About printing

Most presentations are designed to be shown in color, but slides and handouts are usually printed in black and white or shades of gray (grayscale). When you choose to print, Microsoft PowerPoint sets the colors in your presentation to match your selected printer's capabilities. For example, if your selected printer is black and white, your presentation will automatically be set to print in grayscale.

With print preview, you can see how your slides, notes, and handouts will look in pure black and white or in grayscale, and adjust the look of objects before you print.

You can also make certain changes when you preview before printing. You can select:

• What you want to print: the presentation, handouts, notes pages, or just the outline.

• A layout for handouts.

• To add a frame around each slide for print out only.

• Orientation (portrait or landscape) for handouts, notes pages, or an outline.

• Header and footer options.

You might choose to print only the slides and use them as handouts. Slides print one per page and can be sized to fit a variety of paper sizes. Slides can also be sized to fit standard transparencies (for overhead projectors), 35mm slides, or you can customize the fit and orientation.

Outline    You can choose to print all the text in your outline or just the slide titles, in either landscape (horizontal) or portrait (vertical) orientation. The printout might look different from the screen display; while you can show or hide formatting (such as bold or italic) in the Outline pane on screen, on the printout the formatting will always appear.

Notes pages    Print your notes pages either for your own use when delivering a presentation or to include as handouts for your audience. Notes pages can be designed and formatted with colors, shapes, charts, and layout options. Each notes page includes a copy of the slide it refers to and prints one slide per page, with the notes printed under the slide image. To print two slides per page with the associated notes printed next to the slides, you can send the presentation to Microsoft Word. Headers and footers on the notes pages are separate from the headers and footers on the slides.

Handouts    You can design and create handouts similarly to the notes pages. However, you can choose from many layout options for printing: from 1 slide per page to 9 slides per page. The 3-slides-per page option includes lined space for note-taking by the audience. For additional layout options, you can send the presentation to Microsoft Word. Headers and footers on handouts are separate from the headers and footers on the slides.