Press Present at the bottom of the Slide Deck panel and the deck opens full screen at slide 1, with every part of the editor hidden. The button carries a badge with the number of slides that will run, so you know the length of the deck before you start it; hidden slides are not counted. Slides whose tab hasn't been opened yet are loaded first, so the deck never stalls halfway through.
You don't need the panel open to start: whenever the deck has at least one slide to show, a Present button sits in the top bar, just left of Share, and starts the deck at slide 1 from anywhere in the document. It disappears when there is nothing to show (an empty deck, or every slide hidden), and it is there for everyone on the document, Viewers included, since presenting changes nothing. Like the Slide Deck itself, it is not offered on a phone.
- One slide at a time. Only that slide's elements are drawn; advancing replaces the picture rather than adding to it.
- The backdrop is the slide's tab's: its background colour, pattern and theme.
- The framing fits the slide's elements, with a little padding. If a slide contains exactly one frame, the frame's bounds are used instead, which is how you author precise framing without learning anything new.
- The first slide scales up into view. Then, with the default Slide transition, the next slide sweeps in across the whole screen from the right, backdrop and all (from the left when you go back), so the motion always says which way through the deck you are going. Pick Fade or None from the presenter's cog. If your device is set to reduce motion, you get a cross-fade instead.
The screen stays awake for the run, where the browser allows it, so a slide you talk over for five minutes is not one your laptop dims behind you.
Moving through the deck
| Key | Does |
|---|---|
→, Space, Enter, Page Down, or a click | Next slide (a click only while Click to Advance is on) |
← or Page Up | Previous slide |
Home / End | Jump to the first or last |
G | Open the jump-to-slide list |
N | Show or hide presenter notes |
L / S | Arm the laser / the spotlight |
Esc | Close an open popover, otherwise leave the presentation |
The editor's own shortcuts are dead while a deck runs, all of them, so a stray R cannot drop a rectangle onto the canvas behind the slide.
There are previous and next buttons in the display at the top right too, because a presenter at a projector often has a mouse and no keyboard within reach, and "click anywhere to advance" neither announces itself nor goes backwards.
Past the last slide you get an end card; one more advance closes the deck (unless Loop the Deck is on, when it starts again at slide 1). Leaving puts you back on the tab, the view and the panels you started from, worth having since the last slide usually left the camera zoomed right in on one box.
Each slide is announced to a screen reader as it arrives ("Slide 4 of 12, Rollout plan"), so the deck is followable without seeing the counter.
Pointing at the slide
Two tools reach into a running presentation: press L for the laser and S for the spotlight, and the same key again to put it away. They are the two whose entire job is to point at the canvas, and neither can change it, which is why they are the exception to the rule below.
While one is armed, a click no longer advances the slide: moving draws the laser, and a click sizes the spotlight's beam. The keys and the buttons in the presenter's controls still move the deck. Leaving the presentation puts down a laser or spotlight you picked up during it, returning you to Select.
Read anything, change nothing
Nothing on a slide can be altered. There is no editing, moving or deleting, and none of the session verbs either: no voting, no starting or stopping a timer, no ticking a Done check, no firing a reaction pad. You are on a projector in front of a room, and a stray click that edits the canvas is not a feature.
Live data still reports itself: a timer somebody started before you began presenting goes on counting down on the slide, and a poll shows the results it has.
Click an element and a read-only popover opens with what that element has to say: its note, its comment thread, and any assigned action with its assignee and status. There is no composer: you can show the room the objection somebody left on a box, and you cannot answer it from here.
Because click-to-advance and click-to-inspect are the same gesture, the target decides: a click on an element with a note, comments or an action opens its popover; anywhere else advances the slide. A click outside an open note, settings or element popover just dismisses it rather than skipping ahead.
Presenting is yours alone
Starting a presentation sends nothing to the room. Nobody is pulled into your deck, and collaborators with the document open carry on seeing the document. Anyone already following you with Follow Me still follows your view, so their canvas moves with each slide (they see the whole tab, not the isolated slide). You show it the way you show everything else in the meeting: share your screen.
Edits arriving from other people apply underneath as usual, and a slide re-renders if one of its elements changed.
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