Perhaps the single biggest challenge to presenting virtually from home has been how to see your speaking notes and share your slides in PowerPoint if you only have one screen or monitor (likely your laptop screen). This has been a challenge for presenters on all platforms: Zoom, Teams, Webex, Google Meet, and others.
I have published previous articles and videos with solutions such as sharing a portion of the screen in Zoom (Windows or Mac), adding a ghost monitor to have a second screen (Windows or Mac), and using a PDF of your notes beside your slides running in a window (general approach and additional tips for low-res screens).
In this article I want to share another approach that uses a feature in PowerPoint on Windows called Slide Show Preview. This feature has been around for many years and is usually used as a way to quickly check animations and transitions when developing slides. The Mac version of PowerPoint does not have this feature.
Overview
This approach involves running the Slide Show preview that covers the top left quarter of your screen with the slide show so you can share the slides in the meeting. On the right side of the screen you view and scroll through the Notes view in PowerPoint so you can see the current slide and notes while you are presenting. The lower left of your screen can contain the meeting chat or attendee videos. Here’s what this looks like when presenting.
