Add Comments to a PowerPoint Presentation

Posted on September 13, 2010 at 6:52 am

One of the best collaborate features of the applications in the Microsoft Office suite is the ability to track changes and leave comments in documents shared with other team members.

Although PowerPoint does not offer all of the on-screen change options available in Word, you can add comments to your PowerPoint presentation to help other users keep track of changes and notes about the content of the file.

Why Add Comments to a PowerPoint Presentation

There are three main reasons to add comments to a PowerPoint presentation. First, you can keep your co-presenters aware of any changes, inconsistencies, or problems with the presentation.

Second, you can write notes about your own changes and remind yourself of why you did something to the file. This is especially useful for very large presentations where you can’t work linearly from the first slide to the last.

Finally, comments are a great way to push citations, references, and credits off of the presentation slide. This way, you can keep track of where the information on your slides came from but won’t have to prominently display them during your presentation.

Should you need the information, you can click on the comment and read it. Otherwise, you can remove such clutter from the slides to keep the presentation clean and professional looking.

Adding Comments to a PowerPoint Presentation

To begin adding comments to a PowerPoint presentation, open up the application and start a new presentation. Click on the Review tab on the Ribbon and locate a section of the Ribbon labeled Comments. This section contains six buttons.

Six Comment Buttons on the PowerPoint Ribbon

Notice that only the New Comment button is available on the Ribbon. This is because you can only use the remaining five buttons after at least one comment is present in the file. Click the New Comment button and a balloon dialogue box opens.

Here you can add your comment and then position it wherever you want the comment to reside on the slide. Notice that PowerPoint automatically adds your name to the balloon so everyone knows who added it to the slide. PowerPoint also automatically numbers the comments so you can refer to them more easily when working with others.

Add a New Comment to a PowerPoint Slide

When you are done typing your comment, press the Enter key on your keyboard and you are done. Notice that the comment only takes up as much room as is necessary to display your entire comment. Also notice that when the focus is taken off the comment, it shrinks to a small square. This way the comment doesn’t interfere with you while editing the slide.

A Small Comment in a PowerPoint Slide

Once you add at least one comment to a PowerPoint slide, the remaining five buttons on the Ribbon become active. Below is a list of these buttons and a description of what each one does.

Show Markup – This button allows you to show and hide the comments in a PowerPoint presentation. This is useful for clearing up the clutter when editing a slide. Note that comments are not visible on a slide while in Slide Show mode. This button is only useful when editing a slide.

Edit Comment – Clicking this button while a comment is active will allow you to change the comment’s content.

Delete – As its name implies, this button will forever remove a comment from a slide. Clicking the small arrow under this button offers you three choices. You can Delete the current comment, Delete All Markup on the Current Slide, and Delete All Markup in This Presentation. Be careful of the last two options; one wrong click and you could delete all of the comments on the slide or in the entire presentation.

Previous and Next – These buttons allow you quick access to all of the comments in the presentation. Since each comment has a number, the Previous and Next buttons allow you to browse the comments one at a time in the order they were added to the presentation.

Adding comments to a PowerPoint presentation is not only simple, it can help you and your co-presenters keep track of changes and important information about the slides.

The next time you create a PowerPoint presentation, keep information that is important to the presenter but not essential to the delivery of the presentation in comments. Your presentation will be cleaner and more professional looking.

» Filed Under MS Office Tips

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