Google Slides for Families

Navigating Google Slides

Google Slides iconGoogle Slides is a presentation tool that students can use for creating slide decks, books, and animations. Learn more about accessing and using Google Slides by selecting the topics listed below.

Finding the menu bar and the tool bar in Slides

Menu bar - This is the bar along the top of the window, with File, Edit, View, Insert, Format, Slide, Arrange, Tools, Add-ons, and Help submenus.

Slides menu bar

Tool bar - This is the bar under the menu bar that has buttons with pictures on them. This bar changes in Slides depending on what you've clicked on to edit. If you have selected the slide by clicking on its preview on the left side of the screen, you see buttons that let you to change the background or layout of the slide.

Slides tool bar 1

If you have selected a textbox, you'll see buttons that let you edit the size, font, and style of the text.

Slides tool bar 2

"More" buttonAlso, sometimes some of the buttons are hidden if they don't fit on your screen. You can find hidden buttons by clicking on the "More" button with three horizontal dots.

Helpful buttons & tools in Slides

These are some commonly used buttons and built-in tools within Google Slides.

New slide buttonNew slide button - This button helps you insert new slides. You can click the down arrow on this button to choose the layout of the new slide before inserting it.

Explore buttonExplore button - This button opens a side menu that suggests things to add to your deck, such as pictures, formatting, sources of information, or other topics. 

Slides background buttonBackground button - Use this button to edit the background of one slide or of the whole deck at once.

Insert textbook buttonTextbox button - This button inserts a textbox to give you a space to type. You can adjust the text size, font, color, and style by using the tool bar along the top of the screen.

Insert shape or line buttonsShape or line buttons - These two buttons let you insert shapes or lines into your slide. You can choose the color of the shape or line, and if it's a shape, you can choose what color the shape is filled with.

Slides present buttonPresent button - Click this button to switch to presentation mode. This will make the screen only show one slide at a time, in order. You can click the "Esc" button on your keyboard to go back to the editing screen.

Slides insert menuInsert menu - This menu allows you to insert many different items into a slide, such as images, shapes, lines, videos, and more.

Slides menuSlide menu - This menu lets you to edit or adjust different things about your slide, such as the layout, the background, and the transition effect.

Slides tools menuTools menu - The tools menu offers different tools you can use in the slide deck, such as spellcheck, the dictionary, Voice Typing for speaker notes (you speak and Docs types for you), and other accessibility settings.

Turning in a Slides deck to Google Classroom

To turn your Google Slides file into Google Classroom, follow these steps:

  1. Open the class in Google Classroom, and go to the Classwork tab. Google Classroom classwork tab
  2. Find the assignment, and click on it to expand it to show the directions. Then click "View assignment". Google Classroom view assignment button
  3. OGoogle Classroom your work spacen the right side, find the spaced titled "Your work". Your Slides deck may already be listed there. If so, skip to step 4. If your Slides deck is not already listed there, use the "Add or create" button to search for it in Google Drive and attach it.
  4. Click the"Turn in" button to submit your work to your teacher. 

Google Classroom private comments spaceHave questions about the assignment? Use the "Private comments" section under "Your work" to send a private message to your teacher.

Learn more about Google Classroom.

This page was last updated on March 9, 2021