How to Hide a Slide in Google Slides

Having unnecessary or irrelevant slides in your Google Slides presentation can be distracting for your audience. Fortunately, Google Slides allows you to hide slides so they do not show up during the actual presentation, while still keeping them for your own reference.

Why Hide Slides in Google Slides?

Here are some common reasons you may want to hide a slide:

  • The slide contains detailed research or sources you want to keep for yourself but not show your audience.
  • The slide contains information that’s irrelevant for a particular audience but may be useful for other presentations.
  • You want to shorten the length of your presentation by removing slides.
  • You have multiple versions of your presentation for different audiences and want to customize what each group sees.

Hiding slides allows you to keep content without deleting it forever, giving you the flexibility to unhide slides later if needed.

How to Hide a Single Slide in Google Slides

Hiding a single slide in Google Slides is very simple:

  1. Open your Google Slides presentation and select the slide you want to hide in the left sidebar.
  2. Right click on the slide and choose “Skip slide” from the menu.
  3. A crossed out eye icon will appear on the slide, indicating it is now hidden.

The hidden slide will remain in your presentation but will not be shown during the slideshow.

Alternative Method to Hide a Single Slide

You can also hide a slide without right clicking:

  1. Select the slide you want to hide.
  2. Go to the “Slide” menu and choose “Skip slide”.
  3. The crossed out eye icon will appear once it’s hidden.

How to Hide Multiple Slides

Hiding multiple slides at once is just as easy:

  1. Open your Google Slides presentation.
  2. Press and hold Ctrl (on Windows) or Command (on Mac) and select all slides you want to hide.
  3. Right click on any selected slide and choose “Skip slide”.
  4. All selected slides will now be hidden.

How to Unhide Slides

If you need to make a hidden slide visible again for any reason, here is the process:

  1. Select your hidden slide in the left sidebar. It will have the crossed out eye icon.
  2. Right click and choose “Unskip slide”.
  3. The eye icon will disappear and the slide will be visible again.

Alternatively, with the slide selected, go to the “Slide” menu and choose “Unskip slide”.

Prevent Hidden Slides From Printing

By default, hidden slides will still print even if they don’t show up during your actual presentation.

To prevent hidden slides from printing:

  1. Click “File” then choose “Print”.
  2. Under “Print hidden slides” uncheck the box.
  3. Click “Print” to save this setting.

Now only the visible slides will print.

Best Practices When Hiding Slides

Here are some tips to make the most of hiding slides in Google Slides:

  • Give hidden slides titles that help you identify their content, like “Detailed Research” or “Backup Data”.
  • Position hidden slides at the end to keep the main presentation flow intact.
  • Rehearse your presentation with slides hidden/unhidden to ensure it makes sense.
  • Review hidden slides periodically to see if they may become relevant for future presentations.
  • When printing handouts, consider showing hidden slides so your audience has access to that content.

Conclusion

Knowing how to hide slides in Google Slides gives you flexibility when creating presentations. By hiding irrelevant or unnecessary slides, you can focus your audience’s attention, shorten your public-facing presentation, and still retain valuable information for personal reference.

With the ability to easily hide and unhide slides, customize printing, and manage multiple presentation versions, Google Slides offers powerful tools to create polished, professional presentations.