We all start out our presentations with good intentions. In ideal situations we write, design, and test our presentations. We make sure they are geared for the proper audience and timed well. However, the real world often throws us curves . . .

1. The audience is restless, and they don't seem to want to sit still for the entire presentation — you need to skip some of the slides, but you don't want the audience to know you are doing so . . .



2. Someone in the audience raises a question, and you have the perfect slide for explanation — but that is Slide #12, and you are on Slide #4 . . .



3. Even better, you expect to deliver a presentation that raises some questions about the value of the Sales Group, and you don't expect the Director of Sales Marketing to attend in the presentation — yet halfway through the presentation, in she walks, right before you are to reveal the "less-than-respectful" slide . . .

UGH! What do you do?

In any of these situations, you can find creative ways to skip slides. You can simply turn off your electronic presentation and cover the rest of the material without visual aids. You can even attempt to skip around the presentation, darting to the slide you want to view or sliding past the one you want to omit. But isn't there a better solution to this slightly ad hoc manner of navigating through a presentation?

Fortunately, yes there is: you can use the Slide Navigator tool in PowerPoint.

To skip to a slide out of sequence using the Slide Navigator in PowerPoint

1. Open a PowerPoint presentation in Slide Show mode. (Select View > Slide Show or click the Slide Show button in the lower left corner.)



2. Navigate through the presentation as desired.



3. When you are ready to jump to a slide other than the next one in the presentation, right-click anywhere on the screen. (Or, left-click in the box in the bottom left corner.) The Slide Show popup menu appears.



4. Select Go > Slide Navigator. The Slide Navigator dialog appears.






5. In the Slide titles list box, double-click the slide title you want to show. (Or, select the slide title and click Go To.) The Slide Show continues — jumping directly to the slide you selected. It advances from this slide forward. If you skipped slides, they are not shown at all — unless you return to the Slide Navigator and select the slides.