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How to Present PowerPoint Slides in Microsoft Teams

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A successful PowerPoint presentation extends beyond just the content—its delivery is just as important, especially in a virtual space like Microsoft Teams.

In Microsoft Teams, you can choose to present your slide deck by sharing your entire screen, PowerPoint window, or using the Microsoft Teams' PowerPoint Live feature. Let's explore how you can use each of these three methods and discuss their pros and cons.

Method 1: Share Screen

Sharing your screen in Microsoft Teams is pretty easy and straightforward. It's best to minimize or close unnecessary tabs before joining the Microsoft Teams meeting to avoid exposing sensitive information. Once you're confident in your screen's content, follow the steps below:

• A red border appears around your desktop, indicating you're sharing your screen.

• Present your PowerPoint slideshow.

Sharing your screen is a straightforward method, especially when you want to present other documents besides your PowerPoint slideshow. However, the downside is that you may accidentally reveal sensitive information.

Method 2: Share PowerPoint Window

If you want only to present your PowerPoint slide deck, it's best to share just that window. Here's how:

• A red border will appear around your PowerPoint window, indicating you're sharing just that window.
• Launch your slides in slideshow mode and start presenting.
• Open the Microsoft Teams window and click Stop sharing when you're done presenting.

Sharing just your PowerPoint window prevents accidental display of sensitive desktop content. Even if you switch windows, viewers only see the PowerPoint presentation.

However, this method also has its limitations. One of the main limits is that you can't view your PowerPoint speaker notes without the audience seeing them as well. You also can't access Microsoft Teams features like the chat and reactions during your presentation.

Additionally, If your network connection has low bandwidth or slow upload speed , sharing your screen can result in a blurry and stuttering presentation for the audience. Thankfully, the PowerPoint Live feature provides the solution to these issues.

Method 3: Use PowerPoint Live

Presenting with the PowerPoint Live feature is easy and provides additional benefits. Your audience only sees the slides, while you get to see all the extra controls that come with the presenter view. When using the presenter view in your presentation, you have a few helpful tools at your disposal:

• You can easily adjust the font size of your slide notes to make them more readable.
• To navigate between slides, simply click on the corresponding thumbnail.
• You can use the laser pointer, pen, or highlighter tools to draw attention to specific areas of a slide.
• Use the Standout layout to place your camera feed on the slide without the background.
• Use the Cameo layout to insert yourself into the slide, provided you've set up Cameo to record customized camera feeds .

Here's how you can use PowerPoint Live to share your presentation:

• When it's your turn to present, click Share .

• When you're done presenting, click Stop sharing in the top toolbar.

The PowerPoint Live feature tackles the limitations of sharing your entire screen or PowerPoint window. It also comes with really cool features like co-presenting and allowing attendees to click on links in the presentation.

Your Audience's View When Using PowerPoint Live

In addition to the main slide view, your audience also has access to the slide navigation, grid, and more options controls (the three dots icon below the slides).

This means they can navigate the slides at their own pace and change specific slide settings to suit their preference without affecting your view and that of others. If you find this non-ideal for delivering an engaging presentation , you can disable the audience's navigation control. To do so, enable Private view in the top toolbar.

By default, each meeting attendee joins as a presenter. This means they can share their own content or control someone else's presentation. If that's not what you want, you can change each person's meeting roles in Microsoft Teams to prevent it.

Deliver a Seamless Presentation Experience in Microsoft Teams

Presenting your PowerPoint slides in Microsoft Teams might seem tricky at first, but once you get the hang of it, it's a piece of cake. Practice makes perfect. So before your next Teams presentation, familiarize yourself with your chosen method to ensure an effective delivery.

• Productivity
• Microsoft Teams
• Microsoft PowerPoint

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The Ultimate How To Guide for Presenting Content in Microsoft Teams

Sharing / presenting content in Teams meeting is at the same time simple but is also has some options available that may not be known enough by everyone. This guide lets you get started and dive deeper what happens when you share your window, document or desktop in Microsoft Teams.

This article will be updated when there are new features or based on feedback.

Updated 22.3.2021 Presenter View section.

Community: I am happy to add Mac and iOS screenshots into the article as well if someone is willing to collaborate & provide them. 😎💪

Teams Desktop: sharing a screen (Windows)

Opening the sharing with Microsoft Teams Desktop (in the New Meeting experience mode).

This opens the Share Tray. From it you can choose to start sharing

• Your Desktop (Screen share)
• Specific application (Window)
• Whiteboard application: either Microsoft Whiteboard (natively with Microsoft 365) or available 3rd party Whiteboards
• PowerPoint document

TIP: When you choose to share something using Teams Desktop you can choose to include your computer sounds to meeting. This is a must-have option if you are playing music or video to your participants. You can not toggle this on later – you need to choose this when you start sharing.

When you choose to include computer sound included with the sharing you need to have configured the speaker for computer and Teams meeting to be the same one.

If you have multiple monitors available for your Microsoft Teams you can choose any of those displays.

And you have the sharing open. Shared area is marked with red rectangle around it. You will find the more smaller Teams meeting control window in one of your desktops – and if you have the camera on it will show the video.

But more importantly you can use that small window to control camera, audio or sharing (ending it with one press). Or you can click on the small window (not on meeting toolbar) and it will expand back to the full size.

You can use that same icon to stop sharing in the expanded window.

Tip: If you have two screens available you should consider presenting your PowerPoint presentation so that you share the external screen and project your presentation there (PowerPoint – Slide Show – Monitor). Share that external screen to Teams meeting so you can be sure that whatever you show in that screen it is shown to attendees. Just check that your second screen is not a ultra-wide display or 8k (or preferably even 4k) because the content is going to be tough to read and view by attendees. FullHD screen works the best here.

Tip2: when you are presenting PowerPoint in external screen (and sharing that to Teams meeting) do they advantage of inking and pen if you are using a device with touch screen (like Surface)!

Tip3: if you have an embedded video in your PowerPoint and you use screen/display sharing to present it to the audience: Don’t forget include computer sound with your share!

Teams Desktop: sharing a PowerPoint

You can choose from your recent PowerPoint documents in the list

• A PowerPoint document you opened or edited in Microsoft Teams (in a team you belong to) or in your OneDrive
• Browse for more

This list of sharing PowerPoints is causing often some big questions. PowerPoints will appear in the list once you edit or open the PowerPoint presentation in Teams or OneDrive (there may be some short delay). Generally it applies to the next meeting you join. Make sure you prepare for the meeting by opening the document in advance. Simply uploading a presentation to OneDrive or Teams does not bring it to the list – you need to open/edit it as well.

Browse-option lets you choose a PowerPoint from your OneDrive or from your computer.

What this one lacks is the ability to choose a file from a team you belong to.

TIP: Use OneDrive syncing to have an easy access to files in the most relevant teams you belong to .

Once you are sharing the PowerPoint you can see it in the presenter view mode! This feature is generally available ! This makes it easy to do presentations using Teams – without having to have a PowerPoint desktop app open at the same time. Seems to work only on Teams Desktop with new meeting experience mode at the moment.

The presented area (PowerPoint) is shown surrounded with a red rectangle.

Updated 22.3.2021. There are other controls in this as well for jumping between slides and accessibility controls.

I have a another article diving deeper to Presenter view in here !

NEW: PowerPoint Live has now laser pointer and inking capabilities. Read about them here !

Once the presentation is shared you can move back and forth easily with arrows in the screen.

Note: there is the “eye” icon. If you press that one it locks the PowerPoint for the participants so that they see the same slide as you do: they can not browse the deck on their own. This is called private viewing disable (arrows for other participants will be disabled). Private viewing is enabled on default.

Note: if you are a presenter in the meeting where a PowerPoint is shared to you can take control of the shared PowerPoint to advance slides. This does not ask for any confirmation and the feature is really useful when you have multiple presenters who use the same slide deck. Just be careful that everyone else are not presenters – or they know not to touch it.

You will get a warning that someone has taken the control and can easily take it back.

Whoever is in control of the presentation has also the control to disable/enable private viewing mode. As can be seen in the picture above (with Take control) the eye is missing and arrows are greyed out: this means someone else than you have the control and they have disable the private viewing.

Note: When you share PowerPoint to a meeting this way participants can click links you have in your presentation. Thank you Joe for this reminder!

If you add a online video to your presentation your participants can activate that on their own as well. It is good also to note that if you hit “play” it doesn’t reflect to attendees (=they need to play the video themselves)

Teams Desktop: sharing a Whiteboard

When you choose Microsoft Whiteboard from the Share Tray you are taken directly to the Whiteboard view. Everyone who is in the same organization as you are (the situation in January 2021) can co-author the Whiteboard with you. Once you are done you can Stop presenting (middle top screen) or share something else.

Teams web client: sharing a screen (Microsoft Edge)

Sharing looks a bit different when you are using Teams web client. Sharing is available in (new) Microsoft Edge and Google Chrome browsers. The toolbar is hovering on top of the meeting. From the toolbar you can open the share tray.

When you have the share tray open you can choose to share something of following

• Desktop (Screenshare)
• A specific PowerPoint document
• Whiteboard: either Microsoft Whiteboard or Freehand (3rd party).

• Entire screen
• Application window (a specific application only)
• With Microsoft Edge you have option to choose a selected, specific, tab

When(if) you have multiple monitors it is easiest to just share a one of them: it makes the sharing really simple and easy to manage: anything on that display is shared.

If you don’t have multiple monitors then you might want to just share a single application.

This is useful when you want to show something specific that runs in it’s own application but you can not share anything else on your screen.

Note: Teams is not in the list (not even on blurred ones) and nor is Spotify or ToDo. Not every application can be shared with this.

Note2: you can not share desktop audio to the meeting using Teams web client.

And the last option is to share a selected Edge tab – and if you have multiple Edge profiles open you can share from any of those by clicking the desired Edge active and choosing the tab.

In my example I chose to share one of my screens. You don’t get much feedback – you just click on the screen and hit Share. In one of your screens you will have this toolbar:

You can end sharing using either that toolbar or you can navigate to your web Teams meeting and choose Stop sharing from the toolbar there.

Teams web client: sharing a PowerPoint

This list of sharing PowerPoints is causing often some big questions. PowerPoint presentations will be in the list once you edit or open the PowerPoint presentation in Teams or OneDrive (there may be some short delay). Generally it applies to the next meeting you join. Make sure you prepare for the meeting by opening the document in advance. Simply uploading a presentation to OneDrive or Teams does not bring it to the list – you need to open/edit it as well.

Note: there is the “eye” icon. If you press that one it locks the PowerPoint for the participants so that they see the same slide as you do: they can not browse the deck on their own. This is called private viewing disable. Private viewing is enabled on default.

Whoever is in control of the presentation has also the control to disable/enable private viewing mode.

Teams web client: sharing a Whiteboard

Sharing a Whiteboard is initiated simply by choosing Microsoft Whiteboard (or Freehand or other available 3rd party application) from the share tray.

I have found out that sometimes when you start sharing Microsoft Whiteboard to the meeting using Teams web client it doesn’t do anything. The solution is to try again.

Once the Whiteboard opens you can work on it normally – or choose to open it in the Whiteboard app to have a broader set of tools available.

When you are done you can choose the “Stop presenting” that is hovering on the left bottom area (left of meeting toolbar).

Teams mobile: sharing a screen

Were you aware that you can also share content using your mobile device? I have examples and screenshots using a Android device but these also work with iOS – the user interface might be slightly different.

You initiate the sharing via … menu selection in the mobile to open the list of options

You choose Share and you get to choose what to share

Yes – you can share your mobile device screen to the meeting. This is really useful if you have a application you want to show or train to others.

You may have to adjust settings to turn on allowing Teams to display over other apps.

After that one you may have reshare the screen. And you get the next warning.

And your screen is now shared. You can see the red block that lets you know what are of your mobile device screen has been shared.

And if you pull down notifications area you have option to return to Teams meeting (if you have been using some other app) and there is also the notification that you are sharing your screen.

When you are done sharing you can return to Teams meeting and then choose to Stop presenting.

Teams mobile: sharing a PowerPoint

Sharing a PowerPoint works really well on Teams mobile! It is in fact even better than the version in other clients.

You start by imitating the sharing (as with screen share) and choosing the PowerPoint instead. You get a screen:

From this screen you can choose to browser thought

• A PowerPoint presentation from any Team and channel you belong to!
• Choose a PowerPoint presentation you opened or edited most recently (as you notice compared to other examples that this isn’t 1:1 in sync.. There are differences so that is why I am really happy that you can browse through Teams for sharing)

Once you have selected the PowerPoint to present it is very straight forward from that moment.

Using Teams mobile you can also take control of a PowerPoint someone else is presenting (if you are a presenter in the meeting). This means that you can participate in a multi-presenter meeting quite easily by using just your mobile device and Teams!

You will get a warning before you take the control – in case you pressed Take Control accidentally.

Teams mobile: sharing a photo or video

Follow the steps laid out earlier and instead of screen or PowerPoint you select this time a picture (from device’s picture gallery) or a video (using device’s video camera). Since sharing a picture is very straight forward I use the video instead as example.

You get to see a preview of video first. You can switch to other camera (front/back usually) & position the device properly and once you are ready you just hit Start presenting .

And when you are done you can press on “Stop presenting” to end your video feed.

This video is different from showing your own video using Camera icon the meeting toolbar. Instead of being a attendee video this one is shown in the shared area for every participant in the meeting. This is useful when you have something in the same room/space that you want to share to others in the meeting. Possible use cases: a model on table, physical whiteboard, view from the window, interviewing someone, view in the outside, …

Best practices from my experience

The way I use to share content when in Microsoft Teams meetings is

• I share one of my screens (I have three screens so this is a natural choice for me). This way I know what is being shared all the time since I always share the same screen (the one in the middle, my camera is on top of that screen). Be careful what you drag to the shared screen. This is the way I share my PowerPoint presentations (projecting the presentation to the shared screen)
• If you have a touch-screen device (like Surface-laptop) you should use pen/inking to enhance the presentation experience. This also works when you are sharing the external screen & presenting from touch-screen device: make your presentation stand out!
• Prepare the content you share in advance. Open PowerPoints, apps, browsers etc so you don’t have to spend any time with them when you are live.
• Share your screen early rather than later. This will give you time to reshare.
• When doing a presentation with multiple persons using just the PowerPoint deck share it directly to Teams meeting so you can switch between speakers easily. With the new Presenter view -support this is now a good option.
• Make use of Teams features: Put everyone but real presenters else as attendee so they can’t start sharing their screen accidentally – and you can hard mute them as well. Use meeting options -setting before they join in.
• When people complain they don’t see the share: check that you are actually sharing your screen. If someone is seeing your share and some others not: those who can’t see your share need to leave and rejoin the meeting. Sometimes restarting your sharing can fix that issue too but usually the issue is in the participant end.
• I rarely use application / window -sharing.
• Sharing a video in Teams meeting (or in Live event) is usually ok but you can expect some quality drop – especially if you have a lower bandwidth. Have a backup link to the video available. People seem to struggle more with videos embedded inside a PowerPoint.
• Use Windows Focus Assist and Teams Do Not Disturb mode so you don’t get any unwanted popups on your shared screen. Microsoft Teams will also have a upcoming feature (currently usable in public preview) that let’s users to choose if Teams notifications do their own “toast” (pop-up banner) or do they go directly to Windows notification area (honoring the Focust Assist setting).
• Use Teams Desktop version + new meeting experience when possible. Check that you have the latest version.

More information or different view into this?

Check out Microsoft Support article about Sharing content in Microsoft Teams meetings .

I hope you have enjoyed this guide and it has provided to be useful. Please do drop a comment from below if you have any questions or you want to send me greetings!

Sharing is Caring! #CommunityRocks

Aiheeseen liittyy.

Published by Vesa Nopanen

Vesa "Vesku" Nopanen, Principal Consultant and Microsoft MVP (M365 and AI Platform) working on Future Work at Sulava. I work, blog and speak about Future Work : AI, Microsoft 365, Copilot, Microsoft Mesh, Metaverse, and other services & platforms in the cloud connecting digital and physical and people together. I have about 30 years of experience in IT business on multiple industries, domains, and roles. View all posts by Vesa Nopanen

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Home Blog PowerPoint Tutorials How to Share a PowerPoint Presentation on Microsoft Teams

How to Share a PowerPoint Presentation on Microsoft Teams

In recent years many remote meeting tools like Microsoft Teams and Zoom have become the norm for regular remote meetings. If you’re new to Microsoft Teams, the chances are you are still finding your way around various options. One of the most common questions a Microsoft Teams newbie might ask is how to share PowerPoint on Teams.

What is Microsoft Teams?

Microsoft Teams is a messaging app by Microsoft for online collaboration and remote meetings that comes integrated with Microsoft 365. It provides a real-time workspace where end users can collaborate via chat, Teams Channels, Live calls, etc. Microsoft Teams also integrates with other Microsoft products like PowerPoint and OneDrive, enabling instant file sharing via the cloud.

Why use Microsoft Teams to Present Your PowerPoint Presentations?

Many organizations use Microsoft Teams for online collaboration and remote meetings. Organizations with integrated Microsoft products like its Windows operating system, Microsoft Office, and Azure Active Directory prefer Teams as the primary internal and external communication app. Organizations use Microsoft Teams to provide secure accounts to employees, with two-factor authentication and data encryption. These accounts are integrated into the Active Directory, providing scalability and control for IT administrators to offer people within an organization an online collaboration platform that can be securely used within the limits of the organization’s data protection policies.

While there are many alternatives to Microsoft teams, such as Zoom and Google Meet, the integration of teams with other Microsoft products, such as Azure, Microsoft Office apps, and OneDrive, makes it attractive within a secure enterprise environment.

How to Present PowerPoint in Teams?

How to present your PowerPoint slides on Microsoft Teams, let us tell you there are at least two methods for sharing presentations. This includes sharing a PowerPoint file directly and presenting your slide deck before one or more meeting participants, or perhaps PowerPoint templates or Google Slides templates to help a colleague design a slide deck.

How to Attach and Share Your PowerPoint Slides on Teams

To share a PowerPoint file on Microsoft Teams, go to an ongoing conversation or meeting window and click Attach files . This will provide you with the option to either fetch a file via OneDrive or from your device. This option can be used for sharing PowerPoint files and other types of files, such as documents, spreadsheets, videos, compressed files, etc.

When sharing a file, you can add a message optionally before hitting Send .

The recipient and the sender can download the file, open it in a browser, or copy the file link for further sharing.

How to Present Your PowerPoint Slides on Teams

Method #1: use the share button in powerpoint.

You can also directly present your slide deck via Microsoft Teams by sharing your screen to start a Live presentation during a remote meeting instantly. Suppose your organization uses Microsoft Teams regularly. In that case, the chances are you will be using it for presentations during remote meetings; therefore, it’s essential to know how to use the screen-sharing option to present online.

Method #2: Share Screen to Present a PowerPoint Presentation

Another way to present a PowerPoint presentation on Teams is by sharing the screen with your audience. If you share your screen, this will show the audience whatever is visible on the entire screen on your device.

Pros of sharing your screen with the audience to present a presentation:

• It is easier to activate
• You can easily switch to other windows besides the PowerPoint presentation and also share them with the audience

Cons of sharing your entire screen on Teams for presenting:

• If you have confidential data in other windows, you may want to avoid switching the windows and keep only the Slideshow window in front.
• You may accidentally switch to other windows, and your audience can lose focus of the presentation.

Method #3: Share PowerPoint Window to Present Your Slides

If you intend to hide parts of your screen, you can simply share the relevant PowerPoint window so that your audience can only view the presentation. During a Live call, click the Share button and select your screen or window to share.

5 Features to Make the Most from Your Microsoft PowerPoint Presentation Sharing in Teams

Microsoft Teams offers a wide array of features that make it a robust remote meeting and online collaboration app since it leverages the full force of Microsoft 365 and other Microsoft products.

1. Translate Slides into a Different Language

This is a private feature that individuals can use to translate slides in their language instantly. As a presenter, you can ask your audience to use this feature if they deem it convenient to help bridge a gap that might exist due to a language barrier.

Slides can be viewed in a different language via More actions > Translate Slides . From the drop-down list, you can pick a preferred language.

2. Use Live Captions

Microsoft Teams supports Live Captions / Closed Captions (CC) to help persons with disabilities, including those suffering from hearing impairment. Closed Captions can also be helpful for people to translate or view text in a preferred language.

Turn on Live Captions: To enable Live Captions on Teams, go to More options > Turn on live captions . Translate Spoken Language: To translate Live Captions, go to Captions settings > Change spoken language .

Turn Off Live Captions: You can turn off Live captions anytime via More actions > Turn off live captions .

3. View Slides in High Contrast

Viewing slides in high contrast on Teams can have several benefits. For example, it helps you focus on the content and is also helpful for people with visual impairment. To configure your slides to appear in high contrast, follow the steps below:

1. Launch your PowerPoint presentation.

2. Click on the Present tab at the top of the window.3. Go to More action > View slides in high contrast .

4. Annotate your Slides in Real Time

Like any standard remote meeting app, Microsoft Teams also provides a number of handy annotation options to help you make the most out of your PowerPoint presentations. You can click on Start annotation when sharing your full screen during presentations to start annotating slides.

Powered by Microsoft Whiteboard, this powerful feature enables one or more meeting participants or the presenter to annotate presentations. It can also be a helpful feature when you’re looking to collaborate online during a Live presentation.

5. Pop Out the Window

You can separate the presentation window from the Teams window to make it easier to work with the two. This feature can be handy when working with multiple monitors or separating the two windows from uncluttering your screen. You can use this option by clicking on the Pop-out option from the toolbar during a screen-sharing session.

Until now, we have seen how to share presentations specifically on Microsoft Teams. However, there are other ways to share presentations. In our article How to share a PowerPoint presentation we review different methods to share a PPT with others.

How to Stop Presenting on Teams

When presenting your slide deck, you can also present your PowerPoint presentation using any view, be it as a SlideShow or in Normal view. Once you’re done presenting, click Stop Presenting to conclude your session. Furthermore, you can also choose to enable or disable your camera and computer sound when presenting your slides.

To turn off screen sharing during a remote meeting, you can click Stop Sharing .

Present in Teams Button in PowerPoint is Missing. How to Fix it?

Some users might have used the Present in Teams option to share a PowerPoint presentation during a meeting. Suppose you are wondering why the Present in Teams button in PowerPoint Presentations is missing. In that case, this option isn’t available for anyone using the free version of Teams, as only users with a paid subscription, such as a Business Standard or Business Premium Plan. Furthermore, you must share your PowerPoint presentation with OneDrive to use this option. To use the Present in Teams option, upload your PowerPoint presentation to OneDrive. You can do this via File > Save As > OneDrive .

Once done, the Present in Teams button will become available to instantly launch your presentation for sharing during a Teams call.

5 Tips to Make your Presentation a Success on Microsoft Teams

Presenting PowerPoint in Teams can require being mindful of a number of things. This includes accounting for brevity to ensure your presentation does not take more than its designated time, using slides that are suitable for remote meetings. Below is a list of 5 tips to make your presentation successful using Microsoft Teams.

1. Check Your Audio and Video Settings

One of the most annoying problems faced during remote meetings is technical failures such as no or low audio quality. This becomes even more annoying when the meeting organizer or a presenter during their session faces the issue, wasting precious time. This is why you must check your audio and video settings beforehand to ensure everything works correctly. If you need to play a video during your session, make a test call with a colleague and get feedback if the sound and video quality are up to the mark.

2. Make Sure Your Slides are Clear and Concise

Presentations delivered via Microsoft Teams will often take place during scheduled remote meetings. This means that you will have to account for the designated time given for your session, which is why you must ensure that your slides are clear and concise.

3. Use Animations and Transitions Sparingly

Since remote meetings will be attended by participants using different types of computers and mobile devices, some animations and transitions might not be suitable. This is because they can cause Teams to slow down, or the slides might not display appropriately via screen sharing. For example, 3D animations , GIF animations , and objects with elaborate PowerPoint animated sequences might cause issues when displayed via Teams. 

4. Keep Your Slides on Topic

One of the banes of remote meetings is how a discussion can go off-topic very quickly. This is why it’s best to ensure that your slides remain focused on the topic and additional discussions are discouraged during the presentation session.

5. Use Team Members’ Names Sparingly to Call Out Specific Points

Calling out team members for their opinion or advice during a remote meeting can quickly lead to a very lengthy and off-topic discussion. This is why it’s best to call out team members’ sparingly. If you have been using Teams or other remote meeting apps long enough, you would have learned by now that for some topics, it’s best to ask participants to schedule a separate meeting so that the ongoing discussion remains on track.

Other Issues to Troubleshoot while presenting a PowerPoint presentation on Microsoft Teams

Someone has already set up Teams for your organization’s error

If you’re using a premium subscription for Microsoft Teams managed by your organization’s IT team, you might get an error when logging in to Teams. In such a case, you might get the following error:

“Someone has already set up Teams for your organization.”  

If you see the error message mentioned above, this means that your account isn’t ready yet, and you need to contact your organization’s IT team to ask when your account might be ready for use.

We’re sorry–we’ve run into an issue error.

Another prevalent issue is when the following error message appears:

“We’re sorry–we’ve run into an issue.”

This is a generic message, and usually, it can be resolved by clicking the Restart button that appears below the error. In case the issue isn’t resolved after restarting the Teams app, ensure your Internet connection is working. More often than not, the issue is associated with the Internet connection. If the issue persists, you can clear your cache , reinstall Teams or contact your IT support team. The error can also occur if there is an outage affecting Microsoft products or if there is a configuration issue for Microsoft 365 accounts associated with your organization.

Final Words

Using Microsoft Teams to share a presentation file is easy enough. However, when presenting a PowerPoint presentation in Teams, you must decide how to present your slide deck. If you need to switch back and forth between your slides and another document, spreadsheet, or browser window, it might be best to share your entire screen. However, if you wish to focus only on the slide deck, sharing your Window can help you avoid sharing the rest of your screen with the audience.

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You can have your PPT cake and eat it too

PowerPoint is likely one of the most popular apps shared during a Teams meeting. There’s a reason when you bring up the share options, PowerPoint takes up more than a third of it. People present slides all the time. But are they using PowerPoint to its potential when they use Teams? Most people do not. To view a video version of this post (lots of video demos!), press play below. (You should watch it, actually.)

PowerPoint has a lot of really great features and while this isn’t a PowerPoint best practices post, I do really appreciate PowerPoint for many of its professional features, like smooth transitions (Morph can be amazing), slide notes, non-distracting animations, screen annotations, and especially presenter view.

Well, if you’ve ever tried to present a slide deck in Teams, you’ll know that some of these features can be hard to find depending on which method you use to share your slides. There are three main sharing options and these are the only three I’ll cover today.

The three options—and I’m going to stick to this naming convention throughout the post—are The Teams Built-In Share, Desktop Window Share, and Presenter View Share.

TL;DR: For the most part, you want Presenter View Share. Launch your slideshow like you would normally. Alt-Tab to your meeting and share the window (not the screen) , Alt-Tab back to your presentation, right-click, and select Use Presenter View . That's it! Below is a more in-depth review of this way and the most common other ways to share slide decks during a Teams meeting.

Teams Built-In Share

Teams Built-In Share is the first option we’re going to discuss and it uses the built-in PowerPoint option. The sharing drawer shows you all your recent PowerPoint files. Though note that they’re only ones you’ve accessed in SharePoint or OneDrive; you don’t see anything from your local device or other cloud locations like Google Drive. Whether you know it or not, this method makes use of PowerPoint for the web—or formerly known as PowerPointOnline—so you’re getting the “Lite” version of PowerPoint when you present. That can work in many situations, especially if your slides are simple and straight forward.

There are a couple major upsides to this method. First, everything stays right in Teams and you have full control of your computer and its screen, unlike normal presentation mode with PowerPoint, where it completely takes over your screen. The other is that your viewers can actually choose to jump ahead or backward in your slides at their own pace without impacting what others see, which is a benefit you don’t get from any otherPowerPoint sharing option. You can disable this if you want to keep them on the slide you’re presenting, though. I generally don’t like people being able to jump slides on their own; it's usually more a distraction than a benefit. So for me, this isn’t a compelling feature.

The major downsides to this method are that you’re stuck with PowerPoint Lite: animations and transitions are sometimes really poor—and yes, animations and transitions are incredibly powerful for your message when they’re used correctly. But more importantly to me, you don’t get presenter view, so no annotations, no notes, and you have absolutely no idea which slide or animation is coming up next (unless you practice your slides a lot, but let's be real: you probably cobbled them together right before the meeting). Those downsides are the reason that I never use this method, even if it is right up in my face when I want to share a slide deck in Teams. The only way you’ll find me using Teams Built-In Share is once presenter view is built into PowerPoint for the web. 

Desktop Window Share

Desktop Window Share, the second option, is a nice little hack for sharing your presentation from the desktop app, complete with all the slick transitions and animations you’d like. You won’t get presenter view with this method, but you will get safety and comfort of all the full-fledged features in the desktop app and it won’t take up your whole screen while you’re presenting. Though it will include a little chrome in the top toolbar.

This method is similar to what people use when they set up kiosks for people to browse at expos or stores, except in this case, it doesn’t take up the whole screen. To present this way, you need to toggle a setting. Jump into the Slide Show tab in PowerPoint and click Set Up Slide Show . Select Browsed by an individual and click OK.

Now when you present this slideshow, it’ll show your entire slide in its own window, without the rest of PowerPoint showing. It’s like a mini PowerPoint presenter mode. To share this window, jump to your Teams meeting, click Share , and select PowerPoint under the Window section. Handy.

Presenter View Share

Note: This feature seems to have been recently removed from PowerPoint on macOS; I haven't been able to test it on Windows to confirm any impact there. I've reached out to Microsoft for some explanation or insights on this. I'll provide an update when I have one.

And lastly, Presenter View Share is my favorite way to present a slide deck during a Teams meeting and it’s really the subject of this post. Presenter View Share gives you all the features of the desktop app—because that’s what you’re using—including presenter view. That means you get notes and annotations, can see the upcoming slide, and can jump around slides as much as you want.

This technique is actually stupidly simple, but it’s not obvious at all. To share your presentation this way, it works best if you’re only using one monitor. If you have a second monitor, I’d actually recommend disconnecting it. And that’s coming from someone who always uses two monitors. The reason for that is the feature isn't available when you have two monitors because you'll already have presenter view on one of them and you can't share PowerPoint as a window when you have two monitors because the app takes up two windows and becomes essentially disqualified from being shared as a window (the only way to share the slides is by sharing the whole screen, which is less private).

First, have your PowerPoint file open and start the presentation the way you normally would. Now, Alt-Tab (Command-Tab on Mac) back to your Teams meeting and share the PowerPoint window—not the whole screen. Alt-Tab back to PowerPoint. And here’s where the magic happens: right-click on your slide and click Use Presenter View . And that’s it!

Wait, you’re worried that the people on the other end are seeing presenter view? They’re not. In fact, they didn’t even see you right-click because the menu isn’t part of the window. For them, nothing happened. While on your side, you just went from low fi to high fi in a matter of two clicks. From here you can do all the stuff you want through presenter mode and everyone on the other end will only see slides.

So, why do I like this method the most? Because I get to have my cake and eat it too! Sure, the slides take up my whole screen, but that doesn’t stop me from jumping around my device all I want. Alt-Tab is your best friend. If you’re not an Alt-Tab person now, you will be moving forward, because it’s a great little trick for jumping between apps.

That means I can be taking notes about a potential customer in my OneNote app during a demo without them knowing. Or I can check in on the meeting itself to see if someone’s raised their hand or said something I need to respond to. All they’ll ever see is the current slide—even if you see another app on top of it—because all I’m sharing with them is the PowerPoint window.

Edit: Some folks have reported they can actually use two monitors and still are able to share the single presented-view of PowerPoint. I can't confirm this because on Mac, the Use Presenter View isn't available when you have two screens (the option is not available in the right-click menu). That said, if you use multiple monitors, you're a power user. So take 2 minutes to check with a colleagues to test if it still works in your situation to pull this off, but with the multiple monitors you're used to. So if one of your original thoughts was, "I can't not use two monitors", test before you knock it. 🙂

Frankly, I’ll never look back on any other presentation options again. At least until Teams Built-In Share—remember, I really mean PowerPoint for the Web when I say this—finally transitions from PowerPoint Lite to a full-fledged version of PowerPoint. Once that day comes, I may convert. But for now, I’m sticking to the desktop app because it’s a beast.

But what do you think? How do you present slides during Teams meetings? What tips do you have when you’re presenting? Share them in a comment below so others can learn some of your tips and hacks for better meetings in Teams.

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Try presenting in Teams meetings from PowerPoint

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Hello Office Insiders, I’m Lishan Yu, a program manager on the PowerPoint team. You might have heard that we announced the PowerPoint Live in Teams feature at Microsoft Ignite last month. Today, I’m excited to show you how to check out this new experience, and start presenting in Teams meetings from PowerPoint.

Presenting in Teams meetings

Presenting in a meeting used to be as simple as clicking Slide Show in your PowerPoint deck. Nowadays, even though you may not be in the same room as your audience, we believe your flow to present should be as easy and intuitive – clicking the Present in Teams button in PowerPoint is the only step you need to take to present the deck in your Teams meeting!

How it works

Give the feature a try next time you need to present in a Teams meetings:

• Join a Teams meeting or an ad-hoc Teams call.
• Open your presentation in PowerPoint for Windows.
• Click the Present in Teams button in the top right corner.

Scenarios to try

Ready to take the PowerPoint Live feature for a spin? Try some of the scenarios below.

As a presenter :

• After clicking the Present in Teams button in PowerPoint, notice that you can see both the chat and your content at the same time in Teams (and don’t feel like you’re missing out on the discussion).
• Take advantage of features like grid review and slide notes to present more effectively.

As an audience member :

• If you joined late, move back through the deck and quickly catch up without having to ask the presenter to stop and recap what was already shared.
• Interact with and experience the richness of the content being presented such as better video quality, live web links, and more.
• Make any adjustments you need to more fully enjoy the presentation (i.e., use high-contrast mode).

Requirements

In order to try out the feature, you will need to:

• Have the latest Teams desktop app installed.
• Store the presentation on OneDrive for Business or SharePoint.
• Join a Teams meeting before clicking the Present in Teams button in PowerPoint for Windows.
• Be using an Office 365 E3/A3, Office 365 E5/A5, or Microsoft 365 for Government license. 

Availability

This feature is rolling out over the next several days to Insiders running Beta Channel Version 2104 (Build 13926.20000) and later.

We’d love your feedback, so please let us know how you think. To get in touch, do either of the following:

• Inside the app, select the Help button in the top-right corner of the app.
• Respond to this post or tweet at @OfficeInsider .

Learn what  other information you should include in your feedback  to ensure it’s actionable and reaches the right people. We’re excited to hear from you!

Sign up for the Office Insider newsletter and get the latest information about Insider features in your inbox once a month!

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Engage your audience with presenter modes in Microsoft Teams

Meeting participants tend to be more focused and have a better experience when they see a presenter along with a presentation. An interactive presenter also helps guide an audience along with visual cues while reducing information overload.  By using a presenter mode such as Standout , Side-by-side , or Reporter in a Teams meeting instead of sharing screen or window content only, you become a more engaging and integral part of your presentation. The following examples show how each presenter mode appears to an audience:

Use a presenter mode

Under Presenter mode , choose the mode that you want. Also, be sure that your camera is turned on.

To start your presentation, choose to share your  S creen or Window on your PC or device.

Note:  Using interactive presenter modes with PowerPoint Live will soon be available.

Note:  Presenter mode customization is available as part of the public preview program and might undergo further changes before being released publicly. To get access to this and other upcoming features, switch to  Teams public preview . 

Presenter modes also allow presenters to customize how their content will be oriented on screen and adjust the size of the video to better fit the presentation.  

Customize video display 

1. Use the  Position buttons in the preview window to direct where videos will appear in relation to the content.  

2. Enlarge or reduce video size using the Size slider. Slide the circle to the left to reduce the size of a video, or to the right to enlarge the size of a video. 

More things to know

Interactive presenter modes are only available for the desktop version of Teams.

Meeting attendees using the mobile or online versions of Teams will see a shared window or screen and presenter video separately.

When you use an interactive presenter mode, a small, moveable picture-in-picture window pops up to show you what your audience sees. If you close this window and need it again, restart the presenter mode.

Related links

Meetings in Teams Schedule a meeting in Teams Share content in a meeting Introducing PowerPoint Live in Teams

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