How to Hide and Unhide a Slide in PowerPoint

Make a slide appear and disappear in your presentation

What to Know

  • When creating a presentation, use Normal or Slide Sorter view. Right-click a slide and select Hide Slide/Unhide the slide.
  • Windows: To show a hidden slide during a presentation, right-click and pick See All Slides or click See All Slides. Choose the hidden slide.
  • On Mac, press H on the slide before the hidden one. Using Presenter View, click the hidden slide in the navigation pane at the bottom.

This article explains how to hide and unhide slides in Microsoft PowerPoint on Windows and Mac.

How to Hide a Slide in PowerPoint

You can hide a slide as you’re building or reviewing your presentation. The process is the same for PowerPoint on Windows and Mac.

Go to the View tab and click either Normal or Slide Sorter in the ribbon. Right-click the slide and choose Hide Slide, which marks the option. You can also select more than one slide at a time and hide them all at once.

View and Hide Slide in PowerPoint

When you hide a slide in PowerPoint on Windows, the slide number has a slash through it. Here, you can see slides 10, 11, and 12 are hidden.

Hidden slides in PowerPoint on Windows

When you hide a slide in PowerPoint on a Mac, it displays a circle with a line through it. Again, you can see slides 10 through 12 are hidden.

Hidden slides in PowerPoint on Mac

Show a Hidden Slide During a Presentation

You can present a hidden slide during your presentation and resume your slideshow as usual. Although you have a couple of ways to do it, the options differ slightly in PowerPoint on Windows versus Mac.

Show a Hidden Slide on Windows

To show a hidden slide in PowerPoint on Windows, you’ll display all slides in the presentation as thumbnails and then choose the hidden one.

If you have your slideshow in full view, right-click the current slide and select Show All Slides. Your audience will not see you perform this action. They’ll merely see the hidden slide when you select it as described below.

See All Slides in PowerPoint slide

If you’re using Presenter View, either right-click the slide and pick Show All Slides or click the Show All Slides icon on the bottom left of the screen.

See All Slides icon in Presenter View in PowerPoint

Once you see your slides as thumbnails using one of the above actions, just select the hidden slide to present it.

Hidden slide in PowerPoint

Show a Hidden Slide on a Mac

There are two ways to display a hidden slide during a presentation in PowerPoint on a Mac. The option you use depends on if you’re presenting the slideshow in full screen on all monitors or if you’re using Presenter View.

If you have your slideshow in full view, press H on your keyboard when you get to the slide before the hidden slide.

If you’re using Presenter View, click the hidden slide in the navigation pane at the bottom of the screen.

Hidden slide at the bottom of Presenter View in PowerPoint

Unhide a Slide

To unhide a slide while working on your presentation, use Normal or Slide Sorter view. Right-click the slide and select Hide Slide to unmark the option.

Hide Slide in PowerPoint

You can hide slides depending on the audience, such as a presentation for different departments in your company. Either way, this is a handy PowerPoint feature to keep in mind.

FAQ
  • How do I hide parts of a slide in PowerPoint?

    You can hide and reveal text in PowerPoint using the Dim Text effect or PowerPoint animations. You can also hide slide numbers and crop pictures to hide parts you don't want to appear on the slide.

  • How do I hide the slide pane in PowerPoint?

    To hide or narrow the Slide pane on the left in Normal view, move the mouse pointer to the splitter bar between the thumbnails and slide view, then drag the splitter bar to the left.

  • How do I hide the taskbar when playing a PowerPoint slide?

    To hide the toolbar when presenting in PowerPoint, go to File > Options > Advanced and uncheck Show popup toolbar. To hide the sound icon, select the audio clip icon on the slide and choose Playback > Hide During Show.

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