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You can use a self-running presentation to run unattended in a booth or kiosk at a trade show or convention, or you can save it as a video and send it to a client.

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  1. On the Slide Show tab, select Set Up Slide Show.

  2. Under Show type, pick one of the following:

    • Presented by a speaker (full screen) Allows the people watching your slide show to have control over when they advance the slides.

    • Browsed by an individual (window) Presents your slide show in a window, where control over advancing the slides is not available to the people watching.

    • Browsed at a kiosk (full screen) Loops your slide show until the person watching presses Esc.

      shows self-running powerpoint dialog box

Rehearse and record slide timings

When you choose the following show types: Presented by a speaker (full screen) or Browsed at a kiosk (full screen), you’ll want to rehearse and record timings for effects and slides.

  1. On the Slide Show tab, select Rehearse Timings.

    Note: The presentation timer begins immediately when you click Rehearse Timings.

    The Rehearsal toolbar appears and the Slide Time box begins timing the presentation.

    shows recording timings box for powerpoint

    Figure: The Rehearsal toolbar

    1 Next (advance to next slide)

    2 Pause

    callout 3 Slide Time

    callout 4 Repeat

    5 Total presentation time

  2. While timing your presentation, you can do one or more of the following on the Rehearsal toolbar:

    • To move to the next slide, click Next.

    • To temporarily stop recording the time, click Pause.

    • To restart recording the time after pausing, click Pause.

    • To set an exact length of time for a slide to appear, type the length of time in the Slide Time box.

    • To restart recording the time for the current slide, click Repeat.

  3. After you set the time for the last slide, a message box displays the total time for the presentation and prompts you to do one of the following:

    • To keep the recorded slide timings, click Yes.

    • To discard the recorded slide timings, click No.

      Slide Sorter view appears and displays the time of each slide in your presentation.

Add narration or sound

To record a narration, your computer requires a sound card and a microphone, and a microphone connector if the microphone is not a part of your computer.

  1. On the Slide Show tab, in the Set Up group, click the arrow on the Record Slide Show button.

    Shows record slide show button in powerpoint

  2. Select one of the following:

    • Start Recording from Beginning

    • Start Recording from Current Slide

  3. In the Record Slide Show dialog box, select the Narrations and laser pointer check box, and if appropriate, select or deselect the Slide and animation timings check box.

  4. Click Start Recording.

    Tips: 

    • To pause the narration, in the Recording shortcut menu in Slide Show view, click Pause. And to resume your narration, click Resume Recording.

    • Pause recording narration

  5. To end your slide show recording, right-click the slide, and then click End Show.

  6. The recorded slide show timings are automatically saved and the slide show appears in Slide Sorter view with timings beneath each slide.

You can record a narration before you run a presentation, or you can record it during the presentation and include audience comments. If you do not want narration throughout your entire presentation, you can record separate sounds or comments on selected slides or objects. For more details, see Record a slide show with narration and slide timings.

  1. On the Slide Show tab, select Set Up Slide Show.

  2. Under Show type, pick one of the following:

    • Presented by a speaker (full screen) Allows the people watching your slide show to have control over when they advance the slides.

    • Browsed by an individual (window) Presents your slide show in a window, where control over advancing the slides is available to the people watching.

    • Browsed at a kiosk (full screen) Loops your slide show until the person watching presses Esc. (Selecting this option automatically selects the Loop continuously until 'Esc' check box and causes your slide show to run in a loop.)

      Show type options

Rehearse and record slide timings

When you choose the following show types: Presented by a speaker (full screen) or Browsed at a kiosk (full screen), you’ll want to rehearse and record timings for effects and slides.

  1. On the Slide Show tab, select Rehearse Timings.

    Note: The presentation timer begins immediately when you click Rehearse Timings.

    Rehearsal toolbar appears, and the Slide Time box begins timing the presentation. The toolbar includes a timer, a pause/play button, and Repeat button

  2. While timing your presentation, you can do one or more of the following on the Rehearsal toolbar:

    • To move to the next slide, click Next.

    • To temporarily stop recording the time, click Pause.

    • To restart recording the time after pausing, click Play.

    • To restart recording the time for the current slide, click  The Repeat button Repeat.

  3. After you set the time for the last slide, a message box displays the total time for the presentation and prompts you to do one of the following:

    • To keep the recorded slide timings, click Yes.

    • To discard the recorded slide timings, click No.

      On the view tab, you can then switch to Slide Sorter view to see the time allotted for each slide in your presentation.

Set up slide transitions

If you want a slide show to run automatically at a kiosk, you can control when and how the slides advance. To do this, you can apply the same transition to all slides in the presentation and set the transition to automatically advance after a certain time interval.

  1. On the Transitions tab, click the transition that you want.

    Options on the Transitions tab

    To see more transitions, point to a transition, and then click More Down Arrow.

  2. Do the following on the Transitions tab:

    • To set the amount of time that each slide is displayed, select After and enter the number of seconds you want.

    • To set the duration of each transition between slides, enter the amount of time in the Duration box.

    • Click Apply to All.

      Slide transition settings

Export a presentation to video

You can export a presentation as a movie file. See Save a presentation as a movie file for more details.

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