Use Notes in PowerPoint!

My last blog was about enhancing your PowerPoint presentation by inserting hyperlinks in the slides but I do want to mention a very utilitarian tool that is especially helpful when using PowerPoint: the Notes Pane. Each slide in your presentation has a Notes Pane just below the slide. To access the Notes Pane, from Normal view, look at the bottom of the slide. You will see a “white” area below the slide that says “Click here to add notes.” You can put all your notes on this pane and never have to worry about “cue cards” before your presentation!

In the Notes Pane, you can not only type in your speaker’s notes but you can also include any charts, graphs or tables that you might need for your presentation. Any data you put in the Notes Pane does not appear on the slides, nor arethey visible on the screen during the presentation. Moreover, every time you save your PowerPoint presentation, your notes - along with your slides - are saved in the same file. You can enlarge the notes pane while in Normal view so you can see the reduced version of the slide above as you type your notes. To enlarge the notes pane put your cursor on the line that separates the slide from the notes pane. The cursor will change into a North-South pointing arrow, just click hold and drag to extend the notes area and reduce the size of the slide.

PowerPoint also provides a separate view in order to make it easy to work with the Notes Pane. Using the tabs on the Ribbon, you can change the View to the Notes Page view. In the Notes Page view you will see a thumbnail of the slide along with the notes area below it. The Notes Pane actually contains a text box which you can resize by using any of the eight sizing handles. And, what’s more, you can use the Zoom Slider to zoom in and enlarge your view so as to read your notes without squinting!

Of course, you can always print your notes to use as an aid during your presentation, but you don’t have to. Using two monitors for your presentation, you can run the slide show on one monitor - for the audience - while the contents of the second monitor, which displays your notes, can be viewed only by you. This saves you from either printing or memorizing your notes!

Please Note: PowerPoint supports the use of two monitors for a presentation but you will have to make sure that your computer supports the use of dual monitors. It may be wise to enlist the help of a techie friend to ensure your computer supports the use of multiple monitors prior to your presentation!

In order to configure your PowerPoint on two monitors follow these steps:

Click the Slide Show tab, and then from the Monitors group, click Use Presenter View. In the Display Settings dialog box, click to select the monitor icon that you want to use for your notes. Click again to select the box: This is my main monitor. The contents displayed on the main monitor will be viewed only by you. Now choose your second monitor, the contents of which will be viewed by the audience. Click the icon for the second monitor. Click and select the box that says Extend my Windows Desktop onto this monitor. Then click OK.

Double check that the monitor, that is going to be viewed by the audience, appears on the Show On list. You certainly don’t want to give the entire game away by putting your notes on display!

Now that your PowerPoint is configured and ready for presentation so are you with all your notes available at the click of a mouse!

- Rina B.