Add notes during a presentation

It’s not unusual for a speaker to need to write down notes during a presentation, especially in a meeting environment. For example, you might want to keep track of decisions made, actions steps to take (and who should take them), questions from the audience, and so on.

PowerPoint 2002 contains two features to do this:

The Speaker Notes feature lets you add notes during a presentation. From slide show view, right-click and choose Speaker Notes. A dialog box opens, where you can type notes for each slide. These notes are automatically added to the Notes pane and you can see them afterwards in normal view.

The Meeting Minder feature (from Slide Show view, right-click and choose Meeting Minder) lets you take minutes and assign action items to individuals with a due date. You can view them later in PowerPoint from slide show view by opening the Meeting Minder again, or export them to Microsoft Word, where you need to save the document. Content on the Action Items tab becomes a separate slide, called Action Items.

I think these features are very useful, but Microsoft apparently doesn’t. I assume that their research showed that people didn’t use them. PowerPoint 2003 didn’t include the Meeting Minder. Then PowerPoint 2007 removed Speaker Notes! You now need to return to pen and paper — or do you?

The following technique comes from Sonia Coleman’s site; the credit for this technique goes to her.

1. Create your presentation.
2. Insert a new slide at the beginning of the presentation; you can give it a title of “Notes” or “Minutes.” This slide is now slide 1.
3. Add a blank action button; the Action Settings dialog box automatically opens. Choose the Hyperlink To option and choose Last Slide Viewed from the drop-down list. Click OK. This will return you to your current slide when you’re done entering notes. Type Return to label the button. (If typing doesn’t work, right-click the button, and choose Add Text. )


the action settings dialogue box



4. Choose Slide Show > Set Up (Slide) Show. In the Show Slides section of the dialog box, choose the From option and change the first number to 2. This starts your presentation at slide 2, so that the Notes slide never appears until you hyperlink to it. Click OK.

the Show Slides section of the dialog box
5. Choose View > Toolbars > Control Toolbox. (In PowerPoint 2007, click the Developer tab. If you don’t have a Developer tab, click the Office button at the upper-left corner, and choose PowerPoint Options. On the Popular pane, check the Show Developer Tab in the Ribton check box. Click OK.)
6. Click the Text Box button and drag a rectangle on your slide with enough width to comfortably enter notes.


drag a rectangle on slide

7. With the text box selected, right-click and choose Properties to display the Properties sheet. Click the Categorized tab. Change the settings marked with arrows as shown here:


the Properties sheet

• Value: Provides pre-entered text if you want it. The Data item automatically changes to match the Value item.
• EnterKeyBehavior: Set to True so that pressing Enter starts a new line.
• MultiLine: Set to True so that the text box can have multiple lines of text.
• WordWrap: Set to True so that the text wraps if you enter a long line of text.
• Font: Choose a font that you’re sure will exist on the computer you’re presenting on.
• ScrollBars: Use 2-fmScrollBarsVertical to display a vertical scrollbar when you add enough text.

Feel free to play with the other settings to see if they’re useful to you.

8. Close the Properties window by clicking its Close button.
9. To make the Notes slide available from all other slides, open the slide master (View > Master > Master Slide; View > Slide Master in 2007) and insert the blank action button. From the Hyperlink drop-down list, choose Slide. In the Hyperlink to Slide dialog box, choose 1.Notes. Click OK. (You can’t choose First Slide, because that’s slide 2!) As you did earlier, add a lable such as Add Notes, or similar text. Close the Slide Master. If you want access to the Notes slide from only certain slides, add individual action buttons on those slides instead of on the slide master.


the slide master

10. If you want to use this presentation as a template for future presentations, save it and then save it again under a new name. Use the new presentation for now. You can go back to the first presentation and delete all the content from slides 2 on, so that it really works as a template.
11. Test the presentation. When you open it in slide show view, it should start with slide 2. On any slide that has a button (all of them if you put the button on the slide master), click the Add Notes button to go to the Notes slide. You can enter text in the text box. When you’re done, click Return to return to the previous slide you were on.

Because all the notes go on the same Notes slide, you may want to start each note with a notation about the slide you’re working on, perhaps by entering its title.

If you add text to test the text box, you can always delete it in normal view.

After the presentation, when you return to normal view, you’ll be prompted to save the file when you close it. Saving the file will save the notes.

Later, you can open the file in normal view. To copy and paste the notes, select the text box, right-click, and choose TextBox Object > Edit. You’ll now be able to select the text, copy it, and paste it.

Related posts:

1. Designing a Web-Style Presentation
2. Quickly get rid of bullets
3. Create slides from audience input
4. Create a slide show that really slides!
5. Putting Flash animation in PowerPoint