | Put the link in the post text; LinkedIn asks for "secure hyperlinks" in PDFs but does not promise they are tappable | Slide text is never a link; test any description link | LinkedIn help 97459; our advice |
| The ask on the last slide | Save, share or follow | A question people can answer in a comment | Follow or comment | Our advice |
| Posting | Slides post as one carousel; individual slides take no caption of their own | Start a post, choose More, then Add a document, add a title | Upload as photos; through the API, TikTok can add recommended music that the user can change later | Meta IG User Media reference; LinkedIn help 97459; TikTok photo post API reference |
Two things in that table catch people out. LinkedIn has no swipe-post object for this at all; the "LinkedIn carousel" is a PDF. And the 2,200-character, 30-hashtag caption figures come from Meta's API reference for publishing, which is also what schedulers use. We could not load Instagram's own help centre to confirm the in-app numbers, so treat them as the safe ceiling.
What stays the same: the idea, the beats, the brand
A repurposed carousel is the same carousel in a different container. Three things should not move.
The idea. One claim, one promise to the reader. If the TikTok version needs a different promise to work, you are making a new post, which is fine, but budget for a new post.
The beats. The order in which the story unfolds: the hook, the points, the payoff, the ask. The slide that carries the payoff on Instagram carries it on LinkedIn too. You can drop a weak beat on one platform, but you should not reorder them, because the order is usually what makes the argument land. If you need help reading beats from a carousel you admire, our guide to recreating a carousel that already works has a worksheet for it.
The brand. Same fonts, same colours, same handle on the cover. Someone who follows you on two platforms should recognise the post in the second place within a second.
The thing people change by accident is the claim. Softening a number for LinkedIn or exaggerating it for TikTok means the three versions now disagree, and somebody will notice. The platform-specific campaign variants guide calls this out for whole campaigns; it applies just as much to one carousel.
The carousel repurposing workflow, step by step
1. Build the master at 4:5
Start at 1080 x 1350. Why 4:5 makes the safest master, including the cover crop on Instagram's profile grid, is covered in the sizes guide's safe master size section. The short version for repurposing: going from 4:5 to 9:16 adds height, and adding is easier than cutting.
Design the master for someone on a phone, mid-scroll, sound off, and run your usual pre-post checks on it before deriving anything; our carousel quality checklist has the full list. Fix it here once.
2. Write the beats down before you touch a second format
One line per slide, in order. In the invented bookkeeping example used through the rest of this post, that reads: "Cover: the five receipts your bookkeeper wishes you kept. Slide 2: the first receipt, and why it matters." And so on.
This list is the contract between the versions. When you check the TikTok or LinkedIn version, compare it with the list, not with the Instagram slides; that way you notice a dropped beat instead of a changed font. If the carousel started life as an article, the blog-to-carousel guide covers getting from paragraphs to beats.
3. Derive the TikTok version at 9:16
Re-lay, don't pad. Putting a 4:5 slide in the middle of a 9:16 frame with bands above and below leaves it looking like a screenshot of another app. Move the text and images into the taller frame instead.
Safe areas. TikTok draws its own interface over your photo post: the account details and description, the buttons. We didn't find a TikTok page that publishes those zones for photo posts, so the real test is your phone. As a working rule, keep text further from the top, the bottom and the right edge than you would on Instagram.
Text size. The width doesn't change (1080 pixels either way), so there is no reason to shrink the type. If a line no longer fits inside the narrower safe area, cut words rather than size. Text that was comfortable at 4:5 is still comfortable at 9:16.
Images. A 4:5 photo stretched to fill a 9:16 frame loses its sides. Check every image slide for cut-off faces, products and hands.
Slide count and the ask. Photo posts trail video on TikTok in the 2026 data we reviewed, so keep the deck tight; if one beat is weaker than the rest, this is where to drop it. Change a "save this" ask to whatever you want from TikTok, usually a follow or a comment.
Words and sound. Through TikTok's API, photo posts have a title of up to 90 UTF-16 runes and a description of up to 4,000. The same reference describes an option to add recommended music to photos, which the user can change later. Pick the sound yourself in the app if it matters to you.
4. Derive the LinkedIn PDF
LinkedIn needs no resizing: keep the 4:5 pages and combine them into one PDF in slide order. LinkedIn's help page is specific on the two rules that matter here: "PDFs with multiple sized pages must be fit to the same page size," and "Videos and other animations in documents aren't supported and will display as static images instead." If one of your Instagram slides was a video, replace it with a still that carries the same beat.
The last page changes most. "Save this for later" means little in a document; a question people can answer in the comments works better. Uploading, the document title, where links and tags go, and what viewers can download are covered in LinkedIn carousels for founders; none of that changes because the PDF started as an Instagram post.
5. Rewrite the words around the slides
This is the step people skip, and it's where cross-posting most often reads as lazy. Write three short texts:
- Instagram caption. Meta's API reference caps it at 2,200 characters, 30 hashtags and 20 @ tags. Those are ceilings. A caption that adds one thing the slides don't say beats one that repeats the cover.
- LinkedIn post text. Summarise the carousel's point in the first lines, because some people won't open the document. Rewrite it in the first person rather than pasting the Instagram caption.
- TikTok title and description. Short, spoken, in the voice of the platform. If you post through a tool that uses TikTok's API, keep the title under 90 runes.
6. Recheck each version on a phone
Look at each derivative on the device people will use, at the size they'll see it: safe areas, text size, image crops, the last-slide ask and the words around the slides. The repurposing checklist at the end lists what passing looks like for each.
A week of one idea across three platforms (invented example)
This example is invented: the business, the idea and the schedule are made up to show the shape, and it contains no results. A two-person bookkeeping studio has one idea: "Five receipts you throw away that your bookkeeper needs." The master is seven slides: a cover, five receipts, and an ask.
| Day | Platform | Version | What happens |
|---|---|---|---|
| Monday | None | 4:5 master | Build and check the master, write the beats, derive and check the TikTok and LinkedIn versions, write three texts |
| Tuesday | 4:5, 7 slides, caption | Post, then stay around to answer comments | |
| Wednesday | None | All three | Read the comments; if people misread a slide, fix it in every version before anyone else sees it |
| Thursday | PDF, 7 pages, first-person post text | "The receipt our clients lose most" as the opening line; the link to their checklist goes in the post text | |
| Friday | None | None | Nothing new on this idea |
| Saturday | TikTok | 9:16, 6 slides, short description | The weakest receipt is dropped; the ask becomes "follow for part two" |
| Next Monday | None | None | Log each post against that platform's own previous posts |
Why stagger instead of posting all three on Tuesday:
- You fix mistakes once. The first platform is your proofreader. A confusing slide caught on Wednesday is fixed before two more audiences see it.
- You are around for the comments. Replies in the first hours are work, and three platforms at once splits that attention three ways.
- Each version gets judged on its own platform. Compare the LinkedIn post with your previous LinkedIn posts, not with the Instagram one. Analytics tools calculate engagement rate with different formulas, which is why our 2026 carousel data review warns against lining them up side by side.
Post first wherever your audience is biggest, and let that platform be the proofreader.
Doing this by hand, and where it gets slow
None of the steps above is hard. The cost is that they multiply. Every edit to the master, a reworded hook or a swapped image, has to be repeated in the TikTok re-layout and the PDF. A design tool that exports the PDF from a different artboard can quietly change one page's size. Text that fitted at 4:5 can slide behind TikTok's buttons after a one-word change, and you only find out when you check on a phone. The cost is keeping three files in sync.
Keep three versions in sync with one edit
In Oakgen Carousels the Instagram, TikTok and LinkedIn exports come from the same slides, and text fit is checked in every format before you approve.
When not to cross-post a carousel
Cross-posting is the default worth trying, not a rule. Skip it in these cases.
The idea only works in one place. TikTok trends run on a specific sound, format and moment. A reformatted Instagram carousel is not taking part in the trend; it's standing next to it. Make a native TikTok, or leave TikTok out of this idea. The same goes the other way: a dry hiring post that works on LinkedIn will look out of place in a TikTok feed.
The tone change would change the beats. If making the LinkedIn version sound right means a different hook, different points and a different payoff, you are writing a new carousel. Do that deliberately, from the beats list, instead of editing the Instagram one until it is neither.
TikTok is a video account for you. Both 2026 datasets in our carousel performance review put TikTok video ahead of photo posts. A photo post exported from a carousel you already have is a cheap extra; it is not a reason to make fewer videos.
The news is today. Staggering across a week is for evergreen ideas. Something time-sensitive goes out once, on the platform where it matters most, the day it happens.
Your consent doesn't stretch. A customer who agreed to appear in an Instagram post may not have agreed to a downloadable PDF on LinkedIn. Check before deriving.
Your followers overlap heavily. If the same people follow you everywhere, three versions of one idea in a week reads as repetition. Space them further apart, or give each a different opening line.
Repurposing in Oakgen Carousels: one carousel, four exports
Oakgen is our product, so here is what it does and doesn't do for this workflow, checked against the code as of October 2026.
One carousel, four downloads. The editor has a format switch with Instagram 4:5, TikTok 9:16, Square 1:1 and LinkedIn PDF. Instagram, TikTok and Square download as PNG slides with the caption in a ZIP; LinkedIn downloads as one PDF of 1080 x 1350 portrait pages. Downloads are available once the carousel is approved.
How each export is rendered. It is the same slides, the same words and the same layout per slide in every format, not a separate design per platform. Each layout is drawn again inside that format's frame with its own margins; the TikTok frame keeps text further from the top, the bottom and the right edge, where the app puts its interface. Text you dragged moves proportionally in every format. Text is rendered by Oakgen rather than baked into AI images, so it stays sharp at every size. The exception is a recreate drawn like the original, where the words are part of a 4:5 picture that is cropped to fill 9:16 and 1:1, so check every slide in the TikTok view.
Checks across formats. Before you can approve, the quality gate measures the text in every download format, not only the one on screen. A headline that fits at 4:5 but leaves the TikTok safe area shows up as something to fix, labelled with the format it fails in. Slides drawn like an original aren't measured, because their words are in the picture. The gate also checks the hook, that slide 2 works on its own, and that there is one ask on the last slide.
Images are made once. Generated artwork is created at 4:5 and cropped to fill the other formats, so check faces and products in the TikTok view. When LinkedIn PDF is selected, the editor shows slides 1 and 2 side by side as a feed preview.
The limits, plainly:
- Posting goes to Instagram and Facebook Pages only. The LinkedIn PDF and the TikTok slides are downloads you upload yourself. X is not supported.
- The slides and layouts are the same in every export. You can't drop a slide from the TikTok version only, or reword the LinkedIn version only, inside one carousel. An edit changes every export and sends the carousel back for approval. Only once a version is scheduled or live does the editor offer Make a copy; that copy is the clean way to start a LinkedIn-specific rewrite after the Instagram post is booked.
- There is one caption per carousel, checked against Instagram's 2,200 characters and 30 hashtags. Write the LinkedIn post text and the TikTok description yourself.
- The PDF pages are images, so it has no live links and no selectable text. The link and a short summary belong in the LinkedIn post text.
- Exports are PNG. TikTok lists JPEG and WebP as the image formats for posting through its API, so a third-party tool that posts that way may need to convert them.
- 2 to 10 slides per carousel, and generating needs a paid plan (pricing). Writing the copy is free; generated artwork is charged, with a cost summary shown before anything generates.
When you don't need it: if you already have templates at 4:5 and 9:16 in a design tool and you only repurpose a carousel now and then, the six steps above work fine there. The content engine guide shows how a single idea can go further, into video and voiceover.
The repurposing checklist
Run it once per idea, after the master is done.
| Check | Pass if |
|---|---|
| The beats are written down | One line per slide, in order, and every version matches the list |
| The claim is identical everywhere | Same numbers, same promise, in every version and every caption |
| The master is 4:5 and checked | 1080 x 1350, every slide the same size (Meta's content-publishing guide says carousel images are all cropped based on the first), quality checks passed |
| The Instagram cover survives the grid | Headline and logo clear of the left and right edges |
| TikTok is re-laid, not padded | No empty bands; text clear of the top, bottom and right edge on a real phone |
| TikTok text is the master's size | Words cut rather than type shrunk where a line no longer fits |
| TikTok images survive the crop | No cut-off faces or products |
| TikTok files suit the route | Posting through the API: TikTok lists JPEG and WebP as image formats |
| TikTok is a deliberate choice | You chose a photo post knowing video leads on reach in 2026 data |
| The LinkedIn PDF is one file at one page size | Under 100 MB, pages in slide order, no animated slides, readable at feed size |
| Nothing private is in the PDF | You'd be fine with a stranger keeping it |
| Each last slide asks for one thing that fits the platform | Instagram: save or follow; LinkedIn: a comment; TikTok: follow or comment |
| Three texts are written | Instagram caption under 2,200 characters and 30 hashtags; LinkedIn post text with summary and link; TikTok title and description |
| Links live in post text | No slide relies on a link being clickable |
| The posting days are staggered | First platform first, a fix window, then the rest |
| Results are compared within each platform | Each post against that platform's own previous posts |
Frequently asked questions
Can I post the same carousel on Instagram and LinkedIn?
Yes, the slides can be the same, but the container is different. Instagram takes the slides as one swipe post, while LinkedIn needs them combined into one PDF uploaded as a document. Rewrite the words around the slides for each platform.
How do I turn an Instagram carousel into a LinkedIn PDF?
Export every slide at the same size, combine them into one PDF in order, then start a LinkedIn post, choose More, then Add a document, and give it a title. LinkedIn requires every page in the PDF to be fitted to one page size.
Can I post a carousel on TikTok?
Yes, as a photo post you swipe through. TikTok's API accepts up to 35 photos in one photo post. Re-lay your slides at 9:16 rather than adding bars to a 4:5 slide.
Should I add bars to make a 4:5 slide fit 9:16?
No. Padding leaves the slide small in the middle of the screen with empty bands around it. Move the text and images into the taller frame, and keep them clear of the areas where the app draws its own buttons and caption.
Do I need a different caption for each platform?
Yes. Instagram has a caption, LinkedIn has post text plus a document title, and TikTok photo posts have a title and a description. Each one has different limits and a different job, so write three short texts instead of pasting one.
Are TikTok photo carousels worth posting if I already make videos?
Treat them as extras, not a replacement. The 2026 studies from Metricool and Buffer both put TikTok video ahead of images and carousels, so keep video as your main format there.
Sources
All pages read on 22 October 2026.
- Meta, IG User Media reference: caption maximum of 2,200 characters, 30 hashtags and 20 @ tags; captions not supported on carousel children; up to 20 items per carousel.
- LinkedIn Help, Upload and share documents (answer 97459): supported file types, 100 MB and 300 pages, one page size, animations shown as stills, secure hyperlinks, document title at upload.
- TikTok for Developers, photo post API reference: up to 35 photos, title 90 and description 4,000 UTF-16 runes, recommended music option.
- TikTok for Developers, media transfer guide: JPEG and WebP as image formats for API posting.
- Meta, Publish content using the Instagram Platform: carousel images all cropped based on the first image.
- Metricool, TikTok study 2026 press release, 12 May 2026, and Buffer, Best Content Format on Social Platforms in 2026, 19 March 2026: TikTok video ahead of images and carousels (figures in our carousel performance review).
Turn one idea into three posts this week
Build the master carousel in Oakgen, pass the checks in every format, post to Instagram and download the TikTok slides and LinkedIn PDF.
