PowerPoint Live / Presenter View in Microsoft Teams

The terminology is always as much fun as it is 🙄😁 but PowerPoint Live is the name for a set of presentation “skills” inside Microsoft Teams. There is still some features waiting for release like new Share content experience and Presenter Mode (standout / custom layouts). What is already out is Presenter View when sharing a PowerPoint presentation in a Microsoft Teams meeting. This is also a addition to my earlier article for Presenting in Teams.

In this article

• Presenter View in Microsoft Teams
• Links in presentations
• Accessibility tools it offers
• Preventing attendees from peeking other slides in advance
• Switching between presenters seamlessly

What is still missing from Presenter View in Microsoft Teams is the laser pointer / inking/pen support. For those you need to share a desktop and present your show using PowerPoint desktop application. That requires easily two screens to your computer while using Presenter View in Microsoft Teams meeting works out nicely with a single screen – making it a really welcome addition to lots of people.

The other difference between PowerPoint desktop and Teams/web presenting is that some graphics may work incomplete or slightly differently in the online version. Test out your presentation before showing it to the large audience!

Start by sharing your PowerPoint to the meeting normally and you will end up seeing Presenter view of your presentation.

In this screen you can see controls for advancing slides, your row of slides and also your meeting notes which is one important key here.

This navigation helps you to advance to specific slide directly.

If you have links in your PowerPoint presentation those are clickable when PowerPoint Live ( Presenter View ) is used!

The other very useful addition to Presenter Views are accessibility additions that give the presenter a more clear view to what is on slides. It is activated via a (rather small) … (three dots) menu. Using the same menu presenter can also hide the Presenter View to give slides more real estate – this is really useful if you have a smaller screen!

In case the original slide didn’t have enough contrast already now it is going to be even more easier to read:

That setting seems to affect only the presenter – not audience.

Another great tool for accessibility is the Presenter note’s text size.

This way it is going to be a lot easier to glance what notes were. I have to admit that I will be probably using the font size tool. These accessibility tools are not for people with diagnosis – most of us need glasses at some point of your aging process (called life) and thus everyone benefits from them. I can also think I would be using the high contrast mode in case the slide was put together not-in-so-best-practice-for-presenting. Or if you have to do your presentation from a location that has lot of light (like outside summer when the sun is shining- so Finnish people, like myself, don’t have to really worry about that 🤣).

And of course if you hide your Presenter View you can get it back since all new controls don’t disappear:

Some older features but still great ones:

When you are presenting a PowerPoint in Teams you can see that “eye” icon right left of “Stop presenting”: you can use this control to prevent attendees checking out your slides in advance. This is asked a lot – and the answer is in plain sight.

Another worth mentioning the that presenters can take control of the PowerPoint from each other. This makes switching between presenters – and still using the same deck and share – seamless. There is no need for everyone to say “next slide, please”!

And it is very easy to take it back as well