How to Add an Appendix to Your PowerPoint Presentation

When you create a Microsoft PowerPoint presentation, you want to include content that’s meaningful to your audience. You may have additional details related to that content that you want to provide, but not necessarily display in the slideshow. This is when you need an appendix.

By adding an appendix, you can offer that extra information for those who want to dig into it without distracting from your presentation’s main objective. Let’s walk through how to use and add an appendix in PowerPoint.

What Is a Presentation Appendix?

Similar to an appendix you’d see in a book, essay, or report, a presentation appendix contains supplemental information. You may not want to include raw data, illustrations, graphs, or lists of tools, books, transcripts, or websites within the presentation itself. Instead, you can place extra details like these in the appendix for your audience to view if they like.

Here are the basics for using an appendix in PowerPoint:

How to Create an Appendix in PowerPoint

With all of the above in mind, let’s take a look at how to create an appendix in PowerPoint.

As mentioned, the appendix should be on its own slide at the end of the slideshow. While you can always rearrange your slides later, you can simply place the slide where it needs to be from the start.

Open your PowerPoint slideshow and go to the last slide. You can do this easily using the Normal view with the thumbnails on the left side. Go toViewand chooseNormal.

Go to theHomeorInserttab and select the arrow attached to theNew Slidebutton in the Slides section of the ribbon. Choose theTitle and Contentlayout in the drop-down menu.

You can change the layout later if needed, but this gets you off to a good start with the appendix slide.

Once you have your new slide, select the Title text box and enter “Appendix” (or “Appendix A” or “Appendix 1” if you plan to use more than one).

This not only titles the slide appropriately but labels the slide with “Appendix” as well. This is important should you decide to link text in your content to the appendix (explained below).

Next, you’ll add the title of the actual appendix. This can be the topic of what the contents include or something similar that’s descriptive enough to understand at a glance.

You can add a separate text box for this title rather than taking up space in the content box. Head to theInserttab and selectText BoxorText>Text Boxif your ribbon is condensed as shown below.

Draw the text box and then enter the title text.

Below the slide and appendix titles, you can insert the content. Add pictures, text, bullet points, charts, tables, or whatever you need to include.

The content box on the Title and Content layout provides you with icons you can select to add various types of media. For instance, you can choose the Insert Table or Insert Chart icon.

If you don’t see an icon for the type of content you want to include, head to theInserttab for additional options.

Alternatively, you can simply type text into the box and format as a list or include hyperlinks if needed.

You can apply text formatting for the style, size, and color as you would any other text in your presentation. Select the text and use the options in the Font section of theHometab or the floating toolbar (on Windows) to make your adjustments.

You can also format images, charts, and tables like you would any other in the slideshow. Select the item and go to the corresponding tab that displays to make the changes. For example, if you select a table, you’ll see theTable Designtab.

Link to an Appendix in PowerPoint

As mentioned earlier, you can refer to the appendix in your presentation content. This lets your audience know that they can find supplementary information on that topic in the appendix.

To make things even easier, you canlink text on a slidedirectly to the appendix slide. This allows you to quickly jump to the slide in the presentation if you like. If you share the presentation, it also lets your audience move right to the appendix.

You’ll then see your text linked to the appendix slide. You can do the same with additional text in your presentation as well as other text if you use more than one appendix.

Hide the Appendix During a Presentation

If you don’t want to display the appendix slide during your presentation, you can do one of two things.

First, you can simply stop your slideshow after the last slide before the appendix. This works fine if you’re manually controlling the show.

Second, you can hide the appendix slide. This is ideal if you have an automatically playing presentation or convert your slideshow into a video. To do this, right-click the slide in Normal or Slide Sorter view and pickHide Slide.

Give Your Audience That Little Extra

With an appendix in PowerPoint, you can make sure that your audience has additional information if they would like to explore your topic further without taking away from your presentation’s main goal. Are you going to add an appendix in your next PowerPoint slideshow?

Sandy Writtenhouse is a freelance technology writer and former Project, Department, and Program Manager. She turned her education, job experience, and love of technology into a full-time writing career. With all sorts of gadgets in her home and her hands, she seeks to help others make life easier through technology.Read Sandy’s Full Bio

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How to Add an Appendix to Your PowerPoint Presentation#

What Is a Presentation Appendix?#

How to Create an Appendix in PowerPoint#

Link to an Appendix in PowerPoint#

Hide the Appendix During a Presentation#

Give Your Audience That Little Extra#

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