Viewing Sections in PowerPoint 2016 for Windows

If you have a presentation with a large Section, containing many slides, then you may find that this one Section makes it difficult to see all the other remaining Sections, as shown in Figure 1. This is because these many slides cover up so much screen real estate making it difficult for you to see other stuff, such as slides in other Sections. And if you want to drag a slide from one Section to another, you may be at a loss to comprehend what you will end up with.

Figure 1: Sections with plenty of slides visible within Slide Sorter view

So to counter this problem, you can collapse and expand single and multiple Sections, as explained in this tutorial:

1. First open your presentation within which you have already added Sections. Change to Slide Sorter view, as shown in Figure 1 above, so that you can easily access the Sections.
2. Thereafter, collapse your Sections so that you only see the Section names without any slides. This step makes it possible to easily drag the Section to the required position.

There are two ways to collapse and expand Sections in PowerPoint 2016:

Collapse/Expand a Single Section

1. To collapse a particular section, first click on its name. We clicked on the section called Head Title, as shown in Figure 2, below. Then, click the small arrow that you can see in front of its name, as shown highlighted in blue within Figure 2.
2. 
   Figure 2: Arrow in front of the Section name
3. Alternatively, just double click on the Section's name to collapse it.
2. This collapses all slides within that particular Section, and you will see only the name of the Section and no slides at all, as shown highlighted in blue within Figure 3 (compare with Figure 2, above). Also, notice that the arrow now points rightwards (see the Head Title section in Figure 3, below).
3. 
   Figure 3: Selected section collapsed
3. Now, to expand the selected Section, click the same rightward pointing arrow in front of its name, as shown highlighted in blue within Figure 4.
4. 
   Figure 4: Rightward pointing arrow in front of the Section name
5. Alternatively, just double click on the already collapsed Section's name to expand it.
4. This will expand that particular Section making all the slides contained within visible, as shown in Figure 5.
5. 
   Figure 5: Selected section expanded

Collapse/Expand All Sections in a Presentation

1. To collapse/expand all Sections within a presentation in one go, first right-click on the name of any Section. A contextual menu appears, as shown in Figure 6.
2. 
   Figure 6: Options to collapse/expand all slides in the presentation
3. Within this contextual menu, you will find two options for collapsing/expanding the Sections: Collapse All and Expand All, as shown highlighted in blue within Figure 6, above.
2. Let us now explore both of these options:
3. Collapse All: This option collapses all Sections in the entire presentation, and you will see only the names of the Sections and no slides, as shown in Figure 7.
4. 
   Figure 7: Result of selecting Collapse All option
5. Expand All: This option expands all Sections in the entire presentation. Select a Section and right-click on the name of any Section, a contextual menu appears, as shown in Figure 8. Within this contextual menu, select the Expand All option, as shown in Figure 8.
6. 
   Figure 8: Expand All option selected
7. This expands all Sections in the entire presentation, as shown in Figure 9.
8. 
   Figure 9: Result of selecting Expand All option

Select any option to collapse/expand the Section(s) as required.