BlogOffice

For Your Eyes Only

Have you ever used the hide-a-slide feature in PowerPoint? This is a great feature that enables you to prepare for any eventuality. Suppose that Mindy in marketing is always shooting down your sales campaign ideas. For every good idea you present, she has three reasons why (1) it won't work; (2) she's already tried it; or (3) it'll never fly. As you're preparing your next presentation, think through Mindy's objections and create a couple of slides to address the "but's" Mindy is sure to bring up. If she questions your numbers on audience age, you can whip out the slide showing the chart of your customers grouped by age. If she says that the sales staff in the east coast region will never get on board with your idea, you can pop up the Excel spreadsheet showing the sales reps and how much they sold to that particular demographic.

Of course, you don't want to make all the positive, supportive souls sit through your defense if Mindy doesn't speak up. So you can hide the optional slides and display them only if needed. Create the slide as usual, and then, to hide it, display the presentation in Slide Sorter view and click the slide you want to hide. Then click the Hide Slide button in the Slide Sorter toolbar. A small box with a line through it appears around the slide number, indicating that it is now hidden.

When you're up in front giving your presentation and Mindy speaks up, go to the slide just before the hidden slide and press H. There it is in all its glory: your backup evidence. You can continue on with the presentation by pressing N or clicking the mouse button as usual.

Who knows? Maybe Mindy will be so impressed with your technical prowess that she'll quit dogging you in public. Or, at least, she'll think about emailing her comments to you after-the-fact. And you know, that's why they invented the Delete key. :) k