Discover the PowerPoint "hidden slide" functionality
What is a hidden slide? It's a regular slide that is present in your presentation file, that will not be displayed during the slide show. What is the purpose of having such a slide?
Well, for example you may not be sure about the time allocated to your presentation, so you may decide not to show all your slides, only the most important ones. In case there's time left, you can still opt to show one or more of the hidden slides.
Or otherwise you might want to have some slides ready in case someone asks you something specific. You can demonstrate that by having a specific slide explain that topic. You can also have detailed slides about some topics that you decide to show only if the audience seems to be interested in them. Otherwise you can just go ahead with your partial show.
You have two options in PowerPoint to have this sort of custom show:
1) you can simply hide some slides, and show them only when needed, or
2) you can create a custom show where you can hide some slides and even rearrange the order of the slides without modifying the original presentation file.
To hide one or more slides, do the following:
1) Go to the Slide Sorter view
2) Select the slide(s) you want to hide
3) Click on the icon in the Slide Sorter toolbar that says "Hide Slide" or alternatively go to "Slide Show" in the Menu bar and choose "Hide Slide".
The hidden slides will show now their number crossed by a diagonal line. It means that when you run the final show, those slides will not be displayed unless you press the "H" key in the keyboard.
In case you decide to unhide these slides, just select them and turn off (by pressing it) the icon that you pressed before to hide them.
If you want also to change the order of your slides just for one specific audience while keeping your original presentation intact, you can create a "Custom Show" and save it. Afterwards you can use that in lieu of the standard presentation.
Let's see how you can do this process:
1) Open the presentation for which you want to create a custom show
2) Go to "Slide Show" in the Menu toolbar
3) Select "Custom Shows..."
4) Click "New"
5) Assign a name to this "Custom Show" to more easily identify it in the future
6) Select one by one the slides on the left side of the "Custom Show" window in the order you want them to be displayed and click "Add"
7) Once you have created the new Custom Show (you are not required to insert all of your slides, just the ones you want to show), click "OK".
Now you have recorded the new custom show sequence in your presentation file, and you can run it at any time by selecting "Slide Show" in the Menu toolbar and choosing "Custom Shows..." From there just click on the one you want to display and then select "Show".
From the same presentation you can create various shows for different target audiences, without modifying the entire presentation file.
You can read this article in the original issue of MasterView.
