How to Organize Slides in Google Slides

The mechanics

1. Select multiple slides

   Click the first slide in the filmstrip, then shift-click the last for a range, or use the platform's multi-select modifier for a scattered selection.

2. Drag to reorder

   Selected slides move as a block. For big moves, grid view is easier than a long filmstrip.

3. Use grid view for restructuring

   The View menu offers a grid, which is far better for judging flow across a whole deck.

4. Skip rather than delete

   Right-click a slide and skip it. It stays in the file but is not shown, which is safer than deleting content you may want back.

5. Use section-divider slides

   Slides has no true section feature, so a divider slide is how you mark structure — and it helps the audience too.

6. Duplicate before restructuring

   Copy the deck first. Reordering is easy to undo one step at a time and hard to undo after twenty.

Deciding the order, not just changing it

• Read the titles as a list. Export or write out just the slide titles in order. If that list is not a coherent argument, reordering will not fix it.
• Group by decision, not by topic. Slides that support one decision belong together, even if they come from different sources.
• Put backup after the close. Anything you would only show if asked belongs behind an appendix divider.
• Watch for repeated points. Three slides making the same argument with different charts is a common symptom of merging decks.
• Check the opening survives the reorder. The first two slides do most of the work; verify them last.

Free Gixo tools for this

Each of these runs in the browser and needs no account.