PowerPoint Presentations in a Teams Meeting: Improvements and New Features

Posted on: 03/18/2021

Microsoft Teams keeps rolling out the cool features for Teams Meetings. Today, I’d like to tell you about new improvements for presenting PowerPoint slide decks, during a Teams meeting.

Speaker notes are visible by default

When you're in a Teams meeting and click Share content, you can share a PowerPoint presentation. Now, by default, you see the slides and the speaker notes:

PowerPoint speaker notes in a Teams Meeting are now shown by default in the Presenter View — PowerPoint **speaker notes in a Teams Meeting are shown by default** in the presenter view

I usually have two monitors connected to my computer, so I’ve disconnected my secondary monitor for this test. I can still see the speaker notes on the main screen. They no longer have to be displayed separately. My meeting participants don’t see my speaker’s notes.

Quick-jump to any slide in the presentation

Another time-saving improvement is the ability to jump to any slide in the deck with one click. Access the “Go to slide” function from the presentation screen, next to where the slide numbers are:

Enable Go to Slide in the presenter view — How to enable **Go to Slide** in the presenter view

This button displays all my slides with a thumbnail. If I want to jump to any slide, click on it, and I’m there.

Go to slide shows all my slides as thumbnails for quick access — **Go to slide** shows all my slides as thumbnails for quick access

If you’d rather use the keyboard, the keyboard shortcut for “Go to slide” is just the letter G to activate the thumbnails or hide them.

High-contrast slide view

Another cool feature, next to the slide view button, clicking on the three dots brings up the option to show the slides in high-contrast:

You can show the PowerPoint slides in high-contrast during a meeting — You can show the PowerPoint slides in **high-contrast** during a meeting

Switching presenters is more streamlined

If I am co-presenting with someone and, for example, I want to stop presenting and let someone else take over the same presentation, now I can do that. When I select “stop presenting,” I have a warning: “This will end your presentation for everyone. To switch presenters, select Cancel so the next person can take control.”

Instead of stopping presentation, you can give someone else control — Instead of stopping presentation, **someone else can take control** and resume

Let's suppose I've presented slides 1 through 4, and I need someone else in the meeting to take over and continue the presentation. I can click Cancel on this screen, and then that other person can take control of the presentation.

The nice thing about this switch is that we get to keep the place in the presentation, and the next speaker resumes right there.

If this other speaker then advances the PowerPoint presentation or goes to different slides, I get to continue where they left off if I then take back control. I also see my speaker's notes again.

So the presentation is more streamlined, and the participants don't get taken out of it by losing their place.

Hiding or showing your speaker notes

One last tip: if you don't want to see your speaker notes, you can click the three dots again, next to the slide numbers, and hide the presenter view (that’s also where you turn it back on). This will show or hide your speaker notes:

Hide or show the presenter view that also hides your speaker's notes — Hide or show the **presenter view** that also hides your speaker's notes

Feel free to subscribe to my YouTube channel. I’m covering every new feature or update from Microsoft Teams, Zoom Meetings and other business software on my YouTube channel or here on my blog.

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Chris Menard

Chris Menard is a Microsoft Trainer (MCT) and works as a full-time Trainer at BakerHostetler - one of the largest law firms in the US. Chris runs a YouTube channel with 900+ technology videos that cover various tools such as Excel, Word, Zoom, Teams, Gmail, Copilot, Google Calendar, and Outlook. To date, the channel has helped over 20 million viewers. Menard also does 2 to 3 public speaking events yearly, presenting at the Administrative Professional Conference (APC), the EA Ignite Conference, the University of Georgia, and CPA conferences. You can connect with him on LinkedIn at https://chrismenardtraining.com/linkedin or watch his videos on YouTube at https://chrismenardtraining.com/youtube.