Accessibility and Assistive Technology

PowerPoint Present Live

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Using PowerPoint for Windows, you can broadcast your PowerPoint presentation over the Internet to a remote audience. With Live Presentations in PowerPoint, audience members can see a presentation on their devices. While using PowerPoint Present Live, audience members can:

  • Read live subtitles in their preferred language while you speak.
  • Use "pinch to zoom" to see the slides more clearly on mobile devices.
  • Give feedback.
  • Send live reactions to the presenter.
  • Navigate back to review previous slides.
  • Click links on slides.

Notes: 

  • To use Live Presentations, presenters must have a Microsoft 365 subscription. Audience members don't need a subscription to participate in Live Presentations. 
  • Audience member do not need to have any Microsoft 365 applications installed, they can follow along on their web browser of choice.
  • Present Live is only available for the web version of PowerPoint. 

How To Present Your Slideshow Live

  • Open your slide deck in PowerPoint for the web and go to the Slide Show tab.  
  • Click the drop arrow next to Present Live to select who should be able to connect to this presentation.
    • Only people in your organization: Limits access to people signed in with accounts in the same Microsoft 365 organization (work or school) the presenter is in.
    • Anyone: When you're presenting to an audience that includes people who are not in your organization.
Powerpoint screenshot showing slideshow tab with present live dropdown selected.
  • Next, select Present Live and your presentation will begin with a screen that shows a customized QR code (You can also start your Live presentation from the slideshow toolbar).
    • Audience members will scan the QR code using their devices to follow along.

Features of Present Live

Subtitles and Translation

Audience members will be able to follow along with live captions of the spoken aspect of your presentation. This feature is great for audience members who may be deaf or hard of hearing. The subtitle feature will also help if the acoustics in the presentation space are not good.

Audience members can also choose to have your words translated into a different language for them on their device. Once they've selected their language your spoken words will be machine translated into that language and shown to them on their device as subtitles.

Slide Interactivity

Audience members can interact with your slideshow during and after the presentation. They can go back and review slides, click on links, and watch videos on their own device. This encourages audience engagement and can improve your presentation.

Presentation Evaluation

When you end the presentation audience members using PowerPoint Live will each get a short survey where they get to rate your slide design, speaker's skill, content, and interaction with audience on a scale of 1 to 5. They can add any other comments or feedback they might have and submit.

After the presentation you will get an email containing a summary of audience feedback responses, live reactions from the audience, and some recommendations on what to improve for the next time.

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