I use Google Slides all the time for my professional development presentations. With the COVID-19 pandemic forcing most of our training opportunities online I have had to hone my presentation skills to meet the demands of virtual presentations.
The first and most widely used method of presenting a Slides presentation is by using the Present button in the top right corner in Google Slides.
If you click Present, the presentation goes full screen and starts your presentation on the slide currently selected in the sidebar. You exit full screen with the ESC key. Now, presenting full screen is great if you are presenting to an audience as it will fill the screen and make it easier for everyone to see.
Click the Presenter View and a separate screen will appear that shows the current slide and the previous and next slides, plus a timer shows how long the presentation has been displayed. If you have speaker notes then they will show up on this screen as well.
You can move this presenter view to the laptop screen and as long as your screen is not being mirrored to the audience you can see the presenter view while the audience sees the full-screen slides.
If you click the Present from beginning button the presentation will display the presentation starting with the first slide.
Many of my presentations also include some live demonstrations of how to use software and require switching from the slides presentation to another Chrome tab to display the live example. The problem is that you have to hit ESC to go out of full screen and then switch to the tab, do the demonstration and then go back and hit Present and hopefully you will be back where you left off in the presentation.
I have found a better way to do this! All you have to do is change the URL and replace the text after edit with present and then hit enter to load the URL.
Hit Enter and your presentation loads full screen but with the tabs at the top so you can easily switch between the presentation and the other tabs.
Final tip – if you are in present mode and want to load the speaker notes or jump to another slide, you can use the presentation toolbar which appears if you move your mouse to the lower left of your screen. Click the gear icon to show the speaker notes option.
Google Certified Trainer