While collaborating on a presentation with someone else, there will be times when you want to give and receive feedback
without actually editing the slides themselves. In situations such as these, the Comments option works very well.
We earlier learned how to
Add, Edit, or Delete
Comments within the PowerPoint 2010 (desktop application). In this tutorial we'll explain how to use commenting and at
the same time collaborate between PowerPoint Online and PowerPoint 2010.
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 2010 at the same time. We worked on the same
presentation on two computers. The same presentation was kept
open within PowerPoint
Online and within the
PowerPoint 2010.
- 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 2010,
note that the comment which was added within PowerPoint Online can be seen within the desktop application
too, as shown highlighted in blue 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 displays
the name of the other people working on the presentation. In
Figure 3, below within the
PowerPoint
Online interface , you can see that a message appears on the top right of the interface showing the name of the other user who is editing the
presentation (highlighted in
red).
Figure 3: PowerPoint Online interface
Now, see
Figure 4 which shows the PowerPoint 2010 desktop application interface. Here within the
Status Bar you can see an icon
(highlighted in
red within
Figure 4) indicating that two people are working
on the active presentation. Click the icon to bring up a pop-up list highlighted in
blue showing names of the users working on this 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 sent a comment within the PowerPoint desktop
application (highlighted in red).

Figure 6: Comment added within the PowerPoint desktop application
- Now, there are chances that within PowerPoint Online, you may not see the recent changes made.
To make sure that the changes are applied and can be seen, you will have to push these changes from within PowerPoint 2010. Click the
Updates Available button within the
Status Bar, as shown highlighted in
green within Figure 6, above. 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.
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 7, below. The same Save button can be seen within
Figure 6, highlighted in blue.

Figure 7: Save button
- Using this process, you can easily collaborate and work on a presentation.
See Also:
Commenting and
Collaborating Between PowerPoint Online (Web App) and PowerPoint 2013