Why can't I get my slide numbers to show?

Anonymous

I have tried other answers to similar questions, but it still will not work. I am using PowerPoint 2010, and have loaded a template that was created in a previous (not sure which) version.

I finished and saved my presentation. I have gone to the master slide viewer and added slide numbers in the "Insert" menu.

I then do the same from the regular view of the presentation. Each time I go in, the option is again unchecked, even after I apply to all. I have changed this in the print page as well, only to have the "Print Slides" checkbox clear itself once I click Apply To All.

I have repeatedly tried to remove the data and page numbers as well, but they also magically reappear...

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Anonymous

Edited November 18, 2015, to add this information:

Microsoft has started using powerpoint.uservoice.com for feature and bug fix requests from the PowerPoint community. Have an issue that's not getting the attention you want? Post it on uservoice and then talk to your friends about throwing some votes at it! I added the slide number/header-footer issue; now let's vote it up!

http://powerpoint.uservoice.com/forums/288949-powerpoint-for-windows-desktop-application/suggestions/10609608-make-it-easier-to-get-my-slide-numbers-and-date-a

For now, here's what we're stuck with:

You need two things for a slide number -- a placeholder, and to populate the placeholder.

PowerPoint messes up the whole structure -- or seems to -- when you open 2003 and prior files in 2007 and 2010 (and 2013 and 2016). They really mucked stuff up! It's partly because the whole masters paradigm is different now, but they still blew it. (Trust me, I've complained mightily to the PPT developers about it. I will continue to do so.)

Here's the most straightforward way to fix them that I know.

Go to the slide master (the big thumbnail), select any footer / slide number boxes and delete them. Now look at the slide layouts (little thumbnails). Delete any footers / date / slide number boxes on each layout.

You shouldn't have to do this part, I know. But because it's all messed up, this is the most surefire way I know to correct the issues.

Now go back to the Slide Master (big thumbnail), click Master Layout on the Ribbon and tick the boxes for date, slide number, and footer. Format and position the placeholders as desired.

Now select each slide layout and tick the Footers box on the Ribbon.

Then close Master View.

Now go to Insert | Header and Footer (or Insert | Slide Number is fine, too) and tick the box there for slide number. The slide number placeholder you created should be populated with the slide number.

The key here is having the placeholder on all the slide layouts. When you add the placeholders to the slide master (big thumbnail), the associated slide layouts (little thumbnail) should inherit them. But part of the problem is that any "leftover" layouts from PPT 2003 don't always inherit the footer (and date and slide number) placeholders properly.

And there's other weird stuff that goes on.

The other thing is, if you paste or insert other existing slides, you may need to do this all over again. That's because you may end up with additional slide masters or layouts after pasting in slides. So I recommend you do it after you've added all the slides you're going to add.

Hopefully this will get you going.

-- Echo [MS PPT MVP] http://www.echosvoice.com

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55 additional answers

Anonymous

2017-06-27T14:15:18+00:00

THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!! I fought with this for hours and got nowhere until I found your post. You saved my butt today!
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Anonymous

2017-08-06T20:14:12+00:00

What a lifesaver. 8/6/2017 this problem still exists. Never would have figured out how to solve this. Have several PPT presentations made on different versions, and several more that I ran thru Keynote and back to PPT 2016. OBTW running thru Keynote versions do not have this problem! I also decided to delete a Master and slides under it that were not used in any slides in the presentation so that was another good thing to do.
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Anonymous

2017-10-04T08:49:38+00:00

Thank you, had spent hours on this ridiculous problem, but you fixed it.
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Anonymous

2017-12-20T14:48:52+00:00

Hey Echo,

Amazing that 7 years after your original post, the issue persists.

I have done everything you discussed: removed all footers in the master layout and all associated layouts, added the slide/date/footer on the Master Layout and formatted them as needed, and added Footers to all associated layouts. Then in regular mode, under Insert, I hit either "Header & Footer" or "Slide Number" and then apply both for 1 slide and also "apply all"). And they still. for. the. life. of. me. will. not. appear.

Another suggestion noted hitting Reset on the slides before inserting the footnotes in regular mode. I've tried this. Still nothing.

I consider myself highly proficient in PPT and I'm totally at my wit's end. The problem is that this is a corporate template that has existed through 2 previous versions of Office (started in 2007, then 2010, and we just upgraded to 2013). The 2010 upgrade went through and we lost the ability to use Refresh to fix the alignment and numbering on footers, but you could manually work around this by copying and pasting the correct footers from other slides or slide masters (not ideal, I know, but better than nothing). Now with the 2013 upgrade, if you copy and paste footers from, say slide 12 onto slide 13, it pastes the number from 12, so it doesn't update to show 13--it'll still say 12. Or if I copy and paste from the slide master, it will paste in "<#>" directly on the slide instead of the slide number. Same issue applies with dates, where the date is not updating but only showing the exact text of the source it was copied from.

Edit: Another piece of (potentially) helpful or important info: I'm trying to fix a template here (ie, .potx), not a single deck. I'm the keeper of the template that's been handed down through the various Office upgrades and this template gets updated to literally hundreds of computers, so I really want the template to be right so that the issue is fixed for everyone else who uses it.

I'm so insanely frustrated with this. It's a corporate template with branding, fonts, logos, colors, etc, so I can't just make a new one, as half the suggestions in this thread end up being. Do you have any other ideas? Otherwise I'm worried I'll have to go back to the corporate folks and actually recreate this template from the ground up.

Thanks for your time and any help you can offer.
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