Handout Master View in PowerPoint 2010 for Windows

Handouts are documents you can print from within PowerPoint that include slide representations from your presentation. You can opt to include as many as 9 slides on each handout page, and then the slides look more like thumbnails. Of course, you can also choose to print just one slide on every handout page, then your handouts will look like individual slides printed on a page. Most handouts are created to be printed, and the look and feel of these printed handouts is determined by the Handout Master. To access and make edits to the Handout Master, you need to get to the Handout Master view in PowerPoint 2010. Changes you make in this view influence the look and layout of printed handouts. You can change or edit the background, the header, and the footer of printed handouts.

To access the Handout Master view, you can choose either of these options:

1. Access the View tab on the Ribbon, locate the Master Views group, and click the Handout Master button (highlighted in red in Figure 1).
2. 
   Figure 1: Handout Master button within Master Views group
2. Shift-click the Slide Sorter view button on the Status Bar (highlighted in red in Figure 2).

Either option gets you to the Handout Master view, that you can see in Figure 2 below.

Figure 2: Handout Master view in PowerPoint 2010

You can format and reposition the handout header and footer placeholders, as also the placeholders used for the date and time, and slide numbers. You can also add objects, such as a picture (useful to add a logo to all your printed handouts) or a background.

The Handout Master tab of the Ribbon (highlighted in green in Figure 2 above) provides several layout options for the number of slides that you want to print on each handout page. Locate the Page Setup group in this tab, and then choose the option called Slides Per Page. This opens a drop-down gallery that you can see in Figure 3, below. You can choose the number of slides per handout page, options include 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, and 9 slides per page. If you choose to have two slides, your handout will contain two large slides on each handout page. Similarly, if you choose the option for 6 slides, you'll end up with six smaller slide previews on each handout page. You can also choose an option called Slide Outline that prints the entire outline of a presentation on a handout page.

Figure 3: Slide Per Page drop-down gallery

These individual slide placeholders that you add, 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, or 9 slides cannot be repositioned or resized, you can however choose from the layout options, so if you wanted larger slide previews, you would choose to have 1 or 2 slides per handout page.

To go back to Normal view from Handout Master, choose any of these options:

1. Access the Handout Master tab on the Ribbon. Within the Close group, click the Close Master View button (highlighted in blue in Figure 2, above).
2. Access the View tab on the Ribbon, locate the Presentation Views group, and click the Normal button.
3. You can also click the Normal button located on the Status Bar just before the Slide Sorter view button.