Troubleshooting PowerPoint Slide Numbering: How to fix common issues

Looking for how to add slide numbers in PowerPoint? Trying to work out what to do when PowerPoint slide number not showing? This help guide steps through troubleshooting options to fix scenarios of slide numbers not showing in PowerPoint. This includes when slide numbers do not appear on one or more PowerPoint slides in your presentation. 

This troubleshooting guide addresses the following scenarios, which are the common causes of Slide Numbering issues:

• The PowerPoint Slide numbering placeholder in the Slide Master layout needs to be reset
• The Slide numbering placeholder needs to be reset and your PowerPoint presentation has multiple Slide Master layouts
• Your PowerPoint presentation uses the Title Slide layout for content slides in addition to Title slide and does not display slide numbers on the Title Slide layout
• Slide numbering on one or more PowerPoint slides is obscured by pictures or shapes

Note that this guide has been written for users of PPT Productivity add-in for PowerPoint, but we have included alternative steps to also assist anyone working in PowerPoint without PPT Productivity.

PPT Productivity has a PowerPoint Manage Slide Numbering feature, so you can customize how slide numbers appear on your page. You can add slide totals or a slide count to each slide and add wording, e.g. Slide 1 of 20.  

How to fix placeholders on Slide Master layout in PowerPoint?

Wondering why slide number is not showing in PowerPoint? The first thing to check is your PowerPoint Slide Master.  The slide numbering placeholder needs to be activated on your Slide Master layout.  Any previous updates to your presentation or template may have ‘deactivated’ the placeholder for one or more of the layouts in your presentation.

To do this:

1. From the View tab of the PowerPoint ribbon, select Slide Master.
2. From the thumbnail view, select the PowerPoint Master Slide Layout.  The Master Slide Layout is the slide at the top of the selection (it's also called the Parent layout).  The other layouts beneath this Master Slide layout are called Child layouts in PowerPoint.  It’s important to update the slide numbering placeholder on the Master layout, because the Child layouts inherit the update (unless you separately change a specific child layout).  Note that your PowerPoint presentation should ideally have only one Master slide (Parent) parent layout and multiple child layouts linked to it.

3. While you have the Master Slide Layout selected, click on Master Layout from the top PowerPoint ribbon in Slide Master view.

4. The PowerPoint Master layout menu will now appear.

5. If the slide number check box is unchecked, check this box now. You can also check the footer check box at this point if required. Then click OK.

6. The slide number and footer placeholder should now appear at the bottom of your Master slide.

7. Next, review the rest of the child slide layouts to ensure that the slide number placeholder has been activated. To do this, navigate through each slide in thumbnail view to find any slides where the slide number placeholder is missing.

8. If you discover a Slide Layout which does not show the placeholder, uncheck and then recheck the ‘Footer’ check box found on the top ribbon in Slide Master view.

9. Unchecking then rechecking the Footer check box is a ‘reactivation’.  It will refresh the Slide Layout.  The Slide Number placeholder will now appear on the bottom of the Slide Layout.

10. Continue reviewing the layouts to make sure that all Slide Layouts display the footer and slide number placeholders.  If you find any additional PowerPoint Slide layouts which are missing the placeholders, simply repeat step 8 to correct them.
11. Now, try applying the PPT Productivity slide numbering feature again. You should no longer encounter the error message.

If you are still unable to see your slide numbers, it could be caused by several different issues. Below are some ways to troubleshoot.

How to manage PowerPoint Presentations with multiple Slide Master Layouts?

A slide layout is applied to every slide in a PowerPoint presentation. If slides have been copied from another presentation or different themes have been applied, extra layouts (or even masters) may have been added to your PowerPoint presentation.  These extra layouts can impact the slide numbering placeholder, which also impacts your ability to use the PPT Productivity slide numbering feature.  We recommend that you work with a single Master (Parent) slide layout in your PowerPoint presentations.

To ensure the desired layouts are applied to your PowerPoint slides:

1. In Slide Sorter View, Ctrl-click each slide that should be using the same layout (i.e., the ones that have the slide number placeholders).
2. From the ‘Layout’ drop down on the PPT Productivity ribbon select the desired layout (if you don't have PPT Productivity addin installed, you can also find the layout menu on the Home tab in the Slides group).

3. All PowerPoint slides selected will have the selected slide layout applied.
4. Continue with any other slides that require the slide layout to be updated.

What if a PowerPoint presentation is using Title Slide layout for one or more content slides?

Users often turn off the slide numbering placeholder on the Title Slide layout, to remove the slide number on the title page.  However if you use the Title Slide layout for other slides in the content of your PowerPoint presentation, this slide will also not display the slide number.  To solve this, you can either update your preferences to include numbering on title slides, or you can change the slide layout used for the content slide(s) currently using the Title layout.

There are 2 ways to find out whether slide numbering has been disabled on Title Slide Layouts -skip to Option 2 if you do not have PPT Productivity addin for PowerPoint.

Option One: Using the Slide Number and Slide Totals PPT Productivity feature

1. From the PPT Productivity tab or the PowerPoint Insert tab on the ribbon, select the ‘Slide number and Slide Total’ icon.

2. The PPT Productivity ‘Slide Numbers and Totals’ dialogue box will open.

3. If ‘Show on Title Slides’ is unchecked, slide numbering will not appear on any slides with the Slide Title layout applied. To have slide number appear on these slides, check the box and click ‘Apply All’
4. Slide numbering with totals will now appear, in your chosen format to your Title Slides.

Option Two: Using the Slide Number feature from the Insert tab

An alternate method to ensure slide numbering is applied to Title Slide layouts is from the PowerPoint Insert Tab. Note that if you don't have PPT Productivity this is the option you should use. You will see less options for Slide numbering in the popup box below because standard PowerPoint does not have the option to add Slide Totals, nor to Skip numbering on hidden slides.

1. From the Insert tab on the ribbon, select ‘Slide Number’.

2. The Header and Footer dialogue box will open. If the ‘Don’t show on title slide’ box is checked, the slide number will not appear on any slide with the Slide Title Layout applied.

3. If you want to use the Title slide layout on content slides and display slide numbering, uncheck ‘Don’t show on title slide’.  The slide numbering will now appear on all slides with Title Slide layout applied.

Alternative solution: Update your slide layout for content slides using the Title slide layout

The alternative way to solve this is to update the content slide(s) in the body of your PowerPoint presentation that use the Title slide layout. 

To change the slide layout for the content slides currently using the Title layout slide:

1. Navigate to the relevant slide in your presentation.
2. From the thumbnail view beside the slide, hover over the relevant slide thumbnail, right click your mouse and select layout.  The current layout will be ‘Title Slide’. 
3. Select an alternate layout given the content of your slides – for example a Title Slide Only or Blank Slide layout may be the most appropriate.
4. Review your slide once you have made this change to correct any formatting.

Changing your slide layout should solve your missing numbering for this and any other content slides that originally used the Title Slide layout.  If the slide numbering in PowerPoint is still not appearing for the updated slides, please refer back to the steps in the Fixing placeholders on the Slide Master layout section above.

Troubleshooting - is a picture or shape covering the PowerPoint slide number placeholder?

Another possible cause for slide numbers not displaying correctly is where a picture or shape is covering the slide number placeholder in PowerPoint.  To solve this you can resize, move or reorder (send to back) the picture or shape.

1. To send a picture or shape to the back of a selection of objects, click the picture or shape to select it.
2. From the PPT Productivity Format toolbar, select send to back or use your assigned keyboard shortcut to move the shape/image behind the slide number placeholder.

3. Repeat the above steps on any PowerPoint slides where the slide number is hidden.
4. Alternatively: To resize the object that is blocking the slide number, you can use the Resize 90% feature on the PPT Productivity Format Toolbar (or manually resize the object using your mouse
5. Alternatively: To move the shape/ image, simply select it with your cursor, then move it higher or to the left or right, so that the slide number reappears

Error message when adding slide numbers and totals via PPT Productivity

Trying to add slide numbers and Slide Totals to PowerPoint slides using the PPT Productivity Manage Slide Number feature, but encounter an error message?

Here is an example of the error message you likely encountered:

Or perhaps you added Slide Numbers to your PowerPoint Slide Master but they are still not showing on your slides? In these scenarios, try doing a reset the display of Slide Numbers in the Slide Master. Return to the How to fix placeholders on Slide Master layout in PowerPoint section above, for the steps on how to do this.