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When adding slide numbers to a Google Slides deck, there is an option to "skip title slides." When I choose this option, the numbers stay only on my title slides and disappear from my content slides.

When creating or editing a slide layout master, I do not see any option to classify a slide as one "type" or the other. So how does Slides determine what is a title slide and what is not?

Unfortunately, the deck I am working on is full of proprietary information, so I cannot share it. As I am uncertain what triggers this behavior, I have not tried to reproduce it.

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  • Welcome to Web Applications. Start by trying to reproduce the problem using the details that you have shared in this post.
    – Rubén ♦
    Dec 22, 2021 at 23:28
  • Hi and welcome. Unfortunately, the deck I am working on is full of proprietary information, so I cannot share it. You don't have to share your "live" deck containing confidential information. Create a new deck of just a couple of dummy slides BUT which demonstrates the problem that you are having.
    – Tedinoz
    Dec 24, 2021 at 11:08

2 Answers 2

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A user might "inherit" a Slides document and be unable to establish whether/how document defaults have been modified. In such a case, an Apps script may enable the user to obtain more specific information. The following script demonstrates some minimum steps...

The following script lists:

  • Layouts: The available layouts (by name) in the presentation
  • Slides: the specific slides and the layout used by each slide
function slideinfo() {
  var ss = SlidesApp.getActivePresentation()

  // get layout information
  var layouts = ss.getLayouts()
  Logger.log("DEBUG: This presentation has "+layouts.length+" layouts available") 
  for (var l=0;l<layouts.length;l++){
    
    Logger.log("DEBUG: Layout#"+(l+1)+": "+layouts[l].getLayoutName()) // 
  }
  Logger.log("\n") 
  // get slides information
  var slides = ss.getSlides()
  Logger.log("\DEBUG: This presentation has "+slides.length+" slides; the layout for each slide is:") 
  for (var i=0;i<slides.length;i++){  
    Logger.log("DEBUG: Slide#"+(i+1)+": "+slides[i].getLayout().getLayoutName())
  }
  Logger.log("\n") 

}

Note: the Apps script is bound to the Slides document

Sample

logs

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  • First: you have my sincere thanks. I did not expect to discover anything from this script because I thought I already knew the layout names. I could not have been more surprised by the script results. The list of my layouts as presented in the UI did not have a "TITLE" slide listed. However, the result of the script returns the original names of the slides that were modified, not their current names. Sure enough, almost every slide in the deck is reported by this script to be TITLE, which is why the page numbers were being skipped.
    – Jason Wisnieski
    Jan 6, 2022 at 3:58
  • If you, like me, knew relatively little about the elements of Slides, then you may find that this is a useful resource: Extending Google Slides. Particularly the discussion of Structure of a presentation and Selecting items within a presentation. I was surprised to learn that the current page may be any one of the following types: Slide, Master, or Layout. I'm still trying to process that - I'm wondering whether your colleague changed a/the Master or just a/the Layout.
    – Tedinoz
    Jan 6, 2022 at 23:54
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I do not see any option to classify a slide as one "type" or the other.

Select any slide in a deck and from the main menu, select "Slide", "Apply layout". You'll see a popup window that references all the available layouts. The layout of the slide that you selected will be highlighted (refer screenshot).

Apply Layout

screenshot

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  • 1
    What I mean is that other than the word "Title" in each slide's description, there is nothing to indicate which of those slides will be considered "title slides" when choosing to only number content slide pages. In my case, a previous user either changed and renamed or deleted "Title slide," but I suspect that there is some hidden flag that makes Google still consider those slides to be "titles" even though they've been used for content.
    – Jason Wisnieski
    Jan 4, 2022 at 21:45
  • In my case, a previous user either changed and renamed or deleted "Title slide" That's important and should have been included in the question. In any event, have a look at my other answer based on an Apps script. Much more information is available about Layouts and slides, but the specific details will depend on your presentation. At the very least, this will give you a jumping off point to explore a specific layout and/or slide.
    – Tedinoz
    Jan 5, 2022 at 2:35
  • Presumably, a way of determining which slides are considered "Title" for purposes of page numbering would apply to both default and custom/added/modified slides, so I didn't think it was relevant. For that matter, it is unclear (without testing) which of the default layouts are considered "Title" for this purpose. Regardless, I sincerely appreciate the script you wrote above and will reply with the (to me, surprising) results under that solution
    – Jason Wisnieski
    Jan 6, 2022 at 3:57
  • I was just re-reading my comment suggesting that you didn’t have to provide your actual presentation, but a “dummy” sample would suffice. Now I can understand why you couldn’t provide even a “dummy”.
    – Tedinoz
    Jan 6, 2022 at 22:32

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