This month nosotros're going to await at a new, oftentimes disregarded feature of PowerPoint: Using the Reading View to evangelize a presentation. This feature was introduced in the 2010 version of PowerPoint and carries on into the 2013 version.

First of all, let'south fix the stage for why this characteristic tin enhance the commitment of a presentation. Often a business presentation involves more than than just presenting PowerPoint slides. You may wish to testify your audition other content like websites or spreadsheets. But, in earlier (pre-2010) versions of the software the simply option to deliver a presentation was to go into Slide Show view so accelerate through your slide deck. If you needed to present content from other sources there were several means to put this content on to slides (capturing screen shots, copying & pasting content) but these methods only showed the other content as static pictures that could exist displayed on slides. For some content you lot really needed to show "live" content (actively working websites, Pin tables, etc.) that y'all could collaborate with during your presentation.

There were a few ways to practise this in the older (pre-2010) versions:  Yous could have inserted hyperlinks or Action buttons on to your slides, then yous could click on them during the presentation and launch the files or websites yous wanted to share with your audition. Nonetheless, there was a drawback to this technique – the other content and so had to launch and load into the proper application. Depending on where you were delivering a presentation and the speed of your net connexion this could have meant several minutes of waiting while the other content loaded, which as well meant your audition had to wait along with you.

The other alternative was to have the other content up and running on your computer, but have the windows minimized. That way, you lot could bound out of your presentation (in Slide Show view) by pressing the Escape key, then move your mouse downwardly to the Taskbar at the lesser of your screen and click on the icon of the content y'all wanted to prove. Then, you lot could get back to your PowerPoint presentation.

All the same, this approach also meant that when you pressed the Escape primal to go out of Slide Show view, your audition would run across the "Normal" view of PowerPoint (they'd see the Ribbons, Slide miniatures and Speaker Notes on the screen. And so, after you were done showing the not-PowerPoint content, you'd have to make sure that you were on the slide you lot wanted to return to before yous resumed the Slide Evidence view. In other words, this was clunky – if y'all actually didn't want your audience to run into your speaker notes, or if y'all re-entered Slide Show view but landed on the wrong slide it could bog down your presentation.

Then, this is where the new Reading View comes into play, and information technology is actually one of the easiest things to do in any Microsoft Office application – you lot just click one view button instead of some other as illustrated in the following screen shots.

First of all, where are the View buttons? They are located in the lower right-hand corner of the PowerPoint application window:

Three of these four buttons have always been a part of PowerPoint:  Normal, Slide Sorter, and Slide Prove.

But, most PowerPoint users don't apply the new view push that was added in the 2010 version, the Reading View push button:

What'due south the difference between using the Slide Show view to evangelize your presentation instead of the Reading View? Very simple – when y'all are in Slide Prove view, your slide content occupies the unabridged screen as illustrated beneath:

The Taskbar is non visible on the lesser of the screen, and so fifty-fifty if you have your other non-PowerPoint content loaded upward and set to go, you still have to press the Escape key then that you tin encounter your taskbar to switch to the other content.

Only, if you use the Reading View to launch your presentation (just click a different view push button) your audience will yet meet the slide content, merely you will have a visible Taskbar on the bottom of your screen to seamlessly switch to other content sources as illustrated below:

Your Taskbar remains visible, simply click the icon for the other content you lot wish to share, and then click the PowerPoint icon when you wish to return to where you left the PowerPoint presentation. What a difference clicking one button tin can make!

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