The PowerPoint® Blog

Microsoft Teams is unique. PowerPoint is not needed to present. Okay, to clarify, PowerPoint for Web is integrated into Microsoft Teams, so the Desktop app of PowerPoint is not necessarily needed to run a presentation. Further, it is more than PowerPoint for Web as Teams offers its own special version of Presenter View. Overall, it is a somewhat tangled and confusing scenario of what application to use, when. I am going to start with what I think is Microsoft’s presenting option they would like us to adopt and use (note: I see advantages and disadvantages).

1. To present in Teams, you must first be in a Teams meeting (Tip: you can start a meeting with just you in the meeting to test and practice a presentation). Here are the two most common ways of starting a presentation:
   1. Open the presentation from Teams, so it is PowerPoint in Teams. Click “Present in Teams” in the upper right corner of the presentation
      
   2. From Teams, before opening the presentation, go to “Share Content” in the Teams meeting, navigate down to “PowerPoint Live” then choose a recently opened file or click “Browse” to find another presentation.
      
2. In both options, next is Teams launching the presentation
   
3. When the presentation opens, it will be a version of Presenter View. In the Microsoft Teams version of Presenter View, the familiar PowerPoint Presenter View layout and options are available. The top band also includes several Teams features. The bottom is the “film strip” preview of slides (similar to PowerPoint for Mac) and presence indicators of who is in the PowerPoint file.
   
   This is a common confusion area. As a presenter, your Teams meeting is taken over by the presentation Presenter View. However, the audience only sees the 16×9 PowerPoint slides.
   TIP: with this version of Presenter View, your mouse IS NOT seen, even if it over the 16×9 slide area (see below note about the virtual laser pointer).
   TIP: the full slide sorter is available, along with the film strip slide thumbnails.
   TIP: if you do not want Presenter View, you can view the slides full frame (removes presenter notes and film strip thumbnails, but keeps the presentation tools.
   
4. The Teams Presenter View re are tools to aid in presenting:
   
   1. Cursor (click to turn off any of the other tools; laser, marker, highlighter, eraser)
   2. Laser Pointer (use this for the audience to see when you want to “point” to the slides. Click again to turn off or click the Cursor icon to turn off. Click the Laser Pointer to change color)
   3. Marker (default is the red marker, but presenter can choose other colors and marker thickness. Click the marker to change color/thickness)
   4. Yellow Highlighter (Click the highlighter to change color/thickness)
   5. Eraser (used to remove slide inking – from the marker tool)

When working on files hosted on a Team, anyone in the organization with access to the Team can make changes to the files. The ability for everyone to access the file, and collaboration of everyone working in the same file, at the same time, is amazing! BUT, if you want to prevent people from editing a file while you finalize it, or use it for a meeting, the Teams “Check Out” file feature is the solution!

1. In Teams (also works if open and viewing as a SharePoint list in a browser tab), click the three dot menu next to the file name to show the Action options
2. Click More then CHECK OUT
   
3. To check out the file, no one can have the file open. In this example, I had a copy of the file open and another member tried to check it out but received an error message:
   
4. Once you check the file out, you can see a quick indicator of what files you have checked out on the file view. A gray arrow icon (1) indicates someone else has the file checked out. A red arrow icon (2) indicates you have the file checked out.
   
5. No one else can make changes to the file including making edits or file properties (renaming or moving the file) while you have the file checked out. Others will be able to view a read only copy of the file on the app or in Teams:
   
   
6. However, they are able to save a COPY of the file to edit or DOWNLOAD a copy of the file to edit and would need to send an updated version to merge edits manually to the checked out file (just so you know what can happen, and the file version control issues that can still come up even with using the Check Out file feature).
   
   

Many thanks to Amber on the TLC Creative team for putting together this example! Moving forward we are going to leave the technical side of Teams and continue this Microsoft Teams series with presenting in Teams!

Troy @ TLC

Sometimes Teams does not display the updated file list right away, which is confusing and frustrating. The files are there, but you can’t see them in the list.

For example, looking at the files list in SharePoint (which always does an automatic refresh and displays the real files view), it shows 4 documents. We added a copy of one of the files in Teams, and SharePoint view displays all 4 files.

SharePoint:

Here is Teams, where the file was added, but it is still displaying only 3 files:

To assure you are seeing an accurate list of files, click the “Reload Tab” or the swirly arrow in the upper right, next to the “Meet” button.

After clicking the Reload Tab button, now all 4 files are displayed in the Teams list!

Microsoft Teams is the newest addition to Microsoft’s offerings and it is evolving quickly (hey, the reload tab button was not in the original release of Teams!). I am hopeful that this blog post becomes outdated and Teams does a better job of refreshing and always displaying an accurate file list. Until then, everyone needs to know about, and use, the Reload Tab button 🙂

Troy @ TLC

The file explorer in Microsoft Teams does not, by default, show the file size – which I really miss.

To show file size, follow these steps (will need to be done for each separate Team environment)

1. Click the three dots next to a file and click “Open in Sharepoint”
   
2. In SharePoint, click “Return to classic SharePoint” in lower left of screen.
   
3. Click “Library” near the top left of screen.
   
4. Click “Modify View”.
   
5. Find “File Size” in the Column Name list, and check the box and click “OK” in upper right to save changes.
   
6. Back in Teams, File Size should now be displayed. You may need to click refresh (Circle Arrow in upper right next to the Meet button) to see changes.
   
7. Please note, file size only displays for individual files, not for folders.
   

Troy @ TLC

The TLC Creative Services team has over the past 2 years gone from using Microsoft Teams as a novelty, to a more forced use when Microsoft killed off Skype for Business, and now it has become integrated into our daily workflow (and we like it). Like anyone that uses an app a lot, you cringe when you see others not using that app to its fullest. So, here are 10 Microsoft Teams tips to make your use of it hopefully better 🙂

Troy @ TLC