Speaker notes can have images and charts as well as printing options.
In PowerPoint, Notes Pages show thumbnail images of the slide along with an area below for notes which would help the presenter during the presentation or it can be given to the audience as well.
In PowerPoint 2003 and before Notes were called ‘Speaker Notes’.
The notes are not visible on the screen during the presentation though the Presenter View can display them to the speaker on a second screen.
Create Notes pages
First let us see how to create Notes pages in PowerPoint.
In the normal view of the presentation you can type the notes for the current slide.
Below each slide there is area to type the required notes. Notes can also be added in the Outline view. Although it is convenient to jot the points while preparing each slide individually in the normal view, there is not much option to format the content of the notes. In order to change the font style, colour or add header, footer, page numbers to the notes you need to switch to the Notes Pages view.
Notes Pages View
To go to the Notes Pages view click View | Notes Pages
In the Notes Pages view every note appears in the form of a miniature image of the slide along with area below the image to write the notes. In this view you are not just restricted to add notes but you can also insert images, clipart, charts, etc.
The images or tables added in the notes area will not appear as part of the notes in the Normal view but it will appear in the printed notes page.
In Notes pages view each page contains only one slide with the corresponding notes. There is also option to change the colour scheme of the slides. You can choose between Grayscale, Colour and Pure Back and White. Whatever colour is chosen that will reflect in the printed output as well.
In the example screen shot shown below you can see the Notes page view for the slide “Quality Assurance”. Below the slide is the area to enter the notes. Along with the notes there is a additional rectangular box in black. This way you can add any image or tables in the notes area.
Notes Master
In the Notes pages view whatever change you make applies to only individual notes. If you wish to apply the changes to all the notes pages then Notes Master can be used. Changes made in the Notes Master like modifying font style and colour, adding header and date applies to all the note pages.
To open Notes Master click View | Notes Master.
Like Handout Master in Notes Master also there are various options to change the look of the notes pages.
The various tabs in the Notes Master are:
- Page Setup: Here you can modify the slide size and change its height and width. You can also change the orientation of the slide and the notes to either Landscape or Portrait.
- Notes Page Orientation: In this option you can choose the orientation of the notes area between Landscape and Portrait. Based on the orientation the page setup will also change.
- Slide Orientation: Here you can modify only the orientation of the slide which appears as a thumbnail image above the notes.
- Placeholders: Placeholders are editable text areas. Editable areas for adding and modifying header, date, slide image, body, footer and page number is provided. In the body place holder the text can also be deleted and in the slide image area the thumbnail of the slide can be excluded if required. All the information added like header, footer, date, page number will not appear in the normal view but it will be visible in the print output.
- Edit Theme: Based on the existing theme of the presentation the colour scheme, font style can be changed or a totally new design can be selected.
- Background: In this option either the background can be custom made or you can select any of the ready-to-use styles.
- Close: once the notes pages have been modified as per the requirements the “Close Master View” button can be clicked to close the window and return to the presentation.
In the example screen shot shown below you can see the formats applied to a notes page in the Notes Master.
Here the orientation selected for notes area is landscape and for the slide it is portrait. In the place holder the footer and page number option is not selected hence it will not appear in the page. Header and date is appearing at the top of the page. White background is selected along with a blue colour based design. This way the changes made to the Notes master will apply to all the notes pages by default.
Print the Notes pages
To print the notes pages select the presentation to print the notes for and click Office Button | Print | Print. If you want to the notes without selecting any preferred printer then you can click the Quick Print option. Instead of the Print option if you select the “Print Preview” option you can preview the changes you make to the notes. There is preview option in the Print window also which on clicking opens again the print preview window.
On clicking the print option the print window shown below opens up.
Here you can choose the required printer, number of copies of the notes, colour scheme for the output which can be Grayscale, pure black and white or colour depending on the printer. Under “print what” option you should select Notes pages to print. Also you can either choose to print all the notes pages or notes for particular slides only.
Print Preview
When the Print Preview option is selected the Print Preview window opens.
As shown in the screen shot above in the Print Preview window there is option to choose the orientation of the pages from either landscape or portrait. Under the Options tab you can choose to edit the Header, Footer, Date and Time and also modify the colour scheme of the notes pages. You can zoom the notes pages as either to Fit the window or as per requirements. In this way you can preview each page before printing it. You can either click the print button to print the required notes pages or click the “Close Print Preview” button and return to the presentation.
Below shown is the screen shot of a sample notes page in the Print Preview window.
Here the thumbnail image of the slide appears above the notes area. Also the date is appearing at the top far right corner of the page. Since the Header is not selected it is not visible in the page. Landscape orientation is chosen for the note page.
Saving Presentation as a Webpage
As already mentioned earlier the notes are not visible in the Normal view of the presentation. So if you want the notes also to be displayed then you should save your presentation as a Web page. Of course you have the option of hiding the notes as well. In the webpage the slide titles become table of contents and your slide notes appear beneath each slide.
If you want to save your presentation as a webpage click Office Button | Save As | Other Formats.
In the Save As window choose “save as type” as “Web Page”. Once you choose this option the “Publish” button appears. Click this button to customize the web page appearance. In the “Publish as Web Page” window (refer the screen shot below) you can either choose to publish the entire presentation as WebPages or select a range of slides. You can also choose to hide or display the speaker notes. On clicking “Web Options” button you format the appearance of the webpage. You can choose to add slide navigation controls, show slide animation while browsing or resize graphics to fit browser window. But if you choose not to add slide navigation controls to the page then by default you can view the speaker notes in the webpage. In the “Publish as Web Page” window you can select the preferred browser, mention page title and file name and also choose to open the published webpage in browser. Once all the formatting has been done you can click the “Publish” button to publish the WebPages.
You can even save the web page without clicking the Publish button in the “Save As” window. Then you can open the web page from the saved location.
Below is the screen shot of a sample published webpage.
In the screen shot you can see the notes appearing below the slide. The entire webpage is appearing in frames i.e. the notes are appearing in a separate frame and the slide list is appearing in a frame on the left side. Since only two slides were selected to be published you can see just 2 slide names in the slide list. This way you can publish the entire presentation along with the speaker notes.
TipIf you want to include more than one slide and their notes on a single page or have additional pages for the notes for a single slide then you can achieve this by sending the notes to Microsoft Word. This is similar to sending the Handouts to Word document for additional formatting options.
Presenter View
PowerPoint’s multi-screen Presenter View is a great way to see your notes on one screen (commonly a laptop computer screen) while your audience is looking at the slides on the big screen.
Office Watch’s editor-in-chief tells all about Presenter View from his experiences on the high seas.
See Also
- Incomprehensible PowerPoint advice
- What they think of me / What I really do – in PowerPoint
- Anti-PowerPoint Party in Swiss elections
- Powerpoint save and publishing options
- Photo Albums in PowerPoint
- PowerPoint Handouts – making and printing
- Powerpoint – beyond slides
- PowerPoint Presenter view
- Supercharge PowerPoint 2003 – Part 2
- Supercharge PowerPoint 2003 – Part 1
