The Comments option works well when you are collaborating on a presentation with someone else
and you want to give and receive feedback without actually editing the slides themselves. In our commenting
series of tutorials we already learnt how to
Add, Edit, or Delete Comments
within PowerPoint's desktop application - we also explored
Commenting within
PowerPoint Online (OneDrive). In this tutorial we'll explain how to use commenting and at the same time
collaborate between PowerPoint Online and
PowerPoint 2013 (desktop application).
Note: A Comment is a note that can be attached to any slide object or to a whole slide - you
can edit comments and even receive replies for comments.
This tutorial shows an example of adding and replying comments in PowerPoint Online and
PowerPoint 2013 desktop application at the same time. We worked on same presentation on two computers, the
presentation was kept
opened within PowerPoint Online and the same presentation was kept
open within the
PowerPoint 2013 desktop application:
-
Open the shared presentation within PowerPoint Online and
add a comment.
Figure 1, below shows that a
comment has been added
to the presentation (highlighted in red within Figure 1).
Figure 1: Comment added to presentation within PowerPoint Online
-
Now, open the same presentation within the PowerPoint desktop application (we are using PowerPoint 2013). Note that the comment which was added within PowerPoint Online can be seen within the desktop application
too, as shown highlighted in red within Figure 2.

Figure 2: Comment can be seen within the PowerPoint desktop application
Note: If more than one person is working on the same presentation, PowerPoint Online and
the PowerPoint desktop application both indicate the number of people working. In
Figure 3,
below within the
PowerPoint
Online interface you can see that a message appears on the top right of the interface showing two people are
editing the presentation (highlighted in
red).
Figure 3: PowerPoint Online interface
Now, see
Figure 4 which shows the PowerPoint 2013 desktop application interface. Here within the
Status Bar you can see an icon
(highlighted in
red within
Figure 4) showing two people are working
on the presentation. Place your cursor over the icon to bring up a pop-up list highlighted in
blue showing names of user working on the presentation.
Figure 4: PowerPoint desktop application
Also, within the PowerPoint desktop application, you can access the
File |
Info menu option to bring up the
Backstage view, as shown
Figure 5. Here
also, you see names of users currently editing the presentation (highlighted in
red
within
Figure 5).
Figure 5: Info Backstage view within PowerPoint desktop application
- In Figure 6, you can see that the second collaborator made the change based on the feedback
sent earlier. While making the change, this collaborator also replied to the comment within the PowerPoint
desktop application (highlighted in red).

Figure 6: Comment replied within the PowerPoint desktop application
- The change and the reply can also be seen within PowerPoint Online, as shown in Figure 7.

Figure 7: Change and reply can be seen within PowerPoint Online
- Within PowerPoint Online, the first collaborator again replied to the previous comment, as shown highlighted
in red within Figure 8.

Figure 8: Replied to a comment within PowerPoint Online
- Now, within the PowerPoint desktop application you may not see the recent changes made from PowerPoint
Online. To see the changes made to the presentation and any comment received, click the Updates Available button within the
Status Bar, as shown highlighted in
red within Figure 9. This button appears to indicate that there has been some update
made by the other collaborator / author. When you click this button, the changes get applied.

Figure 9: Updates Available button
Alternatively, click the File | Info menu option - here too, you can see the
message that says Document Updates Available. To apply these changes, click the
Save button as shown highlighted in red within
Figure 10, below.

Figure 10: Save button
- Using this process, you can easily collaborate and work on a presentation.