PowerPoint Tips & Tutorials

Choose titles for a summary slide

PowerPoint has a nice feature that creates a summary, or agenda, slide automatically from all the slides in the presentation. But did you know that you can choose which slides from the presentation appear on the summary slide?

To create a summary slide from all the slides in the presentation, display the slide in front of which you want to place the summary slide. For example, if you want it to be the first slide, select the slide that is currently first. Then press Ctrl+A to select all the slides in the presentation, or choose Edit > Select All. Finally, click the Summary Slide button on the Outlining toolbar.

However, you may not want to include every slide on your summary slide. For example, you may only want to include main section slides so that your summary slide includes just your topic headings. In this situation, follow these steps:

1. Switch to slide sorter view (View > Slide Sorter).
2. Select the slides that you want to include. To select individual slides, click the first slide, then press Ctrl as you click additional slides.
3. Click the Summary Slide button on the Slide Sorter toolbar. 

The summary slide appears in front of the first slide that you selected. (You can move it of course.) Only the slides that you selected are listed. This summary slide includes only the main topics of a rather long presentation.

A great use for a summary slide is during a question and answer period. Place a summary slide and the end of the presentation and give it a title of "Questions."

Hyperlink each item (Insert > Hyperlink) back to its slide. When someone asks a question on one of the topics, you can quickly go back to the slide and review it as part of your answer. Be sure to have hyperlinks on these slides that go to the question slide or use the slide show view's right-click menu.

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