Using Presenter view is a great way to view your presentation with speaker notes on one computer (your laptop, for example), while only the slides themselves appear on the screen that your audience sees (like a larger screen you're projecting to).
If you're using PowerPoint 2013 or a newer version, just connect the monitors and PowerPoint automatically sets up Presenter View for you.
- If Presenter view appears on the wrong screen, you can swap the display quickly.
- Turn off Presenter view if you prefer not to use it.
Start presenting
On the Slide Show tab, in the Start Slide Show group, select From Beginning.
Now, if you are working with PowerPoint on a single monitor and you want to display Presenter view, in Slide Show view, on the control bar at the bottom left, select 
, and then Show Presenter View.
Use the controls in Presenter view
- To move to the previous or next slide, select Previous or Next.
- To view all the slides in your presentation, select See all slides.
Tip: You’ll see thumbnails of all the slides in your presentation (as shown below), making it easy to jump to a specific slide in the show.
- To view a detail in your slide up close, select Zoom into slide, and then point to the part you want to see.
For more details on zooming in, see Zoom in to part of a slide.
- To point to or write on your slides as you present, select Pen and laser pointer tools.
Press the Esc key when you want to turn off the pen, laser pointer, or highlighter.
- To hide or unhide the current slide in your presentation, select Black or unblack slide show.
You can use PowerPoint on your smartphone as a remote control to run your presentation and view your speaker notes. See Using a laser pointer on your smartphone when presenting in PowerPoint for more information, including a brief video.
Swap the Presenter view and Slide view monitors
To manually determine which screen shows your notes in Presenter view and which shows only the slides themselves, on the task bar at the top of Presenter view, select Display Settings, and then select Swap Presenter View and Slide Show.
What the notes look like in Presenter view
Tip: For information on how to add speaker notes to your presentation see Add speaker notes to your slides.
When your computer is connected to a projector and you start the slide show 
, Presenter View appears on your computer's screen, while only the slides appear on the projector screen. In Presenter view, you can see your notes as you present, while the audience sees only your slides.
The notes appear in a pane on the right. The text wrap automatically, and a vertical scroll bar appears if necessary. You can change the size of the text in the Notes pane by using the two buttons at the lower left corner of the Notes pane:
To change the size of the panes in Presenter View, point your mouse at the vertical line that separates them, then click and drag.
Tip: If you don't need to see the current slide in Presenter View at all, and would like your notes to be larger, drag that vertical separator line all the way to the left.
Turn off Presenter view
If you want Presenter view turned off while you are showing your presentation to others:
On the Slide Show tab of the ribbon, clear the check box named Use Presenter View.
Keep your slides updated
If you're working with a team of people to create your slide deck it may be that changes are being made to the slides right up to the last minute. Traditionally once you've started your presentation your slides wouldn't update. If you're using PowerPoint for Microsoft 365 you have the option to let your slides be updated by your team even as you're presenting so that you always have the up-to-the-minute changes.
You can turn this on by going to the Slide Show tab of the ribbon, selecting Set Up Slide Show, and checking the box for Keep slides updated.
If you've already started your presentation and you want to make sure that setting is on, you can do that from Presenter view. Select the More slide show options button (which looks like three dots) and on the menu make sure Keep Slides Updated is checked.
