Can I skip page numbers on Hidden slides in PowerPoint? Yes!

If you have hidden slides in PowerPoint, you may want to skip or remove slide numbers on hidden slides when presenting the slide show.  Skipping numbering in PowerPoint on hidden slides excludes the slides from numbering and makes your presented slide numbers sequential. Your audience will not notice that you have hidden slides in the deck.

PPT Productivity add-in for PowerPoint's Manage Slide numbering feature lets you skip hidden slides in your slide numbering.

To skip slide numbers on hidden slides in PowerPoint, from the PPT Productivity ribbon click ‘Slide Number and Slide Totals’.  This opens the ‘Slide Number and Slide Totals’ pop-out.

From this window, check the ‘Skip slide numbers on hidden slides’ checkbox and click ‘Apply All’.

Slide numbers will remain in place on visible slides, but will be removed/ skipped from hidden slides. Slide totals will be updated accordingly.

The sequence of slide numbers will now match the slides that are being viewed by your audience.  

This feature can be toggled on and off easily.  You can select to remove slide numbers on hidden slides for your presentation to skip them, then add the slide numbers back after presenting if you need to continue working on the slide deck. 

How to hide a slide in PowerPoint?

Hiding slides in PowerPoint allows you to skip slides when presenting to your audience, without removing them from the document. Hidden slides remain in the file, but they are not displayed when you run Slide Show view (aka Presenter view). You can toggle the Hide Slide option on and off individually for any slide in the presentation.

The easiest way to hide a PowerPoint slide is by a right mouse click on the slide in the left hand side navigation pane, or in slide sorter view.  Select ‘Hide slide’.

In the navigation pane, the slide number of the slide you selected will have a slash through it.  This indicates that the slide has been hidden.

You can also hide a slide via the Slide Show tab. To do this, navigate to the Slide Show tab in PowerPoint, then click ‘Hide Slide’ from the top ribbon. The slide will then be hidden when you run the slide show.

How to unhide slides in PowerPoint?

To unhide slides in PowerPoint, simply right mouse click on any hidden slide in the left hand navigation panel, or in slide sorter view, and select ‘hide slide’ again. The slash through the slide number will removed indicating that the once hidden slide is now visible again when you run the presentation in slide show view.

Or you can toggle the Hide slide button off in ‘Slide Show’ view.

Why hide slides in PowerPoint presentations?

Hiding slides in PowerPoint can be useful when there are slides in your presentation that provide varying levels of detail on the subject being discussed, perhaps for use in different forums or with different audiences. Hiding a slide is also useful if you are stepping through a draft presentation, so any work in progress slides will not appear. 

Hidden slides stay in your PowerPoint presentation and you can continue to edit them as normal.  You are hiding slides from presenter view – so they will not display when you present your slide show.  You still have access to them if you need to refer to them during the presentation, by exiting presenter mode.

Do hidden slides appear in printouts?

When printing your presentation, there is an option you can select to Print Hidden Slides.  Deselect this if you do not want hidden slides included in your printout.