Not all presenters have excellent memory recall or the ability to speak flawlessly to the audience without any cues. However, many of them are good at hiding it by using Presenter View in PowerPoint. It is a presentation mode that enables the presenter to hide speaker notes and presentation controls from the audience while leveraging the various handy features offered by PowerPoint.
How to Use Presenter View in PowerPoint
To start using Presenter View, ensure it’s enabled before you begin your slideshow. If you are new to this feature, we recommend using this option to familiarize yourself with the various navigation options for this presentation mode. This might also be helpful if the PowerPoint templates you are accustomed to using might have animations that you might want to preview in this mode to understand when to give the next visual cue.
How to Enable Presenter View in PowerPoint
To enable PowerPoint presenter view, go to the SlideShow tab and make sure the Use Presenter View option is enabled. This will ensure that you can access Presenter View when you switch your slides to SlideShow mode.
Adjust Display Settings
You can swap between the presenter view and slideshow mode or duplicate the slideshow to exit the Presenter View from the Display Settings menu from the top toolbar.
Navigate Slides in Presenter View
Like any standard PowerPoint presentation in SlideShow mode, you can navigate between slides by using the arrow keys or with a presentation remote. Presenter View also provides slide navigation buttons to move the slides back and forth.
View Taskbar in Presenter View
The Show Taskbar option at the top enables viewing the taskbar. This can be helpful if you require using the taskbar, such as to view your battery charge, see the time, enable or disable another app from the taskbar menu, etc.
Reset or Pause the Timer
Once you start your presentation in Presenter View, a timer starts showing how much time you have spent in slideshow mode. This is an excellent way to understand how much time you have consumed for your session and to keep an eye out for good timekeeping. You can also hit Pause or reset the timer anytime.
Change the Size of the Speaker Notes
How to view notes in PowerPoint while presenting? If you have any speaker notes added to your slides, they will appear in Presenter View on your screen. You can increase or reduce the size of the text via the two options at the bottom of the speaker notes pane.
Using Annotation Tools in Presenter View
PowerPoint annotation tools can be accessed from the bottom toolbar in Presenter View. The Pen and Laser Pointer Tools button gives you access to the pen, ink colors, laser pointer, and eraser and also allows you to show or hide the mouse pointer via Arrow Options.
View All Slides in Presenter View
If you need to go back and forth to find a relevant slide for an ongoing discussion or query during your presentation, you can view all slides in Presenter View via the See all slides option.
Zoom Slides using Presenter View
PowerPoint’s Zoom feature lets presenters quickly pick a portion of the slide to zoom into. Presenter View allows you to leverage this feature by instantly selecting a portion of the slide to enlarge it after selecting Zoom into the slide option. To exit the Zoom mode or hit the Esc key.
Black or Unblack SlideShow
Sometimes, you might want to turn the screen blank for a while, such as during a mid-presentation break. The Black or Unblack SlideShow option blanks the slides for your audience while continuing to show you all navigation options via Presenter View.
Toggle Subtitles in Presenter View
One of the most revolutionary features introduced by Microsoft for PowerPoint over the past decade has been Live captions. This feature enables subtitles by converting speech to text as you present. You can toggle Live subtitles on or off while in presenter view to help your audience read what you speak.
Toggle Camera in Presenter View
Like subtitles, you can also toggle the camera on or off in Presenter View.
End Slideshow in Presenter View
There are different ways to end or exit a SlideShow from Presenter View. You can hit the Esc key or click End Slide Show. Similarly, you can click the three dots at the bottom and select End Show.
More Slideshow Options
Other than the various visibility prominent menus available to navigate, annotate, and present your slides, you can also find a few additional options via More slideshow options, which are accessible via the three dots at the bottom toolbar. These include adjusting the position of the subtitles, turning your screen white or black, ending the slideshow, etc.
How to Use Presenter View on a Single Screen
While Presenter View can be enabled to work with dual monitors, you can also use Presenter View on a single monitor with remote meeting apps like Zoom. A simple method for switching to Presenter View on a single monitor is to click the three dots (More slideshow options) at the bottom in SlideShow mode and select Show Presenter View.
You can also switch to Presenter View on a single monitor anytime using the ALT+F5 hotkey.
The presenter can easily manage a PPT in presentation mode, with the utility to view speaker notes, annotate or zoom slides, toggle subtitles or camera on or off, and keep your audience engaged via better slideshow management. However, if you’re new to this presentation mode, a bit of practice might help you avoid confusion when presenting before an audience in Presenter View for the first few times. For more information, check our article about PowerPoint presentation shortcuts.
