Slide Show View in PowerPoint 2011 for Mac

Every presentation is created for a reason, and whatever that reason may be, its fulfillment often requires that a presentation is shown in PowerPoint's Slide Show view. Slide Show view typically plays your presentation in full-screen mode, as shown in Figure 1, below, although that setting can be changed if you want. We show you how to do that later in this tutorial.

Figure 1: Slide Show view

Start Slide Show

You can use Slide Show view to deliver your presentation to your audience. To access Slide Show view in PowerPoint 2011 for Mac, you can choose any of these options:

1. Choose the View | Slide Show menu option to play the presentation from the first slide.
2. Click the Slide Show button on the Status Bar to play the presentation from the active slide, as shown in Figure 2, below, where the Slide Show button has been highlighted in red.
3. 
   Figure 2: Slide Show button on the Status Bar
3. To play the presentation from the first slide, press the F5 key.
4. To play the presentation from the selected/active slide, you can press both the Shift and F5 keys together.

PowerPoint Keyboard Shortcuts

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Explore our PowerPoint Keyboard Shortcuts and Sequences Ebook that is updated for all PowerPoint versions.

End Slide Show

To exit Slide Show view, press the Esc (Escape) key. You may also be able to right-click on an empty area of the slide and choose the End Show option, as shown in Figure 3, below.

Figure 3: End Show option

Remember that Slide Show view is purely a display view and no editing can be done on slides during Slide Show. However, Slide Show view has some options that are only available within this view. If you hover your cursor over the bottom left area of the slide, you'll find four watermarked navigation icons, as shown in Figure 4, below.

Figure 4: 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, as shown in Figure 5, below. 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 Pen Color menu option, as shown in Figure 5.
3. 
   Figure 5: Pen options
3. Menu: This icon, when clicked, opens a menu similar to Figure 3. 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 so, choose the Slide Show | Set Up Show menu option to bring up the dialog box, as shown in Figure 6, below.

Figure 6: Set Up Show dialog box

In the Show type area, you can choose the Browsed by an individual option, as shown highlighted in red within Figure 6, above. Turning on this option plays your presentation in a window, as shown in Figure 7, below.

Figure 7: Slide Show within a window

Also within the Set Up Show dialog box, you will find Browsed at a kiosk option, as shown highlighted in blue within Figure 6, 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. That is something we will explore in a subsequent tutorial.