How do I close my Slides tab?
Q I’ve linked a Google Slides presentation from a website. In Chrome on a Windows 10 machine, I can terminate the Slides presentation by closing the Slides tab that opens. However, in Chrome for Android a new tab is not opened and the only solution seems to be to step backwards through all the slides. Is there a way to avoid this discrepancy? I have no control over who may use the website or their choice of browser or system. Roy Ball
A We’re a little confused by your description of the problem. Unless the keyboard shortcut Control(ctrl)+shift is pressed before clicking, the Windows version of Chrome will open any links in the same tab. Of course, it’s easy to then close that tab, as it is always visible.
We don't know which website you're using to link to the presentation, but we suppose you or the website-design software that you’re using might have inserted "_blank" tag to the HTML code, as this would prompt most desktop browsers to open a link in a new tab. Android Chrome users can replicate this new tab behaviour by tapping and holding on a link, before tapping ‘Open in new tab’ (see screenshot 1 ).
However, whatever the mechanics of the situation we think the nub of your problem on Android is that the tabs in Chrome are literally not visible: that’s a side-effect of the browser being designed for smaller screens. To view tabs in Android Chrome, tap the ‘Open tabs’ button to the right of the address bar (see screenshot 2 ). Then, closing a tab is a simple matter of tapping the relevant cross at the top right of the tab (see screenshot 3 ), or swiping the tap left or right off the screen.