Pen and Highlighter Tools in Slide Show View in PowerPoint 2011 for Mac

While presenting, annotation can play a large role in how you interact with your audience. In PowerPoint, you can use the Pen tool that can change your static slide into a whiteboard upon which you can annotate, simply by doodling or writing.

Follow these steps to learn more about the pen and highlighter tools in PowerPoint 2011 for Mac:

1. Open any existing presentation and change to Slide Show view. Now, hover your cursor to the bottom left area of the projected slide to see some navigation icons in the bottom left corner, as shown in Figure 1, below.
2. 
   Figure 1: Navigation icons in Slide Show View
2. Among these icons, click on the Pen icon to bring up the fly-out menu, as shown in Figure 2, below. From this menu, choose the Pen tool.
3. 
   Figure 2: Pen tool being selected

Access Pen Tools with Keyboard Shortcuts

You can also press the ⌘ + P keyboard shortcut in Slide Show view to change to the Pen tool. Press ⌘ + A in Slide Show view when done to revert to the default Arrow cursor.


PowerPoint Keyboard Shortcuts

Do you want more keyboard shortcuts?

Explore our PowerPoint Keyboard Shortcuts and Sequences Ebook that is updated for all PowerPoint versions.

3. The cursor changes to a small pen icon. Start doodling or writing on your slide now, as shown in Figure 3, below. Notice that the default color used is red.
4. 
   Figure 3: Doodle or write with the Pen tool
4. Now, navigate to the fly-out menu again, now choose the Pen Color option to reveal a sub-menu, as shown in Figure 4, below. Notice that you can choose from the nine colors listed in this sub-menu for your pen. You can choose any other color by clicking on the color name. Selecting the Reset option in this sub-menu will change the pen color back to red.
5. 
   Figure 4: Choose another Pen color
5. Then, doodle or write again. This time you will see your annotations in the color recently chosen. You can change the Pen Color again if required and doodle on the active slide, as shown in Figure 5, below.
6. 
   Figure 5: There are number of colors to annotate with
7. Unfortunately, as of now, that's all you can do with Pen tool in PowerPoint 2011 for Mac. There is no way to save the annotations, as you do in the Windows versions of PowerPoint. So, when you end the Slide Show or press the ESC key, the presentation will go back to the Normal view with all annotations lost! Figure 6, below, shows how our sample slide looked when we ended the Slide Show. Compare it with the same slide in Slide Show view, as shown in Figure 5, above.
8. 
   Figure 6: All annotations are lost when Slide Show ended

Cross-Platform Annotation Issues

Annotations saved in the Windows version of PowerPoint show on PowerPoint 2011 for Mac, but they cannot be edited.
6. Save your presentation often.