Long decks have a handful of slides that matter more than the rest: the one with the numbers your manager will ask about, the backup slide for a tricky question, the chart you reuse every quarter. People search for a way to “star” them — and are surprised that PowerPoint has nothing of the kind. The star you may have seen belongs to the file: Microsoft 365 and Google Drive let you star or pin whole presentations, not single slides.
What PowerPoint does have are tools that each solve one reason for starring. Before you pick one, decide what the mark is for:
| You want to … | Use | Visible to the audience |
|---|---|---|
| find important slides quickly while editing | Sections | No |
| remind yourself or a colleague to fix a slide | Comments | No |
| keep a backup slide in the deck but not show it | Hide Slide | No |
| show only a chosen set of slides to one audience | Custom Slide Show | Only the chosen slides |
| jump to a slide during the talk | A link or a Zoom | Yes, as a button |
| reuse your best slides in new decks | A favourites deck and Reuse Slides | No |
Sections: group and find your key slides
Sections are named dividers in the slide list. They collapse, move as a block and appear in the Slide Sorter, which makes them the closest thing to bookmarks inside a deck. A section called “★ Key slides” or “Backup” at the end of a long deck is easy to spot.
Add and name a sectionWindows and Mac
Select the first slide of the section
Click the thumbnail in the slide list where the section should start.
Thumbnail selected in the slide list Add the section
Choose Home → Section → Add Section. A divider named “Untitled Section” appears above the slide and the name is ready to type (on older Windows versions, right-click it and choose Rename Section).
Home → Section → Add Section Name it so it stands out
Type a short name, for example “Key slides” or “Backup”. A symbol at the start, such as ★, makes it easier to find in a long list.
Collapse the rest
Choose Home → Section → Collapse All, then open only the section you need. Drag a section’s name to move all its slides at once.
Collapsed sections in the slide list
Comments: flag a slide for later
A comment is the right mark for “this slide needs work”. It is visible in the editor and in the comments pane, never in the slide show, and colleagues can reply.
Flag a slide with a commentWindows and Mac
Add the comment
Select the slide (or an object on it) and choose Review → New Comment. Type what has to happen; in Microsoft 365 an @ followed by a name notifies a colleague.
Review → New Comment Find all flags
Open Review → Show Comments (or the comments button at the top right). The pane lists every comment with its slide; Previous and Next jump between them.
Clear the flag
When the work is done, resolve the comment (Microsoft 365) or delete it with the bin icon, so the list stays a to-do list.
Hide Slide: keep a backup slide out of the show
A hidden slide stays in the deck — in the editor, in the file you send — but the slide show skips it. That is ideal for backup slides: detailed numbers, methodology, answers to likely questions. During the talk you can still jump to it.
Hide and show a slideWindows and Mac
Hide it
Right-click the thumbnail and choose Hide Slide, or select it and choose Slide Show → Hide Slide. The thumbnail fades and its number is crossed out.
Right-click → Hide Slide Show it during the talk anyway
In the slide show type the slide’s number and press Enter — hidden slides can be reached that way. In Presenter View, See all slides shows them too.
Unhide it
Choose Hide Slide again; it works like a switch.
Custom Slide Show: a starred subset for one audience
If “starred” means “the slides for the board” or “the short version”, build a custom show: a named list of slides from the same deck, played in the order you choose. The deck stays one file; the board sees twelve slides, the team all forty.
Create a custom showWindows
Open the dialog
Choose Slide Show → Custom Slide Show → Custom Shows…, then New….
Slide Show → Custom Slide Show → Custom Shows… Pick the slides
Give the show a name, tick the slides on the left and click Add. Reorder them with the arrows on the right, then OK.
Define Custom Show: slides added Play it
Choose Slide Show → Custom Slide Show and click the show’s name.
Create a custom showMac
Open the dialog
Choose Slide Show → Custom Show → Edit Custom Shows, then the + button.
Pick and play
Name the show, add the slides, click OK. Play it from Slide Show → Custom Show.
Links and Zoom: jump to a marked slide
To reach a key slide in one click during the talk, put a link on a button or an agenda item. It works like a bookmark the audience never notices: you click a small icon in a corner, and the deck jumps to the backup slide.
Link to a marked slideWindows and Mac
Select the trigger
Select a shape, an icon or a few words of text on the slide you will be showing when the question comes up.
Insert the link
Choose Insert → Link (Ctrl+K on Windows, Cmd+K on a Mac). On Windows click Place in This Document; on a Mac open the This Document tab. Pick the slide by its title and click OK.
Insert Hyperlink: Place in This Document Add the way back
On the target slide put a small Back link in the same way, choosing Last Slide Viewed (Windows) — it returns to wherever you came from. Test both links in the slide show: links only react there, not in the editor.
In PowerPoint for Microsoft 365 and 2019 or later, Insert → Zoom → Slide Zoom does the same with more polish: it puts a live thumbnail of the target slide on the current one; a click in the slide show zooms into the target and, with Return to Zoom ticked on the Zoom tab, back again afterwards.
A favourites deck: star slides across presentations
The most useful kind of starring happens between decks: the team slide, the client logo wall, the process chart you use every time. Keep them in one file — call it “Favourites.pptx” — and pull them into any new deck.
Reuse a slide from your favourites deckWindows
Open Reuse Slides
In the new deck choose Home → New Slide → Reuse Slides (Microsoft 365: Home → Reuse Slides). The pane opens on the right.
Home → Reuse Slides pane Pick the file and the slide
Choose Browse, open Favourites.pptx and click a slide to insert it after the current one. Tick Use source formatting (or Keep source formatting) if it should keep its own design.
Reuse a slide from your favourites deckMac
Open Reuse Slides
In PowerPoint for Microsoft 365 on a Mac choose Home → New Slide → Reuse Slides. The Reuse Slides pane opens on the right; choose Browse and open Favourites.pptx.
PowerPoint for Mac: Home → New Slide → Reuse Slides Or drag between two windows
In older versions open both files side by side and drag a thumbnail from one slide list into the other — or copy it (Cmd+C), click into the other slide list and paste. The paste options button that appears offers Keep Source Formatting to keep the slide’s own look, or Use Destination Theme to dress it in the new deck’s.
Whichever way you take, the favourites deck only stays useful if it stays small. Keep one slide per purpose — the newest version of the team slide, not five — and date the file’s name when you refresh it, so colleagues know which copy is current. Put it in a shared folder (OneDrive, SharePoint, Google Drive) and the whole team draws from the same set.
In Google Slides
Google Slides has no slide stars either; the star beside the file name stars the whole file in Google Drive. Use Slide → Skip slide for backup slides (the same as Hide Slide), comments with Insert → Comment for flags, and a section-divider slide for structure, since Google Slides has no sections. To reuse slides, use File → Import slides and pick them from another presentation.
In PowerPoint for the web
The browser version has most of these marks. Right-click a thumbnail for Hide Slide and Add Section; comments work as on the desktop, with Review → New Comment and the comments pane. Custom slide shows cannot be set up there — build them in the desktop app.
Designs for this kind of deck
Every design brings its own colours, fonts and layouts to the whole deck.
Choosing slides in ExpertSlides
In the ExpertSlides editor the slide rail works like PowerPoint’s: Shift-click chooses a range of slides, Cmd-click (or Ctrl-click on Windows) adds single ones. What is different is what you can do with that choice. The chosen slides appear as chips in the prompt, and one instruction is carried out on all of them — “make these more concise”, “use our colours here”, “add a chart from these figures”. Each chosen slide is edited on its own.
For backup slides, type Hide this slide in the prompt: the slide is skipped when you present, stays in the editor, is left out of a PDF and goes to PowerPoint as a hidden slide. The slide overview (Alt+2, Option+2 on a Mac) shows the whole deck at a glance, and slides copied with Cmd+C / Ctrl+C paste into another deck in another tab — a favourites deck works the same way here.
Other guides that help with long decks: agenda, contents and appendix slides and the business planning formats managers ask for. For the look, browse Design Templates; to see how the AI works inside a deck, read about PowerPoint AI.
Questions, answered
Can you star or favourite a slide in PowerPoint?
No. PowerPoint has no star, favourite or flag for single slides. Use sections to group key slides, comments to flag slides for work, Hide Slide for backup slides, a custom show for a subset, or a separate favourites deck for slides you reuse.
How do I bookmark a slide to jump to it during a presentation?
Insert a link on a shape or text with Insert, Link, Place in This Document and pick the slide. During a slide show you can also type the slide number and press Enter.
Do hidden slides appear in a PDF?
Not by default. When saving as PDF, open Options and tick Include hidden slides if you want them in the file.
How do I mark slides in Google Slides?
Use Slide, Skip slide for slides the presentation should skip, comments for flags, and a section-divider slide for structure. The star next to the file name stars the whole file in Google Drive.
How can I keep my best slides for future presentations?
Collect them in one favourites file. In a new deck use Reuse Slides (Home, New Slide, Reuse Slides; on Windows in Microsoft 365 also Home, Reuse Slides), or copy and paste the thumbnails between two open files.
Can ExpertSlides change several chosen slides at once?
Yes. Choose slides in the rail with Shift or Cmd/Ctrl, and the prompt carries one instruction out on each of them. Typing Hide this slide skips a slide when presenting.
