Viewing Presentations
This page covers reading a presentation: opening a file, moving between slides, zooming, and viewing speaker notes. You can do all of this without editing being enabled.
Opening a file
How a presentation gets loaded depends on the app you are using:
- Many apps load a presentation automatically (for example, from a link or a server).
- Apps that let you pick a file usually offer an Open action in the toolbar's File tab, or a drag-and-drop area.
Encrypted files
If the file is password-protected, the app shows a password dialog. Enter the password to decrypt and open the presentation.
Once loaded, the first slide appears on the slide canvas in the centre, with a strip of slide thumbnails in the slides panel on the left.
Navigating slides
You can move between slides in several ways:
- Slides panel - Click any thumbnail on the left to jump straight to that slide.
- Arrow keys - With nothing selected on the canvas, press Left Arrow / Right Arrow to step to the previous / next slide.
- Click navigation - Some elements (such as "Zoom" links) jump to another slide when clicked.
The slides panel highlights the slide you are currently viewing, and the status bar at the bottom shows the current slide number.
Hidden slides
Slides that have been marked as hidden are dimmed in the slides panel and are skipped during a slideshow, but you can still view and edit them while working.
Zooming and fitting
Use the zoom controls in the status bar (or the View toolbar tab) to change how large the slide appears:
| Control | What it does |
|---|---|
| Zoom in | Increases the zoom in steps. |
| Zoom out | Decreases the zoom in steps. |
| Fit | Scales the slide to fit the available canvas area. |
| Reset / 100% | Returns to actual size. |
| Zoom to selection | (Edit mode) Zooms in on the currently selected element. |
You can also hold Ctrl/Cmd and scroll the mouse wheel over the canvas to zoom in and out smoothly. Drag on empty canvas space to pan when zoomed in.
The slide sorter
The slide sorter is a full-screen grid of all your slides, useful for getting an overview and reordering many slides at once. Open it from the View toolbar tab.
In the sorter you can:
- See every slide as a larger thumbnail in a grid.
- Drag and drop slides to reorder them.
- Zoom the thumbnails in and out.
- Double-click a slide to jump to it and close the sorter.
Close the sorter to return to the normal editing view.
Speaker notes
If a slide has speaker notes, they appear in the notes panel below the canvas. Click into the notes area to read the full text. (In edit mode you can also type here - see Editing.)
During a slideshow, notes are shown in presenter view rather than on the slide itself - see Presenting.
Going fullscreen
To view the presentation as a fullscreen slideshow - with transitions and animations playing - start presentation mode. This is covered in detail on the Presenting page.
Next
- Make changes to slides: Editing Slides
- Run a slideshow: Presenting