I just fell in love.
If you hook up a projector to your laptop, you can configure the projector to be a second screen rather than a copy of what’s on your laptop display. When you do, your presentation shows up on the projector, but your laptop display shows something else – Presenter View. This has been around for several versions of PowerPoint on both Windows and Mac, but the new Office 2011 for the Mac just kicked it up a notch.
Here’s what my laptop screen shows while I’m presenting:
PowerPoint 2011 Presenter View
At the top, there’s a bar showing how far into your presentation you’re currently at – giving you an at-a-glance idea of whether you’re on track. There’s buttons for Swap Displays (for easier dual-monitor setup), Tips (showing the keystroke shortcuts like B to black out the audience screen), and Exit Show.
On the left, “Step 3″ is the current slide that the audience is seeing.
To the right, “One Approach: Wait” is the next slide that the audience will see. This helps you build better segues.
At the bottom left, there’s my slide notes for the current slide.
At the bottom right, I can type in meeting notes live without exiting my presentation. This is great when someone asks me a question that I want to address later, or if there’s something I want to add to my presentation the next time I give it.
Move your mouse to the bottom of the screen, and PowerPoint pops up thumbnails for your slides, giving you a quick way to jump around from slide to slide without the audience getting dizzy:
Slide Thumbnails at the Bottom
Even if Office 2011 doesn’t bring any other improvements, that’s enough for me. This is the kind of tool that helps me be a better presenter. YAY!
If you’re an MSDN or TechNet subscriber, you can download Office 2011 for the Mac through your subscriptions downloads. Amazon’s selling Office 2011 for $175 today.
Brent Ozar
Brent specializes in performance tuning for SQL Server, VMware, and storage. He's one of the very few Microsoft Certified Masters of SQL Server, a published author, and a Microsoft MVP. He likes travel, Jeeps, Apple gear, jokes, and writing about himself in the third person. Read more and contact Brent.
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Just got Office 2011 — I’m a university professor and so the Presenter View is very helpful for seeing what’s next, timing, etc. Tried it in this new version for the first time in my class today though and the Presenter View kept showing on the large screen instead of just on mine. I have “mirroring” turned off. Any idea of what’s going on? Do I have a preference checked that I should not or something like that? Thanks in advance for any help you can give me…
Hi Jennifer,
What you have to do is on the ‘large screen’ using your mouse, go to the ‘swap view’ (I guess it is ‘swap view’, the first icon towards the center -top side – of the large screen) and you have the presenter view on your screen and power point slide on the ‘large screen’.
Hope you have figured it out by now, but just in case if you need it…
I have the same problem. On my computer it switches as soon as I project it on the screen. Then the ‘swap’ button shows up on the projected screen but not on my computer, so I can’s swap them. I’d love to find out how you did it once you figure out how to do it. Please email me directly britta.hanks@bsd7.org if you figure it out. I have been trying for months.
Britta
I have this problem too, a student swapped my screens while doing a presentation (he actually admitted that he just ‘clicks on things’ if something goes wrong!) and now I’m having trouble swapping it back as the mouse icon doesn’t appear on the projector screen where the ‘swap’ button is – very useful!
Any solutions much appreciated…
I would love to be able to use the Presenter view with my new MacBookPro – but Powerpoint doesn’t see the projector as a 2nd screen – so it won’t let me use dual view of Presenter View. I went through all the settings on my projector (Epson PowerLite 84+) and I don’t see where I could change that. Right now I am limited to either both the laptop and projector showing Presenter or Slideshow, but not Presenter only on my laptop.
Any help would be much appreciated.
Catherine – click on the Apple logo at the top left of your screen, then System Preferences, then Displays. On the Arrangement tab, uncheck the Mirror option.
The Arrangement tab doesn’t show up. Could it be that I am using a USB cord to connect and not the DVMiniDisplay cord (I think that’s what it is calle – it has a lightening bolt)?
Ah, yeah, that doesn’t sound like a typical display. Try using a normal display cable like VGA or DisplayPort.
Thanks – I will definitely try that.
Brent, I am a teacher and used the presenter view a little. Then a student used my computer and now what I see on my laptop is switched w. what is projected on the wall, meaning I see the current slide on my laptop and they see the presenter view on the wall. I can’t click ‘swap displays’ on the top b/c that’s on the wall and not on my laptop. do you know of a short cut to swap screens?
Britta – why can’t you use your mouse or trackpad to move the pointer over to the wall and click on Swap Screens?
Because the mouse shows up on my laptop but not on the wall. the ‘swap’ button is only on the wall, not on my laptop (because they are reversed). It won’t let me click the swap before I connect it to the projector. Complicated, but I’m hoping you can help me. Please let me know if I need to explain it a little better.
Britta – if the projector is too dim to see your mouse, then plug in a monitor and do it.
I developed a Jeopardy! game using Office for Mac 2011. Everything works fine in Slide View. When I switch to Presenter View I get a problem. The hyperlinks change colors when clicked on the Jeopardy! slide but none change on the Double Jeopardy! slide. I checked the settings and they are correct. If I go back to Slide View the problem persists. So, in summary, all works fine in Slide view, but hyperlink color change quits on Double Jeopardy! slide when using Presenter View. After that it no longer in works in Slide View. Somehow Presenter View breaks something. Any suggestions?
JJK – sorry, you’ve got me there. Have you contacted Microsoft for support?
No, but I did discover something last night. I completely redid the Double Jeopardy! slide last night and deleted the old one. Voilá, it worked flawlessly when I ran it through using the Slide View. But, then I checked it using the Presenters View and the hyperlinks failed in DJ! I returned to Slide View to run the program but it too didn’t change the hyperlink colors in DJ. So at least I know now that the problem lies in Presenters View. I need to use the Presenters View because the presentation is highly technical and I need to be able to see the answers before they appear.
Sorry that I posted this twice. I was weary from messing with this last night and had forgotten that I had already posted.
My query is about Presenter View in Powerpoint 2011 for Mac.
The picture of the Presenter’s screen that you show (and which is shown in Help) is not what I see on my Mac. On my Mac, only the current slide is shown, not the next slide, the clock is in a different place etc. These differences would be understandable if the format of the Presenter’s Screen were CUSTOMISABLE. However, as far as I can tell it is NOT customisable (unlike Apple’s Keynote). Am I missing something?
Thanks
Richard Dawkins
I am getting exactly the same problem with a small image of the live slide. This makes Presenter view pretty useless. The slide notes are huge (which I don’t use) and the scrolling slides at the bottom only show up when the mouse is over them, which makes them also pretty useless. It used to work perfectly with the previous OS. Is it related to MAC OS X version 10.7.1?
The problem goes away if you shrink the notes. Below a certain size, the next slide returns. I learned this after several lousy lectures, not knowing what to expect next.
Thank you! Not obvious that they could be shrunk, but not work a treat: back to the previous useful functionality.
I don’t think dimness is the issue. Have you tried looking for a swap icon on your laptop? My Toshiba had one, I think it’s FnF5. Or go into display properties and I believe there is an option there.
I am a new mac user and thought it was me! This swap screen button is a real time waster! How I overcame was to remove the mirror display button in preferences then my mouse worked on the projector view. don’t know how but it did when i scrolled over to the right. that enabled me to click on the swap screen button again. Never again!!
I just started using PowerPoint a couple of weeks ago. The first couple of tries were pretty rough, but I sat down and read Office 2011 for Dummies, and I thought I was going to be able to do Presenter view on my MacBook Pro while projecting Slide view on the screen at the front of the room. I did all the things the book suggested, but it didn’t quite work, and the more I tried to correct it, the worse it got. Now it’s gotten so bad that I can’t get Presenter View on the computer at all, regardless of whether the projector is connected to it or not, and when I try to use the projector, I get Presenter view on the screen at the front of the room, and Slide view on my computer. This is really a mess, and I’ve got to do a presentation on the weekend. Is there any way you can help?
D Woods – you should be able to swap screens using the “Swap Screens” button at the top of the presenter view display that’s showing on the screen at the front of the room.
I really enjoy the Office Products. But I’ve recently switched from PC onto a MBC 2011 (early) and I’m finding that I like the PC version of PPT presentations better. The reason is because on the PC side, you can edit the slides while also being in Presenter mode. So the audience will see corrections or edits in real time. In the Mac side, I need to close the presentation and edit, and then bring it up again. Now I’m not a CEO or anything that needs to have perfect slideshows, but it would help while I’m teaching my science classes!
Does anyone know if this feature exists on the Mac side?
I am having the same problem…I like editing in real time. Please help!