How to change slide size in Google Slides

Google Slides offers a highly intuitive interface that makes creating an impressive presentation simple. One example of this is that, when you open a new presentation, Google Slides opens a 16:9 widescreen deck template that fits most laptop screens, tablets and projectors. But what if you want a different look? How can you change slide size in Google Slides?

Let’s say you need to make your presentation slides ultrawide, to fit the screen in a large conference hall. Or maybe you want to use the collaboration features Slides offers to work on a brochure with a co-worker, but you need the brochure pages to be wider than the default dimensions Slides offers. You might even need to make your slides portrait instead of landscape.

In any of these instances, it’s easy to think you’re out of luck, and need to find another solution – but that’s not the case! Changing your deck’s aspect ratio is more straightforward than you might think and knowing how to change slide size in Google Slides gives you a lot of freedom as to what kinds of things you can create. Let’s look at how it’s done.

How to change dimensions in Google Slides

The first step is to open a new presentation in Google Slides. From the Google Slides homepage, look to the top left and click the blank button to open a new presentation. This gives you a blank canvas on which to create your amazing content. But of course, we need this canvas to be exactly the right aspect ratio. The Mona Lisa might not be the world-famous work of art it is today if it had been painted in the wrong dimensions!

Now that you’ve opened your presentation, locate and click File on the top left of the screen. Navigate down on the dropdown menu and click Page Setup. 

In the dialog box that appears, you will see a dropdown menu. Click the arrow on the right, to see the different options available. After clicking the Down arrow, select an aspect ratio from the following options: Standard (4:3), Widescreen (16:9), Widescreen (16:10), or Custom.

If you select Custom, a new dialog box appears where you can enter the exact dimensions you want, and choose a unit of measurement (inches, centimeters, points, or pixels).

A few useful aspect ratios are:

• 29.7×21 cm, or A4 size. A4 is the standard page size in the United Kingdom and much of the rest of the world. This is useful if you want to use Slides to create pages for a digital document, or if you intend to print your content as a handout.
• 11×8.5 inches, or letter size. This allows you to create content that will fit on a standard page size in the United States.
• 1:1 aspect ratio. A 1:1 ratio gives you a square template, which is useful for creating all sorts of content.

• For help creating GIFs that fit nicely on a square template, check out this blog post.

Once you have either selected or entered the dimensions you want, all that’s left to do is click Apply in the dialog box to change slide size in Google Slides.

And that’s it! You can now manipulate the aspect ratio of your Google Slides presentation to whatever dimensions fit your needs. Whatever your project is, you’re ready to take it on.

Are you a Google Slides fan? Well now you know how to change slide size in Google Slides check out some of our other Google Slides tutorials:

5 Google Slides video tutorials to help you become a Slides wizard

How to make an interactive presentation in Google Slides

5 ways to make the most of Google Slides animation features