Printing handouts of your PowerPoint presentation allows audience members to follow along and take notes during your presentation. PowerPoint 2010 provides several options for easily creating professional, printable handouts.
Select Print Handouts
To begin, open your PowerPoint presentation and select the File tab. Then click Print in the menu on the left side.
Under Settings, click the dropdown menu next to Full Page Slides and select Handouts to view the handout layout options.
Print Handouts
PowerPoint provides several pre-designed handout layouts. Some popular options include:
- 2 Slides – Prints 2 slides per page
- 3 Slides – Prints 3 slides per page
- 4 Slides – Prints 4 slides per page
- Notes next to slides – Prints slides with note-taking space
Select your desired handout layout. The preview pane on the right will display what your handouts will look like when printed.
Customize Handout Options
Under the Handout layouts, there are several options you can select to customize your handouts:
Print Slide Numbers
This option prints the slide number below each slide image. This helps the audience keep track of which slide they are viewing.
Print Hidden Slides
This will include any slides you have hidden from your presentation in the printed handouts.
Print Background Graphics
Deselect this option if you only want to print slide text and images without the slide background colors and graphics.
Add Headers and Footers
Click the Edit Header & Footer link at the top to open a box where you can type text you want to appear at the top or bottom of every printed handout page.
This is useful for adding:
- Page numbers
- Date
- Presentation title
- Your name
- Company name
Preview Handouts
Look at the preview pane on the right side of the Print screen to confirm your handouts look correct before printing. Scroll down to view additional pages.
When you are satisfied, click Print to send to the printer.
Print a Portion of Slides
By default, PowerPoint prints every slide in your presentation. To print only a selection:
- In normal view, select the slides you want to print by clicking on them while holding CTRL. Selected slides will have a darker gray background.
- Go to File > Print.
- In the Settings box, change the dropdown menu from All Slides to Print Selection.
- Confirm the preview pane shows only your selected slides.
- Click Print.
You can also specify a range of slides to print, such as “3-7” to print slides 3 through 7.
Print Speaker Notes
You can print speaker notes to use while presenting your slides:
- Go to File > Print.
- Under Settings, click the dropdown menu next to Full Page Slides.
- Select Notes Pages.
This will print one slide per page with the speaker notes for that slide underneath.
Create Handouts in Word
An alternative option is to export your presentation as a Word document to create handouts. This allows you to use Word’s editing tools to customize the handouts.
To export, go to File > Export > Create Handouts and click Create Handouts. Select the desired layout and click OK.
The handouts will open as a .docx Word document. Customize as desired, then use Word’s print options to print the handouts.
Troubleshooting Printing Issues
If you experience issues printing your PowerPoint handouts, here are some troubleshooting tips:
- Confirm your printer is on and has paper/ink.
- Try printing from another program to test if the printer itself is working.
- Restart your computer and printer.
- Update your printer drivers and PowerPoint. Old, outdated drivers can cause printing glitches.
- Adjust printer margins if slides are getting cut off on printouts.
- Export to Word to see if the Word document will print properly.
- Try printing to a different printer on your network if available.
- As a last resort, save slides as images and print the images.
Handout Design Tips
Follow these tips to create professional, easy-to-use handouts:
Simplify Slides
Don’t overload your slides with too much text. Put detailed information in the speaker notes instead. Simple slides are easier for the audience to follow.
Use Large, Readable Text
Make sure any text you do include on slides is large enough to read from a printout. Use at least 18 pt font.
Use High Contrast Colors
Avoid red/green color combos which are hard to distinguish for the color blind. Stick to high contrast colors like yellow/black.
Leave White Space
Don’t crowd the slides or handouts. Leave plenty of margin space around text for readability and notes.
Number Slides
Turn on the setting to print slide numbers. This helps the audience organize handouts.
Following these PowerPoint printing instructions, you can easily create professional handouts to engage your audience during your presentations! Let me know if you have any other questions.
