Used if the speaker needs to enter and edit text for reference in the presentation

When you're getting ready to present, you want to feel prepared. Speaker view helps you focus on delivery by showing your speaker notes and slides in one place. Enter the player by clicking on the Play button at the top right of your editor.

Then click Speaker view in the bottom right of the player.

Customize your layout

Set up the perfect speaker view for your needs: You can choose to show or hide:

• Current slide: The slide displayed in the player.

• Next slide: The slide following the current slide.

• Slide navigator: An interactive preview showing all slides in your presentation. Click a slide to make it the current slide. You can scroll through the slides by pulling the scroll bar beneath them or placing two fingers on your trackpad.

• Speaker notes: Any text added to the current slide directly from the speaker view or from the Notes bubble in the editor.

• Progress line: How far you are into the presentation, based on the current slide and the total number of slides.

• Clock: The current time on your computer. You can switch between a 12-hour clock or 24-hour clock by clicking the clock module.

• Timer: This shows how much time has passed since opening speaker view. You can reset the timer by clicking on the arrow icon on the left.

Reference speaker notes

Your speaker notes will appear in the top left of the screen in speaker view, next to the current or next slide. This will make it easier to scan your notes while presenting.

You can also edit speaker notes directly from the speaker view. This comes in handy when rehearsing your presentation or taking quick notes during a call.

Click on the Edit button to get started. You can select text to apply bold or italic styling or to add hyperlinks. When you’ve finished editing, click Done.

Jump to slides

If you need to jump ahead, it's easy. Hover over the slideline or any slide in the navigator to move forward or backward. You can also view your slides in a grid and jump to a new slide — click the upward arrow along the top of the slide navigator to expand to grid view.

There are two ways to use speaker view

1. Across multiple displays: Use one display for the player in full-screen, and another display to control your presentation in speaker view and see which slide is coming up next.

2. On a single display: When you present on a single screen or through a video call, you can choose to show the audience only the window your player is open in.

Navigate your presentation

There are multiple ways to advance your presentation. Depending on how you've configured your speaker view, you can navigate by clicking on:

• The preview above Next slide

• One of the previews in your slide navigator

• One of the bars in the slideline

You can also click on the arrow above the current slide in the slide navigator. This will open a grid view, allowing you to browse and select the slide you'd like to move to.

Or you can use your keyboard to control the presentation.

• To move forward: click →.

• To move backward: click ←.

• To exit: press Esc or simply close the window and you’ll be taken back to the editor.

💡 Videos set to autoplay will start playing once they're shown on the current slide. If your slide features any other type of video, you’ll need to click the play button in the player — not in speaker view — to play the video for your audience.

Related articles:

• Add speaker notes

Traditional slides and overheads just don't grab attention like a computerized presentation can.

Fam Pract Manag. 1999;6(1):58-59

An integral part of medicine is sharing information. We must communicate not only with our patients and staff but with other physicians, too. Until recently, developing a presentation for a medical society meeting or a conference required many hours, if not days, of preparation. But presentation software for the personal computer (PC) has made developing a visually powerful presentation much faster and simpler. In recent years, one presentation program has become the standard — Microsoft PowerPoint.

Why bother with it, you might ask, if I already know how to put together a good slide presentation? Here's the bottom line: With Power-Point, you can create a much more compelling presentation, complete with movement and sound, in a fraction of the time required for traditional slides. And no expertise in graphic design is required. Here's what Power-Point can do and how you can use it.

The basics

PowerPoint 97, the current version, lets you create as many slides as you like for a presentation and display them in any order. Like any slides, these can contain text, graphs, photographs and art; unlike traditional slides, they can also incorporate animation, spreadsheet files, sound bytes and video clips. Because of the interest that animation, sound and video can add, PowerPoint presentations have their greatest impact if you show them directly from a computer. But you can also convert PowerPoint files to transparencies or 35-mm slides.

Getting started

When you begin a new PowerPoint presentation, the program gives you three options: AutoContent Wizard, Template and Blank Presentation. The AutoContent Wizard will guide you through the creation of a prefabricated presentation. For new users, this feature is priceless. Of course, in time you'll find that you can make presentations just as quickly without the wizard.

The Template option gives you more flexibility but less guidance. It automates only the design of the presentation (including the background color, text color and text font); you must choose the layout of each slide (for instance, whether it will include text only or graphics as well).

Selecting the Blank Presentation option takes the most courage. Not only do you have to design each slide, you have to design the look of the entire presentation, too. You'll find it much easier to modify a template or use the AutoContent Wizard than to start from scratch.

Creating a slide

As an example, let's begin a new presentation using the Template feature. When the New Presentation screen opens, you see a number of icons representing possible presentation designs. Clicking on each one displays a sample of that design on the right side of the New Presentation window.

When you choose a design, PowerPoint opens the New Slide window and displays the 12 most common slide layouts. Choose a layout, and double-click on the Bulleted List AutoLayout to create a slide. Click the mouse in an area where you want to place text. A box “lights up” (becomes activated), and you see a blinking cursor. Enter the text you want, and click the mouse outside the box when you're finished.

You've now created a basic, attractive slide. Pull down the Insert menu and select New Slide to add the next one. As you gain confidence, you can experiment with adding clip art, animated elements, sound, etc.

Helpful views

PowerPoint offers five useful ways to look at the slides you're working on (icons for each view appear in the lower-left corner of the screen):

• Slide View, the one most commonly used, lets you edit and adjust the layout of each slide's components (this is the view we used to enter text in the example).

• Outline View shows the entire presentation as a text-only outline. Although you can modify text in this view, you have little control over layout.

• Slide Sorter View shows all the slides in the presentation and lets you change their sequence; copy, cut or add slides; and create animations within slides and between them as transitions.

• Notes Page View lets you write “invisible” explanatory information for each slide. This text won't appear on the slides, but you can print hard copies to talk from or to give the audience as handouts. You can see the notes section when you're using the other views as well by clicking on Speaker Notes under the View menu items.

• Slide Show View gives you the actual presentation; it lets you see what your audience will see.

PowerPoint's strength lies in its ability to help novices and experts create powerful, memorable presentations. With a little practice, you'll soon be comfortable creating presentations on your PC; and as you gain proficiency, you'll find more and more tricks to keep your audiences focused on you, not their watches.