You may know that you can draw on your slide while presenting in Slide Show view. Most people don’t use this feature very much, because the results look pretty sloppy.
I used the Highlighter option in this slide. As you can see, the circle is pretty messy, but might be OK for an internal presentation when you want to spontaneously emphasize something on a slide. However, if you know in advance that you’ll want to emphasize something, I’d recommend animating a circle around it. (See my tip, Circle an object.)
First, I’ll explain how to use the ink pen and then I’ll explain what I learned that I never knew before.
How to use the ink pen
- Go into Slide Show view.
- Right-click and choose Pointer Options, then choose one of the options. Here you see the options in PowerPoint 2010. PowerPoint 2003 and 2007 have an extra option, Felt Tip. (I wonder why that option was removed in 2010.) Here you see the Highlighter option selected.
Note: You don’t have the Pointer Options menu item if you’re not using Slide Show view full screen, that is, if you chose the Browsed by an Individual option in the Set Up (Slide) Show dialog box.
- Right-click again and choose Pointer Options> Ink Color, then choose a color. You need to choose a color after choosing an ink type. Note that you can only choose from the theme colors/color scheme or basic colors; there’s no option to choose any color you want.
- Draw away!
- When you’re done, you have a couple of choices to move to the next slide. The problem is you don’t have an arrow pointer, so you can’t just click to go to the next slide. One option is to use the keyboard. You can press the Down arrow or the “N” key, for example. On your next slide, your arrow is automatically back. Or, you can right-click again and choose Pointer Options> Arrow. I couldn’t figure out a way to keep the pen or highlighter for more than one slide.
- When you’ve finished your presentation and return to Normal view, you see this dialog box. Click Keep to save the ink.
What I didn’t know
You can change the color of the ink! You can edit the ink shapes!
When you return to Normal view and select your saved ink annotations, the Ink Tools Pens tab appears in PowerPoint 2007 and 2010. In PowerPoint 2003, you can right-click and choose Format Ink. (The Format Ink dialog box looks just like the Format AutoShape dialog box, but many of the options are unavailable.)
In the Pens group, you can choose a style, or use the Color drop-down list to choose any color you want. This option gives you more color choices than you have when drawing the ink annotations. You can also use the Thickness/Weight drop-down list to change the thickness of the ink. (The tab in PowerPoint 2007 has fewer options.)
Finally, you can use the grips to change the ink’s size and you can drag the ink annotation to change its location.
I haven’t been able to find a way to create ink in Normal view.
Scribbling
You can create a similar effect using the Scribble shape, but you can’t format the width to be as wide as the highlighter option.
I was trying to get a line that looked as if it was drawn with crayon, and the ink tools fit the bill perfectly!
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Great Post! Annotating slides is a great way to make presentations more interactive, and to get your audience engaged, and I haven’t seen the annotation features in PowerPoint used in this way before.
Other ways to do this include buying something like PAPERSHOW – a pad and pen set where you can actually draw on a pad, and it shows up on screen. This sort of thing is great for really interactive, spur-of-the-moment annotations and presenting.
For a more professional finish, different animation effects can be used within PowerPoint to highlight important features. As well as animating a circle, colour change, zoom, and transparency can be used to emphasise or de-emphasise objects and text on a slide. The advantage of these is that they are already built into a presentation, so you don’t have to worry about messing around with the pointer during a presentation.
Thanks for this… it’s certainly got me thinking!
Hi Ellen,
many thanks on this tip. i am only starting in presenting in public (it’s through work, so nothing major) and trying to find the best way to use PP. I came across your blog and I immediately felt inspired with all the great advice. Many thanks for this!
why i coun’t ink how to use pen convert ink drawings to shapes in powerpoint 2010
pls. tell me
thank you
Try using the scribble or freeform shape instead.
When you see the ink tools tool bar, right click a tool, then add to ribbon. Then those tools are always available.
We’re using a macro to keep the highlighter enabled throughout a presentation, as my boss likes to use a touchscreen to make the occasional markup while presenting. A new quirk of PowerPoint 2010 is that the ink tools cannot coexist alongside an active animation.
For example, in PowerPoint 2007, we’d embed videos, repeating engineering process animations, etc., and could draw right over the top of them, while they were playing. Now, the ink cursor transforms to the regular arrow cursor for the duration of the animation. Meaning, if he accidentally touches the screen while the animation is playing, he either cancels out the animation, or proceeds to the next slide. The ink cursor returns when a “non-animated” slide appears.
The same features (in the same files, on the same computer) work fine when opened in PPT2k7.
I can’t find any information on this issue at all. It was a nice feature while it lasted, though.
In 2007, when I right-click and choose one of the pens, the animation stops. I was able to do both only by setting the animation to be on click, then choosing a pen, and finally pressing Enter to get the animation to start. Is that what you did?
You’re right that 2010 is different, but if I start drawing first, then press Enter, I can continue to draw while the animation continues. But funnily enough, the path of the animated object (I was using a motion path) erases some of the ink!
Thanks for your reply. We choose a pen on the very first slide, and it persists throughout the presentation. That much works in 2007 and 2010, SP1. It means we’re not required to click or interact with any of the slides, other than using our MasterCue to advance the slides.
In 2007, if an animation is set to start along with a given slide, we can continue marking up the slide, even right on top of the animation.
In 2010, we can only markup if the animation is inactive, i.e., it’s set to start on click, and we haven’t clicked yet.
It’s not really relevant to the issue, but we use a macro to automate choosing a red highlighter right at the start of the presentation. We thought the pen was too hard for people to see. The red highlighter is just transparent enough so that you can still see the underlying content.
a million thanks for clear and simple quidance! was really helpful!