So, you have to do a PowerPoint presentation?
The likelihood is that you know how to design it but… do you know how to present it?
I’ve noticed that many PowerPoint novices don’t know the difference between the edit
and presentation modes—and that’s a must!
You also need to know how to get in and out of the PowerPoint presentation mode by using
the various PowerPoint icons or keyboard shortcuts.
And, if you practice, there are some cool tips to bring your PowerPoint presentation
skills up to the next level.
Let’s start with the mode you probably know the most: The Edit mode, technically called
the “Normal View.”
This is the mode you use when you are designing your slides.
You know you are in the Edit mode when you can see the slide you are working on in the
center and all of the other slides in your presentation lined up on the far left of the
screen.
But you don’t want to present in Edit mode—that looks unprofessional.
For that, you need to go to the Presentation (or “Slide Show” mode), which is the view
I’m in now.
And there are a variety of ways to do it.
Let me start by getting out of the Presentation mode by pressing the Escape key—now you
can see that I’m in the Edit, or Normal View.
The least confusing way is to go to the Slide Show “tab” on the ribbon and, from the
Start Slide Show section on the left, choose either “From Beginning” or “From Current
Slide.”
I’m sure you don’t want me to start over, so I’ll choose the “From Current Slide”
option and…I’m back in the Presentation mode.
But there’s a quicker way if you use the icons or—even faster—a keyboard shortcut.
Look on the top left and bottom right of the screen and you’ll see icons that look like
a projection screen.
While the icons may look different depending on your version of Office, the one on the
top means start, or play, from the beginning—start with the first slide, usually your title slide
if you have one.
The one on the bottom means start from the slide you are currently on, in our case our
fourth slide.
There are some keyboard shortcuts that will do the same thing, using the F5 function key.
Just pressing F5 will start your presentation from the beginning—the first slide in the
deck.
Let me just hit Escape to get out of that—see, we are back to our first slide.
I’ll go to the fourth slide again.
Now, add the Shift key, so Shift F5 (holding both keys down simultaneously) will start
your presentation from the slide you are currently on—in our case, we’re still on the fourth
slide.
When you are comfortable with the basics, you can practice with a few more keyboard
shortcuts.
These work when you are in the Presentation mode, not the Edit or Normal view.
And most of them are “toggle” commands, meaning you do something once to activate
it and do the same thing again to inactivate it.
I need to credit Camille Holden from Ethos3 for her November 2018 blog, “5 PowerPoint
Shortcuts Every Presenter Should Know.”
Let’s start with hiding your screen by turning it white or black.
Again, you are doing this while you are presenting—in the Slide Show view.
Just press the W key—it doesn’t matter if it is upper or lower case—and, voila!
A white screen.
A comma will do the same thing.
Press the W key or comma again and you are back to your slide show again.
For a black screen, press B (for black) – and then B again to go back to your slide show.
Or, if you prefer, a period does the same thing.
Sometimes you may want to point to something.
You can use your mouse or curser to point, or you can create your own laser pointer by
pressing down the Control key and clicking your mouse.
As long as you hold both the Control key and your mouse buttons down—together—you can
drag your mouse around to act as a pointer.
Do you want to draw, write, or highlight on your slide?
Control P (for pen) will toggle the pen tool on, and Control P again will toggle it off.
To highlight, think of Ink, which starts with “I.”
Control I will activate the highlighter tool and Control I again will toggle it off.
Now you have all these marks on your presentation slide.
Control M will hide them.
However, when you exit your presentation and go back to the Edit mode, PowerPoint will
ask you if you want to keep your marks or discard them.
Now, if you want to go to a specific slide, you first have to know the slide number.
Let me get out of this Presentation mode for a moment; now we’re in Edit mode on the
fifth slide.
Let’s go back into Presentation mode and, Dang!
I accidently started back at the beginning.
But we were on slide 5 so all I have to do is type the slide number, 5, then hit Enter.
Okay, I still have to go through all the animations again, but I got back here without having
to go through every slide again.
Some of you may be aware of the Presenter View in PowerPoint which works when you have
two screens, like when you are presenting from a computer or laptop to a computer projection
system.
Presenter View allows you to see the slide that your audience sees, as well as any notes
you may have on the Notes portion of the Edit or Normal slide.
It will also show you what the next slide is and tell you how long your presentation
has been active, as well as the current time.
And you can still use any of those laser pointer, drawing, and highlighting options.
You use the F5 key again here, but this time you combine it with the Alt key: Alt F5.
And, again, Escape to get back to your Edit mode.
Well, I think we’ve covered quite a bit in a short period of time like knowing the
difference between the Edit (or Normal View) and Presentation mode (or Slide Show View),
how to get into and out of Presentation mode, and some pretty cool keyboard shortcuts you
can use while you are presenting.
Practice with these and you’ll be rock your next PowerPoint presentation—and maybe even
amaze yourself!