Quick answer: Open your presentation, go to File → Page setup, click the dropdown and choose Custom, then enter a size that's taller than it is wide. For example, 7.5 × 13.33 inches for a 9:16 mobile shape, or 7.5 × 10 inches for a gentler portrait. Click Apply and every slide flips to vertical.
That's the whole trick. Below are the exact steps with the right dimensions, plus the one thing Google won't tell you: this is a workaround, not a vertical-first design tool, and there's a faster way if your slides are actually meant to be viewed on a phone.
Can you make Google Slides vertical?
Yes, but not with a one-click "portrait" button. Google Slides has no orientation toggle the way Word or PowerPoint does. Instead you change the page dimensions so the slide is taller than it is wide. The setting applies to the entire presentation (you can't mix vertical and horizontal slides in one deck), and it's best done before you add your content.
How to make Google Slides vertical: step by step
- Open your presentation at slides.google.com.
- In the top menu, click File.
- Select Page setup (near the bottom of the menu).
- In the dialog, click the size dropdown (it usually says Widescreen 16:9) and choose Custom.
- Enter your vertical dimensions, width first, then height, with height larger than width:
- 9:16 mobile shape:
7.5wide ×13.33tall (inches) - Standard portrait:
7.5wide ×10tall (inches) - Prefer pixels? Switch the units dropdown and use
1080 × 1920for true 9:16.
- 9:16 mobile shape:
- Click Apply.
Your slides are now vertical. Do this on a blank deck and design into the tall canvas from the start. That's the painless path.
Setting the size in pixels (for social / mobile)
If your slides are headed for a phone screen, Stories, or Reels-style viewing, work in pixels: choose Custom, switch units to pixels, and enter 1080 × 1920. That's the native 9:16 resolution for most phones and keeps your exported images crisp.
The catch: Google Slides wasn't built to go vertical
Making the page vertical is easy. Making a vertical presentation that actually looks good and works on a phone is where Google Slides fights you:
- Resizing an existing deck wrecks your layout. Change the page size after you've built slides and your text boxes, images, and charts don't reflow. They stay put and get squished or pushed off-canvas. You end up rebuilding every slide by hand.
- It's all-or-nothing. One orientation per presentation. You can't have a vertical title slide and a horizontal chart slide together.
- It's still a laptop tool. Even in portrait, Slides is designed to be presented on a wide screen and edited on a desktop. Open a vertical deck on a phone and you get pinch-zoom and awkward scaling, not a native mobile experience.
- No real interactivity. Vertical content today is scrollable, tappable, and media-rich. Slides gives you static pages you click through. The shape changes, the format doesn't.
So you can force Google Slides into a portrait rectangle. But if the whole point is something people watch on their phones, you're styling a desktop tool to imitate a format it was never designed for.
The easier way: build vertical-first with Flow2
Flow2 is built the other way around. It's mobile-first and vertical by default, so there's no page-setup hack and nothing to rebuild:
- Vertical from the first screen: no resizing, no squished layouts.
- Made for phones: your audience opens a link and it just works, full-screen, the way they already scroll everything else.
- Scroll and tap, not click-through: vertical scrollytelling, interactive menus, and rich media (video, etc.) built in.
- Share as a link: send a
flow2.co/m/…link or QR code; no file, no app, no "can you see my screen?" - Built-in analytics: see what people actually viewed.
If you're making vertical slides for a desktop print-out, Google Slides' Page setup is fine. If you're making them because your audience lives on their phone, that's exactly what Flow2 is for.
Already have a deck? Skip the rebuild
You don't have to redesign your slides into the tall canvas by hand. In Google Slides, go to File → Download → Microsoft PowerPoint (.pptx), then upload that file to Flow2 and it gets rebuilt as a vertical, mobile-ready flow you can share as a link. Flow2 reads your content and lays it out for phones, so you skip the resize-and-reposition cleanup entirely. It's free to try, with no install.
FAQ
Can you make just one slide vertical in Google Slides? No. Page setup applies to the entire presentation, so every slide shares one orientation. If you need a single vertical slide among horizontal ones, build it separately or use a tool that supports per-screen layouts.
What size should a vertical Google Slide be? For a 9:16 mobile shape use 7.5 × 13.33 inches (or 1080 × 1920 pixels). For a gentler portrait, 7.5 × 10 inches works well.
How do I change a horizontal Google Slides deck to vertical? Use File → Page setup → Custom and enter vertical dimensions. Be aware that existing elements won't automatically reflow, so you'll likely need to reposition content on each slide. It's far easier to set the orientation before you start designing.
Why is there no portrait option in Google Slides? Google Slides doesn't offer a one-click orientation switch like Docs or PowerPoint. Changing the custom page dimensions in Page setup is the only built-in way to go vertical.
Can I present a vertical Google Slides deck on a normal screen? You can, but a tall slide on a wide monitor leaves big empty bars on either side. Vertical decks are best viewed on vertical screens (i.e. phones), which is why a mobile-first tool is a better fit for that use case.
Related: How to Make Vertical Slides (the complete guide) · How to Make PowerPoint Slides Vertical · How to Make a Vertical Presentation in Canva