How to add notes to PowerPoint

Trying to work out how to add notes to PowerPoint? Speaker notes can be added for each slide in your presentation. Adding notes in PowerPoint allows you to add talking points or other notes to refer to when presenting your slides.

This guide provides a step by step guide for the each of the following:

• What are speaker notes in PowerPoint?
• How to add speaker notes?
• How to view your speaker notes when presenting on Zoom?
• How to print speaker notes with your PowerPoint presentation?
• How to add sticky notes to PowerPoint

If you're actually trying to add notes onto your PowerPoint slides as sticky notes so viewers can see the notes (different to speaker notes but great for sending your deck to the team for review feedback or for review sessions with stakeholders), we've also included steps for this at the end.

What are speaker notes PowerPoint?

PowerPoint Speaker notes are a great way to capture the key points you want to refer to on each slide as a reference you can use while presenting. You can select an option when presenting to display speaker notes on your monitor while you present, but PowerPoint speaker notes are not visible to your audience. Speaker notes will not appear when you print your PowerPoint presentation as slides, but you can choose to display them when printing by selecting the print with notes option (read on for information about how to print slides in PowerPoint with notes displaying).

How to add speaker notes in PowerPoint?

To add speaker notes to PowerPoint: while in Normal view, select the slide thumbnail you want to add PowerPoint notes to.

PowerPoint’s Add Notes field does not always display by default. Trying to work out how to display the view where you can add speaker notes for the slide?  It should appear beneath the slide you are Refer to the screenshot below for guidance,

If you don't see the notes section beneath the active slide on the screen, click the Notes toggle on the status bar at the bottom of PowerPoint to reveal the notes pane. Refer to the image below, which shows an example of how to find the speaker notes panel.

To add your note, click where you see the words ‘Click to add notes’, then type in the notes you want to add regarding the PowerPoint slide currently displayed above the notes field.

PowerPoint’s speaker notes are linked to each slide, so you need to enter notes relevant to a slide while you have the particular slide displaying on your screen.  Simply navigate through your PowerPoint presentation, click on any slide you want to add notes to, type in the notes and then navigate to the next slide. 

To hide the PowerPoint notes pane, click the ‘Notes’ toggle from the status bar once again.

How to view PowerPoint with notes?

You can view PowerPoint speaker notes in ‘Normal’ View as well as’ Outline’ and ‘Notes Page’ view. To change the ‘View’ settings, go to the ‘View’ tab on the PowerPoint top ribbon and select either Normal, Outline or Notes Page.

How to display the pane where you can add speaker notes for the slide?

Make sure you have the ‘Notes’ toggle on the View Tab of the top ribbon set to the on position, so you can view PowerPoint notes (refer to red boxes in the screenshot below to see the notes toggle).  When using the Outline view, speaker notes will appear only beneath the slide – they will not appear in the slide outline text on the left-hand side. Refer to the images below.

How to view notes in PowerPoint while presenting a slide show?

To view speaker notes when presenting PowerPoint presentations, navigate to the ‘Slide Show’ tab and select ‘From Beginning’ located at the top left-hand side of the ‘Slide Show’ ribbon (refer to red box in the screenshot below).

If you are connected to a projector, your slide show should automatically appear in presenter view.

Trying to work out how to turn on presenter view in PowerPoint? If you are not automatically taken to presenter view, click on the three dots in the circle at the bottom of the slide and select ‘Show Presenter View’.

PowerPoint Presenter View appears on your computer's screen, while only the slides appear on the projector screen. In Presenter view PowerPoint displays your slide notes, as well as the next slide, as you present. Your audience will only see your slides when you are in presenter mode.

PowerPoint speaker notes appear to the right of the slide you are presenting. As you move to the next slide in the presentation when in PowerPoint presenter mode, speaker notes for the corresponding slide will appear.

Using Presenter Notes in PowerPoint when Presenting via Zoom

There are several methods to present your slide show presentations using Zoom. However, If you wish to view your speaker notes while presenting your slide show without the audience seeing them, you will need to use dual monitors.

Dual monitors with slide show and presenter's views

If you have dual monitors, you can present your PowerPoint presentation on one monitor, while viewing the presenter notes on a second monitor.

To present on dual monitors, first open the PowerPoint file you want to present. Next - start or join a Zoom meeting. Then click Share Screen in the meeting controls.

Select your primary monitor then click Share. If you are not sure which monitor is your primary, select the one that PowerPoint opens in.

While sharing your screen, switch PowerPoint to slide show mode by clicking the Slide Show tab > From Beginning or From Current Slide.

Your audience/ meeting participants will see the PowerPoint in slide show view. The green border indicates the screen you are currently sharing – i.e. what the zoom participants are viewing.

The presenter's view will appear on your secondary monitor. Use this to view your slide notes and control the PowerPoint presentation.

What if I share the wrong screen when presenting on dual monitors with Zoom?

If you are not sharing the correct monitor/ screen, click ‘Display Settings’ at the top of your presenter view screen, then ‘Swap Presenter View and Slide Show’. PowerPoint will switch the monitor that is used for slide show view.

Alternatively, you can click ‘New Share’ on your screen share controls and select the screen showing the PowerPoint in slide show view.

How to use a single monitor to share PowerPoint presentation via zoom?

You can share your presentation via zoom either in full screen mode, or by using a window.

Using a Single monitor with slide show in full screen

Open the PowerPoint file you want to present, then start or join the Zoom meeting.
Click ‘Share Screen’ in the meeting controls at the bottom of the Zoom screen.

Select your monitor/ screen then click ‘Share’.

While sharing your screen, switch PowerPoint to slide show mode by clicking the Slide Show tab > From Beginning or From Current Slide.

The green border around your screen indicates the screen you are currently sharing – i.e what your audience is viewing.

Using a single monitor to present PowerPoint slide show view in a window

You can use a single monitor to share your PowerPoint presentation in slide show view, but have it contained in a window (rather than in full screen mode). This allows you to access meeting features such as in-meeting chat or managing participants, or to view other documents/ web pages while sharing your PowerPoint presentation (without your audience seeing them).

To present your PowerPoint in slide-show view in a window, open the PowerPoint file you want to present.

Click the Slide Show tab then ‘Set Up Slide Show’.

Under 'Show type', select 'Browsed by an individual (window)', then click OK.

Switch PowerPoint to slide show mode by clicking the Slide Show tab, then 'From Beginning' or 'From Current Slide'.

PowerPoint will display the presentation in slide show view but in a window.

In Zoom, start or join a meeting.
Click ‘Share Screen’ in the meeting controls.

Select the PowerPoint window then click 'Share Screen'.

The green border indicates what is being seen by my meeting participants/ audience. The rest of your screen would not be visible to anyone else in the Zoom meeting.

How to add sticky notes to slides in a PowerPoint Presentation

If you're trying to add notes to display on the slides (for example so you can review the notes in a meeting), then you'll love PPT Productivity's Sticky Notes feature. PPT Productivity is a timesaving plugin that adds more features to PowerPoint. Using PPT Productivity, you can add Sticky Notes to PowerPoint slides. The Sticky notes appear on slides in the top right corner by default (or you can choose to add sticky notes to the top left corner). The sticky notes let you easily annotate a slide with questions or tasks to complete so that you can keep track items to review before finalizing your presentation.

Read more about PPT Productivity's Sticky notes for PowerPoint feature.

Trying to print notes in PowerPoint? Refer to our blog post for how to print PowerPoint slides with notes.