PowerPoint

While presenting in Teams via PowerPoint Live, there is a grid view of your presentation so you can see an overview of slides. To show Grid View, you can click the icon in the toolbar under the slides or use the short key G to bring up.

The important thing to know if the audience continues to see the current slide full screen. They do not see the slide sort, or Grid View. In grid view the active slide that the audience is seeing is highlighted with an orange outline.

As the presenter, you can click any slide to make that the active presentation slide (eg. go out of order). Or click the X in the upper right hand corner to close Grid View and continue presenting the current active slide.

Troy @ TLC

The Teams version of Presenter View is based on the PowerPoint desktop Presenter View (which needs improvement). Fortunately the Teams dev team is able to pick some of the best part of Presenter View, ignore some of the areas that are not well executed, and add some new features (that are needed in the desktop Presenter View!). At this time, in the Teams Presenter View, if you do not need the presenter notes, the film strip thumbnails along the bottom or Presenter View tools – a presenter can easily hide them.

The default view when presenting a PowerPoint presentation in Teams, is presenter view. Notes are displayed to the right and the film strip thumbnails along the bottom.

If you don’t have any notes or do not need to see the slide thumbnails, there is an option to show slides only. Do this by clicking the 3 dot menu under the active slide (1) and click “Hide Presenter View” (2).

Now the slides are larger, front, and center. You still have access to the tools if needed.

A new feature in Teams, is the Standout mode while presenting. This is a very cool feature, and I am certain just the start of a technology shift that will become a trend in presenting. Standout Model allows your webcam to be superimposed OVER the slides while you’re presenting. AND, it uses a digital green screen to only show you, the presenter on top of your presentation slides.

Here is how to do it.

1. With your webcam turned on, click the Standout button (second icon in the Presenter Mode section at the top of the screen).
   
2. Now your video feed is super imposed over your slides (1) and your regular teams camera view (2) is turned off. Teams will automatically remove your background.
   

Note: the digital green screen is not going to produce perfect results. Green screen technology itself relies on profession, even lighting – something most office and desk setups do not have. And the digital part of the digital green screen technology is still new and the code will get better and detecting edges and separating the presenter from the background.

Troy @ TLC