Link to Another Slide in PowerPoint: Menus, Back Links

To add a hyperlink to another slide in PowerPoint, select the text or shape, press Ctrl+K, choose Place in This Document, and pick the slide. Put one on every item of an agenda or menu slide, add a "back to menu" button to the rest of the deck, and you can jump to any section in one click instead of tapping the arrow key ten times while a customer waits. For a product catalog that a sales rep opens in front of a buyer, that is the difference between answering a question on the spot and scrolling through forty slides. This guide covers the steps, the alternatives, a full catalog example and what to check when a link does nothing.

Hyperlink, Action or Zoom

The Links group on the Insert tab has three commands that can all move you to another slide. Pick the right one before you start.

The most common combination is a Link on each agenda item and an Action button that returns to the last slide viewed. Zoom looks polished but puts thumbnails on the slide, so for a text agenda a plain link is cleaner.

How to Hyperlink to Another Slide

1. Make sure every destination has a title

The Place in This Document list identifies slides by their title. A slide without one shows up only as a number, which is hard to pick out of a 40-slide list. Open Outline View on the View tab and check that every slide has a title that matches its agenda item.

2. Select exactly what should be clickable

To send each agenda line to a different slide, drag across one line of text at a time. If you click the border and select the whole placeholder, every line will go to the same slide. For bigger click targets, put each agenda item in its own shape and link the shape. The text stays plain, so there's no underline, and a click anywhere on the shape works.

3. Insert the link

On the Insert tab, open Link and choose Insert Link, or press Ctrl+K. As Microsoft's hyperlink guide describes, choose Place in This Document, select the slide and click OK. ScreenTip adds the text that appears when someone hovers over the link. The same dialog links to a web page or file with Existing File or Web Page, or opens a pre-addressed message with E-mail Address.

For web addresses there's a shortcut: type the full address on the slide and press Enter or Space, and PowerPoint turns it into a link.

4. Test it

Links don't fire in Normal view; a click just edits the text. Right-click the link and choose Open Link to check the destination, or start the show from the current slide with Shift+F5 and click it the way the presenter will.

Action Settings: Back Buttons and Mouse-Over

Click Action on the Insert tab to open Action Settings, which has a Mouse Click tab and a Mouse Over tab. Its Hyperlink to list includes Next Slide, Previous Slide, First Slide, Last Slide, Last Slide Viewed and End Show, so you can set a rule without choosing a specific slide. Last Slide Viewed is the one that makes a "back" button work from anywhere. Avoid mouse-over jumps in a live meeting; a stray cursor sends you to another slide.

Add a Back-to-Menu Button to Every Slide

On each slide

Draw a small text box with Text Box on the Insert tab, type "Menu", and link it to the menu slide with Ctrl+K. Copy the box and paste it onto the other slides; the link comes along. For ten slides or so, this is quick.

Once, on the slide master

For a long deck, open Slide Master on the View tab and add the button to the layout your content slides use. Links and action buttons placed on a master or layout work in Slide Show, so every slide on that layout gets the same button in the same spot. Put it on the layout rather than the top master if the cover should stay clean. If the button doesn't appear on one slide, check whether Hide Background Graphics is turned on for that slide.

Worked Example: A Catalog for a Buyer Meeting

A sales coordinator at a regional food distributor is preparing the product catalog for next week's meeting with a category buyer at Brightway Retail. Slide 2 is a menu with four product families: frozen foods, sauces and seasonings, beverages, and packaging. Each family has an opening slide followed by product slides, 42 slides in all. When the buyer says "start with the new beverages," the rep needs to be there in one click.

1. In Slide Sorter, confirm the order and make each family's opening slide title match the menu wording.
2. On the menu slide, put each family in its own rectangle and link each shape to that family's opening slide with Ctrl+K.
3. In Slide Master, add a "Menu" shape to the bottom-right of the product-slide layout and link it to slide 2.
4. On the same layout, add an Action button set to Last Slide Viewed so the rep can jump back to compare two products.
5. Start the show from slide 1 and click all four menu items and both buttons.

On meeting day, test again after connecting to the conference room screen. If the deck links to a price list on the coordinator's own drive, that link won't open on another computer. Keep linked files in the same folder as the deck, or link to the shared drive. When discontinued items are removed next quarter, check for links pointing at those slides before deleting them.

👉 Add Speaker Notes in PowerPoint and Use Presenter View

Hyperlink Color and Underline

Text links take the theme's Hyperlink color and an underline. To change the color for the whole file, follow Microsoft's steps for hyperlink colors: on the Design tab, open the Variants gallery, choose Colors > Customize Colors, set Hyperlink and Followed Hyperlink, and save. To recolor a single link, select it and use Font Color on the Home tab. The underline is harder to remove from linked text, which is why linking shapes is the cleanest way to get an underline-free menu. Remove a link with right-click > Remove Link.

When a Click Does Nothing

You're in Normal view. Links only jump during Slide Show. Use right-click > Open Link to check while editing.

The destination slide was deleted. Reordering slides in the same file is fine, because the link points at the slide, not its number. Deleting the destination breaks it. Press Ctrl+K and pick a new target.

The slide came from another deck. Links on slides copied from last season's catalog may still point to that file. Open Edit Link; if the address shows another file path, point it back to Place in This Document. Local files you link to must travel with the deck.

Something is covering the link. A transparent shape or text box on top catches the click. Open Arrange > Selection Pane on the Home tab to see the stacking order and bring the linked object to the front.

Differences Across Versions

In current PowerPoint for Microsoft 365 the Insert tab button is called Link; older versions say Hyperlink. PowerPoint for Mac can link to slides in the same deck but can't link to a specific slide in another presentation. In PowerPoint for the web, use Insert > Link to enter display text and an address, and test links by starting the slide show. On iOS and Android, tap where the link goes, then Insert > Link > Insert Link.

FAQ

Q. Does reordering slides break internal links?

No. Links follow the slide itself. They break when the destination is deleted or when they point to another file.

Q. I linked one agenda line and the whole list jumps to the same slide. Why?

The whole placeholder was selected when you added the link. Remove it, then select one line at a time, or give each item its own shape.

Q. Do slide links survive when I export to PDF?

Yes. Exporting to PDF keeps links to other slides and web pages as clickable links in the PDF, so a catalog emailed as a PDF still jumps from the menu to each section.

Q. How do I keep the back button off the cover slide?

Add it to the content layout in Slide Master rather than the top-level master. The cover uses the Title Slide layout, so the button won't appear there.

Linking Decks with inline AI

With catalogs that change every season, finding broken links takes longer than adding them. inline AI opens the deck, matches each menu item to its slide, adds the links and back buttons, and fixes any link that points to a deleted slide or another file.