Record Slide Show in PowerPoint 2010 for Windows

Let's imagine that you cannot deliver your slides in person. You then want to do the next best option, that is to deliver your presentation in front of your computer, almost as if you had a live audience present. All this while, all your narrations are being recorded. Even the time you spend on each slide is recorded along with the time taken for each animation to play. You can also record your laser pointer activity if you use PowerPoint's built in laser pointer. All of this can be saved as part of your presentation that you can send to others, and they can see this at their convenience, with your voice accompanying the slide show!

Follow these steps to get started with recording your presentation in PowerPoint 2010:

First of all make sure that you have a decent microphone that is attached to your computer that works well. It also helps if you have a good quality microphone available, this page on microphones for PowerPoint will help.
Thereafter save your presentation. Even better, make a backup copy of your presentation, just in case.
With your presentation open, access the Slide Show tab of the Ribbon, and locate the Record Slide Show button that you can see in Figure 1, below.

Figure 1: Record Slide Show button
Do note that this is essentially a two-part button. Clicking the top part of the button (highlighted in red within Figure 1, above) brings forth the Record Slide Show dialog box, that you see in Figure 2, below.

Figure 2: Record Slide Show dialog box

Clicking the bottom part (highlighted in blue within Figure 1, earlier on this page) reveals the drop-down menu that you can see in Figure 3, below.

Figure 3: Record Slide Show drop-down menu

Options within the Record Slide Show drop-down menu are explained below:

Start Recording from Beginning: This option starts recording your slide show from your first slide onwards, this is the same as clicking the top part of the Record Slide Show button (shown highlighted in red within Figure 1, earlier on this page).

Start Recording from Current Slide: This option starts recording from the active slide. This is best if you have already recorded all slides before the current (active) slide.

Clear: This option is grayed out unless you have previously recorded at least some slides. If not grayed out, this opens a sub-menu, as shown in Figure 4, below.

Figure 4: Clear options for the recording

Options within the Clear sub-menu are explained below:
• Clear Timing on Current Slide: Removes all recorded slide and animation timings on the current slide.

• Clear Timing on All Slides: Removes all recorded slide and animation timings on all slides.

• Clear Narration on Current Slide: Removes recorded narration for the current slide.

• Clear Narration on All Slides: Removes recorded narrations for all slides.

Be careful before you choose any of the above options since these actions are not reversible! It's best to do any changes on a backup copy of your presentation, just in case.
It doesn't matter whether you choose to record from the first slide or the present slide. However there are two options that are already chosen for you (see Figure 2 previously on this page). These two options are:

• Slide and animation timings: Records the time you spend on each slide, and also advances animations as per the exact time you click for them to happen. Note that this only works for On Click animations and not for With Previous or After Previous animations, learn more about the difference between these options in our Animation Events tutorial.

• Narrations and laser pointer: Records narrations you speak over a connected microphone. Also records laser pointer activity (access the Laser Pointer option by pressing the Ctrl key as you move your cursor within Recording view).

You must then press the Start Recording button (refer to Figure 2, earlier on this page).
This begins the Recording view, which essentially is Slide Show view that is equipped with the Recording toolbar that you see in Figure 5, below.

Figure 5: Recording toolbar
From this point onwards, the Recording works in exactly the same way as explained in our Rehearse Slides Timings tutorial - read Step 5 onwards on that page. But although the options look the same, do remember that your narrations are being recorded while Recording.
Save your presentation often.

Note: Do you know that you can bring in narrations within PowerPoint without using the Record Slide Show option? To do so, record your narrations within an external program such as Audacity or Adobe Audition. Then save these narrations as single files, with each individual narration file intended to be used per slide. Thereafter insert them as regular audio files.