Presenter View in PowerPoint 2011 for Mac

PowerPoint 2011 has several views for editing and viewing presentations, and Presenter View is one of them. This view has been completely overhauled for this version, and in PowerPoint 2011, Presenter View no longer requires two displays. This is great since you can test this view without working on a dual display environment (such as a laptop-projector combo workspace). Of course, the actual reason for Presenter View's existence is still for two displays, and you can continue using it that way.

To access the Presenter View, you can choose either of these options:

1. Choose the View | Master | Slide Master menu option.
2. Navigate to the Slide Show tab of the Ribbon, locate the Presenter Tools group, and click the Presenter View button.

When you launch Presenter View in either a single or dual display environment, you see the window shown in Figure 1. If you use a dual display, your second display will show the presentation in Slide Show view.

Figure 1: Presenter View in PowerPoint 2011 for Mac

Presenter View is split into a quadrant; the four sections of this quadrant are explained below:

A. Preview area

This area shows the slide which will be displayed on the projector (or the second display).

B. Next slide

This area displays the next slide of the presentation.

C. Notes pane

This area displays the Slide notes for the active slide.

D. Meeting notes

Here you can type meeting notes as the presentation is being shown, great if you receive some feedback from the audience. Once you save and close the presentation, these meeting notes are appended to the Slide notes.

In addition to the quadrant explained above, there are three buttons located at the top:

• Swap Displays: If you end up seeing Presenter view on your projected output or another dual display, click this button to switch which display shows Presenter view. The other display automatically displays Slide Show view (audience view).
• Tips: Click this button to display keyboard shortcuts you can use in Presenter view.
• Exit Show: Click to end the slide show.

If you want to display a particular slide within your show, just move the cursor to the bottom of the Presenter view, and a hidden gallery of your slides appears instantly (highlighted in red within Figure 2). Now just click the slide you want to display, if you have too many slides, this area also includes a scrollbar.

Figure 2: Gallery of slides within the Presenter View