Hide the side panel in Google Slides

Maximize the space you have to edit slides.

My newest project is Pharm450.com, the easiest way to learn pharmacology for USMLE Step 1. Pharm450 packs an entire course on medical pharmacology into a set of entertaining videos that leverage your visual, spatial, and emotional memory so you learn faster and retain more.

Ever want to close that slide panel in Google Slides so you can get more screen space? This bookmarklet will do the trick.

Drag the bookmarklet below to your bookmarks. When you’re working on your presentation, simply click it to hide (or show) the slide panel:

Toggle Slide Panel ← drag this button to your bookmarks

You’ll notice that it simply hides the panel but doesn’t refresh the screen layout to reclaim that space previously filled by the side panel. Adjust the window or the notes tray and it’ll immediately fill in. Do you know a good way to fix this or force a refresh?

If you refresh the page, the panel will reappear. This bookmarklet doesn’t do anything permanent to Google Slides.

I’ve also found the text format reset keyboard shortcut useful: “Ctrl + \”. Since a lot of my presentations are imported Microsoft PowerPoint, the notes text is often all wonky. “Ctrl + A” followed by “Ctrl + \” selects all the text and resets it to baseline. Note: Ctrl → Cmd for Mac OSX

When you’re writing notes you can hit Esc a couple of times to back out from edit mode to navigation mode where you can use the arrow keys to move between slides.

Any tips you’d like to add?