Slide Show View in PowerPoint 2010 for Windows

When your presentation has been created, it is time to show it in front of an audience. Typically, the view that plays your presentation in full screen mode is Slide Show (see Figure 1). Even Slide Show view does have a subset of two similar, but different views, and we tell you more about those similar views later in this tutorial. For now, we will explore Slide Show view, which restricts itself to displaying only the slides.

Figure 1: Slide Show view

You use Slide Show view to deliver your presentation to an audience, to access Slide Show view, you can choose any of these options:

1. Click the Slide Show button on the Status bar to play the presentation from the active slide (highlighted in red in Figure 2).
2. 
   Figure 2: Slide Show button on the Status bar
2. Access the Slide Show tab of the Ribbon (see Figure 3).
3. 
   Figure 3: Slide Show tab of the Ribbon
4. Choose one of the following options:

1. From Beginning: To start the slide show from the first slide of the presentation. You can also use the F5 shortcut key.
2. From Current Slide: To start the slide show from the active slide. You can also use the Shift + F5 shortcut key.

To exit Slide Show view, press the Esc (Escape) key. You may also be able to right-click on the slide, and choose the End Show option in the resultant menu, as shown highlighted in red in Figure 4.

Figure 4: End Show option

Remember that Slide Show view is purely a display view and no editing can be done on slides at this point of time. However, Slide Show view has some navigation and annotation options. If you hover your cursor over the bottom left area of the slide, you'll find four watermarked navigation icons that you can see in Figure 5.

Figure 5: Navigation icons within Slide Show view

These icons are explained below (from left to right):

1. Previous Slide: Click this icon to navigate to the previous slide.
2. Pen: Click to bring up the context menu shown in Figure 6. Here you can choose properties for the cursor - such as hiding the cursor, showing an arrow, or changing the cursor to a Pen. When you choose the Pen option, you can actually scribble and annotate over your slide almost like writing on a virtual whiteboard. Also you can change the Pen color through the Ink Color menu option (again, shown in Figure 6, below).
3. 
   Figure 6: Pen options
3. Menu: This icon, when clicked, opens a menu similar to as shown in Figure 4 above, the only difference is that the Pen options are not shown in this menu.
4. Next Slide: Click this icon to navigate to the next slide.

By default, Slide Show view works in full screen mode but you can change that too, to do that access the Slide Show tab of the Ribbon, locate the Set Up group, and click the Set Up Slide Show button, highlighted in red in Figure 7.

Figure 7: Set Up Slide Show button within Set Up group

Alternatively, you can Shift + click the Slide Show (highlighted in red in Figure 2 above) button on the Status bar. Either of these options brings up the Set Up Show dialog box, as shown in Figure 8.

Figure 8: Set Up Show dialog box

In the Show type area, you can choose the Browsed by an individual (window) option (highlighted in red in Figure 7, above). Turning on this option plays your presentation in a window, as shown in Figure 9, this is the exact equivalent of Reading View.

Figure 9: Slide Show within a window

Also within the Set Up Show dialog box, you will find Browsed at a kiosk (full screen) option (highlighted in blue in Figure 8, above). Turning on this option displays the presentation in full screen mode but none of your navigation options such as a mouse click or the keyboard will let you move from one slide to another, you will have to add navigation options on your own using internal hyperlinks or Action Buttons.