How to show hide or resize slide thumbnails in powerpoint

On the PC and on macOS, the width of the slide thumbnail pane in PowerPoint is adjustable. Whether you are editing slides in the Slide pane, working with slide thumbnails, or creating an outline for your presentation, you can easily maximize your working space. You can show or hide, or narrow or widen, the pane that contains the thumbnail views of your slides.

In PowerPoint for the web, slide thumbnails are always available in a fixed-width pane on the left side of the browser window.

Show or increase the size of slide thumbnails

When the slide thumbnails on the left are hidden or in a narrowed position, do the following to show or widen them:

On the View tab, in the Presentation Views group, click Normal.

Point to the splitter bar between the Slide pane and the thumbnails, and then drag the splitter bar to the right.

If the thumbnails are hidden, you will see a collapsed Thumbnails menu; click it to show slide thumbnails again.

Hide or decrease the size of slide thumbnails

To maximize your editing space in the Slide pane, you can hide or narrow the slide thumbnails on the left.

On the View tab, in the Presentation Views group, click Normal.

Drag the splitter bar to the left until the slide thumbnails are the size you want, or until they are completely hidden.

Show or widen the Outline or Slides tab

When the pane that contains the Outline and Slides tabs is hidden or in a narrowed position, do the following to show or widen it:

On the View tab, in the Presentation Views group, click Normal.

In Normal view, point to the splitter bar between the Slide pane and the pane that contains the Outline and Slides tabs, and then drag the splitter bar to the right.

Note: If the pane that contains the Outline and Slides tabs is hidden, the edge of the splitter bar is visible on the left side of the program window, and you can drag it as described in step 2.

Hide or narrow the Outline or Slides tab

To maximize your editing space in the Slide pane, you can hide or narrow the pane that contains the Outline and Slides tabs.

When the pane that contains the Outline and Slides tabs is showing or is overlapping the Slide pane to a large degree, do the following to hide or narrow it:

On the View tab, in the Presentation Views group, click Normal.

In Normal view, click the x in the upper-right corner of the pane to hide it, or point to the splitter bar between the Slide pane and the pane that contains the Outline and Slides tabs, and then drag the splitter bar to the left.

Show or increase the size of slide thumbnails

When the slide thumbnails on the left are hidden or in a narrowed position, do the following to show or widen them:

On the View tab, in the Presentation Views group, click Normal.

Point to the splitter bar between the Slide pane and the thumbnails, and then drag the splitter bar to the right.

Hide or decrease the size of slide thumbnails

To maximize your editing space in the Slide pane, you can hide or narrow the slide thumbnails on the left.

On the View tab, in the Presentation Views group, click Normal.

Drag the splitter bar to the left until the slide thumbnails are the size you want, or until they are completely hidden.

Marshall Gunnell
Marshall Gunnell
Writer

Marshall Gunnell is a writer with experience in the data storage industry. He worked at Synology, and most recently as CMO and technical staff writer at StorageReview. He’s currently an API/Software Technical Writer at LINE Corporation in Tokyo, Japan, runs ITEnterpriser, a data-storage and cybersecurity-focused online media, and plays with development, with his RAID calculator being his first public project. Read more.

You can hide slides in Microsoft PowerPoint so that they’re hidden during the presentation but are still a part of the file. You can also show hidden slides during a presentation or unhide them for future presentations. Here’s how.

Hide and Unhide PowerPoint Slides

If you give talks, it’s very likely that you prepare a PowerPoint for that presentation. Depending on your audience, you may want to hide or unhide certain slides to make the presentation more relevant for that particular group.

To hide slides during a presentation, open PowerPoint and select the slide that you want to hide by clicking it. The slide will have a box around it if it’s selected.

Once it’s selected, right-click the slide. In the context menu, choose “Hide Slide.”

The slide will now be hidden while in Presenter View. You can tell that a slide is hidden if the thumbnail is a lighter color than the other slides.

If you want to unhide the slide, simply right-click the slide and click “Hide Slide” again.

The slide will now appear during the presentation again.

Show Hidden Slides During the PowerPoint Presentation

If you’ve hidden a slide but have decided that you actually want to show it during the presentation, you can do so without ever leaving Presenter View.

During the presentation, right-click anywhere on the current slide. In the context menu that appears, select “See All Slides.”

Once that’s selected, all of your slides, including hidden slides, will appear in a row. Hidden slides are grayed out, and the slide number is crossed out. Click the thumbnail of the hidden slide to display it to your audience.

Once you’ve moved to the next slide, if you want to show the hidden slide again, repeat the above steps.

If you frequently use the same Microsoft PowerPoint presentation, the content is likely to change over time. If the content of a slide is no longer relevant, you can simply delete the slide instead of hiding it.

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Marshall Gunnell
Marshall Gunnell is a writer with experience in the data storage industry. He worked at Synology, and most recently as CMO and technical staff writer at StorageReview. He’s currently an API/Software Technical Writer at LINE Corporation in Tokyo, Japan, runs ITEnterpriser, a data-storage and cybersecurity-focused online media, and plays with development, with his RAID calculator being his first public project.
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In this article, you’ll learn how to use 8 hidden PowerPoint shortcuts to help you work faster.

These are all shortcuts that I discovered over my career working in PowerPoint and I haven’t seen them covered anywhere else before. And the reason that they are hidden is that they require a combination of both your mouse AND your keyboard.

So you need to hold down a key on your keyboard and then click something with your mouse to make them work.

Keyboard PLUS mouse combinations are what I call Hybrid Power Shortcuts. To learn all about these and the other types of shortcuts available to you in Microsoft PowerPoint, check out my PowerPoint Shortcuts Mastery Course inside our PowerPoint Pro Membership here .

As you follow along with the shortcuts listed below, you can find the icons I’m referring to at the bottom of your workspace.

From left to right in the picture below, you have the Normal icon, the Slide Sorter icon, the Reading View icon, and the Slide Show icon.

These hidden shortcuts should work in most versions of Microsoft PowerPoint on a PC. In the video below, you can see that I’m using the latest version of Microsoft Office, with the subscription (Microsoft 365).

To learn more about Microsoft 365, see details about it here.

[Watch] 8 Hidden PowerPoint Shortcuts

In the video below, I show you how to edit slides in the Slide Show Mode of PowerPoint (a direct response to a question I received from our community).

To skip to the hidden PowerPoint shortcuts I discuss throughout this post, jump to 7:43 in the video below.

To learn everything you need to know about PowerPoint in record timing, check out our PowerPoint Pro Membership here.

1. Thumbnail Auto-Resize Shortcut

Have you ever received a PowerPoint presentation with a resized thumbnail view on the left side of your screen?

Maybe someone adjusted the thumbnails and they’re too big (as pictured below) or too small. And now, you can’t quite figure out how to get them back to their default size.

Holding the Ctrl key and clicking the Normal icon automatically resizes your thumbnails to the default size. This is the ONLY way that I’m aware of that you can do this.

An important rule to remember about the thumbnail view in PowerPoint is this: The size of your thumbnails saves at the presentation level.

That means that if you accidentally resize your thumbnails and hit Ctrl + S to save, their size saves to your presentation. So anyone who opens that specific presentation will have to deal with the thumbnails as you resized them.

Holding Ctrl and clicking the Normal icon allows you to quickly and effortlessly standardized the size of your thumbnails back to the default PowerPoint size so that your environment always looks the same.

This is also extremely useful if you are a creature of habit and always want to use the standardized PowerPoint workspace when building and editing your slides.

If you are having trouble with your keyboard shortcuts not working, see our troubleshooting article here.

2. Slide Master Jump Shortcut

If you frequently need to jump back and forth to the Slide Master view in PowerPoint you will love this hidden shortcut.

Holding Shift and clicking the Normal icon immediately jumps you to the Child Slide layout of your current slide in the Slide Master View.

On top of that, if you immediately use this shortcut again, holding Shift and clicking the Normal icon again, you immediately jump to your Parent Slide.

While the Slide Master is beyond the scope of this article, in short, the Slide Master allows you to make macro-level edits to all of the slides within your presentation.

The Parent Slide layout (the big slide in the picture above) is where you want to make the global formatting adjustments to your presentation. The Child Slide layouts (the little slides in the picture above) are where you can make adjustments to the individual layouts inside your presentation.

The goal of the Slide Master is to enable you to create customized slide templates for your presentations, ensuring that all of your formatting is consistent. This also makes it easier for everyone on your team to build brand consistent presentations, regardless of their PowerPoint skill level.

To expand your knowledge and learn how to create a PowerPoint template from scratch using the Slide Master View, read our guide here.

That being said, creating your own custom PowerPoint template can take a bit of time. If you would prefer to buy a professional template from a trusted source, read my recommendations here.

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How to Show, Hide, or Resize Slide Thumbnails in PowerPoint

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When you open Microsoft PowerPoint, the slide thumbnails appear in the left-hand pane by default. PowerPoint lets you hide, show, or even change the size of those thumbnails. Here’s how.

Manipulating Slide Thumbnails
Everyone has a different working style. Some may prefer to keep the slide thumbnails to create an outline or easily navigate between slides when making edits. However, some might find them distracting or intrusive and, as such, would like to hide or decrease their size. Both are relatively easy to accomplish.

Go ahead and open PowerPoint. By default, you should be in PowerPoint’s “Normal” view mode. If you’re not, head over to the “View” tab and click the “Normal” button.

Normal view in powerpoint

Once in Normal view, the slide thumbnails will appear on the left-hand side of the window.

slide thumbnail preview

To decrease the size of the thumbnails, click and drag the splitter bar to the left.

GIF decrease thumbnail size

The further to the left you drag the splitter bar, the smaller the thumbnails become. To completely hide the thumbnails, drag the bar to the left until they disappear.

GIF Hide thumbnails

If you’ve hidden the thumbnails but need to show them again, click the arrow above “Thumbnails” on the left-hand side.

GIF Show Thumbnails

To increase the size of the slide thumbnails, click and drag the splitter bar to the right.

GIF increase thumbnail size

Another quick way to change the size of the thumbnails is to hover your cursor over the thumbnail preview pane and then use your mouse’s scroll wheel while holding the Ctrl key. However, you can’t completely hide the thumbnails using this method.

Change PowerPoint’s Default View
If you frequently hide the slide thumbnails when working in PowerPoint, consider changing the default view in which PowerPoint opens.

To do this, head over to the “File” tab and then select “Options” from the bottom of the left-hand pane.

The “PowerPoint Options” window will appear. Select “Advanced.”

advanced PowerPoint options

Scroll down to the “Display” section and then select the arrow next to “Open all documents using this view” to show the menu options.

change default view

On the menu, select the view style you’d like to use by default. There are many different options to choose from, several of which do not include the slide thumbnails.

select view style

Finally, click “OK” to confirm the change. PowerPoint will open in the selected view style the next time you use it.

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If there is a slide that should be included in the presentation file, but you don’t want it to appear in the slide show, you can hide the slide.

A hidden slide remains in the file; it is merely hidden when you run Slide Show view. You can switch the Hide Slide option on and off individually for any slide in the presentation.

Hide or un-hide a slide

In the left navigation pane, select a slide.

To hide a slide, right-click the slide that you want to hide, and then click Hide Slide.

To show a slide that you previously hid, right-click the slide that you want to show, and then click Hide Slide.

Right-click the slide and then select Hide Slide.

In the navigation pane on the left, the slide number has a slash through it to indicate that the slide is hidden:

To make a hidden slide visible again, select the slide, right-click and select Hide Slide.

Show a hidden slide during a presentation

If you are in Slide Show view and you decide that you want to show a hidden slide, you can do so:

Right-click the current slide and select See All Slides.

The screen switches to a thumbnail list of all the slides in the presentation.

Select the hidden slide you want to show.

The selected slide is shown full-screen and the slide show resumes.

If you are using presenter view, your audience won’t see the steps you take to select the slide. They will simply see the slide you select in step 2.

Right-click the current slide and point at Go to slide.

A list of the slides appears.

Select the hidden slide you want to show.

The selected slide is shown full-screen and the slide show resumes.

If you are using presenter view, your audience won’t see the steps you take to select the slide. They will simply see the slide you select in step 2.

Right-click the current slide and point at Go to slide.

In the Go to dialog box, type the slide number of the slide that you want to show.

The selected slide is shown full-screen and the slide show resumes.

Show a hidden slide during a presentation

Do one of the following:

If you’re presenting with the full screen slide show on all monitors, go to the slide that appears before the hidden slide, and then press H.

If you’re using Presenter view, move the pointer to the bottom of the screen to access the slide navigation pane, and then click the hidden slide.

See also

Why hide slides?

Hiding slides is particularly useful when you have added slides to a presentation that provide different levels of detail on the subject matter, perhaps for different audiences. You can mark these slides as hidden so that they are not displayed in your main slide show, but you can still access them if you need to.

For example, a member of your audience might ask you to explain an item in more detail. In that case, you can reveal the hidden slides that contain those details. However, if time is short and the audience is comprehending the concepts that you are delivering, you may want to keep the slides with the supplementary information hidden so that you can continue your presentation without visibly skipping over slides.

Select Slide Size near the far right end of the toolbar.

Select Standard (4:3 aspect ratio) or Widescreen (16:9) or Custom Slide Size.

For more about the predefined sizes (including formats like Overhead, A3, A4, Banner, B4, and B5) or your own custom sizing, click a heading below to expand it and see the details.

Detailed steps

On the Design tab of the Ribbon, locate Slide Size in the Customize group, near the far right end of the toolbar.

Select Slide Size, and then select either Standard (4:3) or Widescreen (16:9).

When PowerPoint is unable to automatically scale your content, it prompts you with two options:

Maximize: Select this option to increase the size of your slide content when you are scaling to a larger slide size. Choosing this option could result in your content not fitting on the slide.

Ensure Fit: Select this option to decrease the size of your content when scaling to a smaller slide size. This could make your content appear smaller, but you’ll be able to see all content on your slide.

The 16:9 widescreen setting is the default value for new presentations you create. When you change the slide size for a presentation, the size you choose only applies to that presentation. However, you can make it easy to create a new 4:3 presentation for yourself whenever you want—by defining a custom theme that uses the 4:3 aspect ratio. See the section below named “Make a default size to start from when creating new presentations.”

On the Design tab of the Ribbon, locate Slide Size in the Customize group, near the far right end of the toolbar.

Select Slide Size, and then select Custom Slide Size.

In the Slide Size box, click the down arrow next to Slides sized for and select an option. Their dimensions are listed below:

Changing the Thumbnail of a Video Clip in PowerPoint

by Avantix Learning Team | Updated October 9, 2021

Applies to: Microsoft ® PowerPoint ® 2016, 2019 and 365 (Windows)

If you have inserted a video on a PowerPoint slide, you can display a custom thumbnail (or Poster Frame) for the video during a slide show. The thumbnail will display when you run a PowerPoint slide show and disappears when you start the video. For most videos, the thumbnail that displays is the first frame of the video clip. You can use the Poster Frame command to display a different frame in the video clip or a picture from another source as a thumbnail. A picture thumbnail could be either an image or an icon.

Note: Buttons and Ribbon tabs may display in a different way (with or without text) depending on your version of PowerPoint, the size of your screen and your Control Panel settings. For PowerPoint 365 users, Ribbon tabs may appear with different names. For example, the Video Tools Playback tab may appear as Video Playback. Screenshots in this article are from 365 but are similar in previous versions of PowerPoint.

The Poster Frame command appears on the Video Tools Format or Video Format tab in the Ribbon when a video is selected:

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Changing a video thumbnail to a different frame in a video

To change a video thumbnail to a different frame in a video:

1. In Normal View, navigate to the slide the contains the video clip.
2. Click or double-click the video. A Video Tools Format or Video Format tab appears in the Ribbon.
3. Click Play in the Media Controls below the video. The video clip will begin playing.
4. When the frame you want to display as a thumbnail appears, pause the video by clicking Pause in the Media Controls below the video.
5. If necessary, click the Video Tools Format or Video Format tab.
6. Click Poster Frame in the Adjust group. A drop-down menu appears.
7. Select Current Frame. The frame or thumbnail will appear when you run a slide show until you start the video.

The Poster Frame command offers the option to select the current frame from the video (only if you have played and paused the video) as follows:

Changing a video thumbnail to a picture from your computer

To change a video thumbnail to a picture:

1. In Normal View, navigate to the slide the contains the video clip.
2. Click or double-click the video. A Video Tools Format or Video Format tab appears in the Ribbon.
3. If necessary, click the Video Tools Format or Video Format tab.
4. Click Poster Frame in the Adjust group. A drop-down menu appears.
5. Select From File. A dialog box appears.
6. Navigate to the location of the picture file.
7. Double-click the picture you want to use as a thumbnail.

When you click the Poster Frame command, a drop-down menu appears with several options (Stock Images is available only in PowerPoint 365):

Changing a video thumbnail to an online picture or stock image

To change a video thumbnail to an online picture or stock image:

1. In Normal View, navigate to the slide the contains the video clip.
2. Click or double-click the video. A Video Tools Format or Video Format tab appears in the Ribbon.
3. If necessary, click the Video Tools Format or Video Format tab.
4. Click Poster Frame in the Adjust group. A drop-down menu appears.
5. Select Online Pictures or Stock Images (365 only). A dialog box appears.
6. Navigate through the online pictures or stock images. You can also search for a picture or stock image.
7. Double-click the picture you want to use as a thumbnail.

Changing a video thumbnail to an icon

To change a video thumbnail to an icon:

1. In Normal View, navigate to the slide the contains the video clip.
2. Click or double-click the video. A Video Tools Format or Video Format tab appears in the Ribbon.
3. If necessary, click the Video Tools Format or Video Format tab.
4. Click Poster Frame in the Adjust group. A drop-down menu appears.
5. Select Icons. A dialog box appears.
6. Navigate through the icons. You can also search for an icon.
7. Double-click the icon you want to use as a thumbnail.

Removing a thumbnail or Poster Frame

To remove a thumbnail or Poster Frame:

1. In Normal View, navigate to the slide the contains the video clip.
2. Click or double-click the video. A Video Tools Format or Video Format tab appears in the Ribbon.
3. If necessary, click the Video Tools Format or Video Format tab.
4. Click Poster Frame in the Adjust group. A drop-down menu appears.
5. Select Online Pictures. A dialog box appears.
6. Navigate through the online pictures. You can also search for a picture.
7. Double-click the picture you want to use as a thumbnail.

You can create some interesting video thumbnails with the Poster Frame command in PowerPoint.

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You may find this option helpful if you don’t plan on using the slide in your presentation, but feel that you might need it later on. Instead of deleting the slide, you can simply hide it and then access it when you need it.

Here’s how to do it all using PowerPoint for the desktop or web, on your Mac or PC.

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How to hide and unhide a PowerPoint slide on a Mac or PC

1. Open the PowerPoint presentation on your Mac or PC.

2. Right-click on the slide you wish to hide.

3. Click “Hide Slide.”

Hide a slide on the desktop version of PowerPoint. Marissa Perino/Business Insider

4. This will immediately hide the slide and indicate it’s hidden by making it grey with a null symbol in the upper left corner. When you right-click again, you’ll also see a check mark next to the “Hide Slide” option.

5. Click “Hide Slide” with the check mark next to it to unhide it and reverse your previous action.

6. You can always use the COMMAND or CTRL keys to select multiple slides as well.

7. Lastly, if you start the slideshow, you can still access any of the slides you’ve hidden. Start the slideshow by right-clicking and selecting “Slide Show” (or using the keyboard shortcut), by accessing the “Slide Show” tab at the top, or by clicking the podium icon in the bottom right corner. You can also opt to view your slideshow in “Presenter View” which is only available in the desktop app, not the online version of PowerPoint.

Click the same option again to unhide the same slide or click ‘Slide Show’ to start your presentation. Marissa Perino/Business Insider

8. Right-click on any slide in presentation mode, where you’ll find the option “By Title.” You can then jump to any slide. The hidden ones will be displayed in parentheses such as “(2) Slide 2.” When you click on one, you’ll automatically jump to that slide. Remember, if you simply click through your slides as normal, PowerPoint will skip over these so it’s important that you manually access it if you wish to display that slide.

Any hidden slides will be marked with parentheses in presentation mode. Marissa Perino/Business Insider

9. If you choose to use “Presenter View,” the process is even easier. You’ll already see previews of all of your slides at the bottom of the screen. Hidden slides will appear in grey with a null symbol. Click on any hidden slide to jump to it.

Find hidden slides at the bottom of ‘Presenter View’ on your desktop. Marissa Perino/Business Insider

How to hide and unhide a PowerPoint slide on your web browser

1. Open PowerPoint on your preferred web browser.

2. Right-click on any slide thumbnail on the left side of your screen.

3. Select “Hide Slide.”

Hide a slide on the web version of PowerPoint. Marissa Perino/Business Insider

4. This will automatically make the slide grey. Right-click and select “Hide” again to unhide the same slide.

5. To access hidden slides while in presentation mode, you’ll need to start the slideshow. There are less options to do so on the web version, but the podium icon in the bottom right corner is the same as the desktop version. You can also choose to access the “Slide Show” tab at the top, though you won’t find the “Presenter View” option there.

Unhide a slide or opt to start the slideshow instead. Marissa Perino/Business Insider

6. You’ll see options in a small pop-up box in the bottom left corner. Click the first option that shows slide panes to jump to another screen.

Start your slideshow online. Marissa Perino/Business Insider

7. This screen will show all of your slides, including the hidden ones. Click on a hidden slide to jump to it.

Find hidden slides online. Marissa Perino/Business Insider

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You know you created a slide — you can see it in the thumbnails in the navigation and slide panes — but in slide show view, it disappears.

Possible causes and solutions

There are several reasons why this might happen. Courtesy of PowerPoint MVP Sandy Johnson, here they are:

The slide is hidden.

In the animation pane or slide sorter view each slide thumbnail is numbered. If the number is covered with a gray box, then it is
hidden. To fix (in all versions of PowerPoint)

• Right click on the thumbnail (or select all affected thumbnails, then right click)
• Click Hide Slide on the pop-up menu to remove the checkmark next to it.

Set up Show Settings are causing the problem.

Go to Slide Show | Set up Slide Show .
In the Show Slides section, choose All . The other options will cause PowerPoint to display just a range of slides or a custom show.

Slide(s) set at zero second auto transition

If the slide is set to advance automatically after a very short time, PowerPoint won’t have enough time to display it at all.

• In PowerPoint 2003 and previous choose Slide Show|Slide Transition
• In PowerPoint 2007 choose Animations | Transition To This Slide
• Set Transition to occur on click or set auto transition to allow enough time for slide to be viewed before it advances to the next slide automatically.

Invisible Monitor Problem.

The slide show might be set up to display on a second monitor. If you don’t have a second monitor attached to your computer, the slide show will be very difficult to see.

Go to Slide Show | Set Up Show and choose Show on | Primary Monitor .

For more details on the Invisible Monitor Problem, see:

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