Rehearsal and record presentations in PowerPoint 2016

There are many things to keep in mind when preparing a presentation: How long will the presentation last? What would you say? Fortunately, PowerPoint 2016 provides a number of tools that can help you rehearse your presentation. You can even record a copy with the caption, allowing the listener to review the presentation later.

Rehearsal of presentation time

The Rehearse Timings feature can be useful if you want to set up a presentation at a certain speed, so that you don't have to click through the slides yourself. Using this feature, you can save time for each slide and effects. PowerPoint will then play the presentation automatically using these intervals.

Rehearsals are usually one of the last steps when making a presentation. If you have never presented, you should review the lesson on how to present a slideshow in PowerPoint 2016 to familiarize yourself with the basics.

How to rehearse the presentation time

1. Go to the Slide Show tab , then click the Rehearse Timings command .

2. You will be taken to the full screen view of the presentation. Practice the presentation with the slideshow. When ready to move to the next slide, click the Next button on the Recording toolbar in the upper left corner. You can also use the right arrow key on the keyboard.

3. When going to the end of the presentation, a dialog box will appear showing the total presentation time. If you are satisfied with the time periods for each slide, click Yes.

4. Time will be saved. The next time you give a presentation, PowerPoint will use these times to automatically switch slides.

If you need to try again to adjust the time accordingly, the Recording toolbar can pause or start again on a slide. To pause the timer feature, click the Pause button . When the timer feature is paused, no action will be taken into account for the saved time period. To record the time on the current slide again, click the Repeat button .

Record the presentation

The Record Slide Show feature is similar to the Rehearse Timings feature , but a bit more comprehensive. If you have a microphone for your computer, you can record the caption for the entire presentation. This is very useful if you plan to use your slideshow as a presentation or a self-running video.

How to record a slideshow

1. From the Slide Show tab, select the drop-down Record Slide Show arrow , then select Start Recording from Beginning or Start Recording from Current Slide .

2. A dialog box will appear. Select the desired option, then click Start Recording. Remember, you can only record notes if there are microphones attached to the computer.

3. The presentation will appear in full screen view. Make a slideshow. Make sure to speak clearly into the microphone if you are recording the notes.

4. When ready to move to the next slide, click the Next button on the Recording toolbar or use the right arrow key.

5. When the end of the slideshow, PowerPoint will close the full screen view.

6. The time set for slides and explanations is now part of the presentation. The slides attached to the caption will be marked with a speaker icon in the lower right corner.

In the recorded slideshow, the mouse pointer will not display in the finished product. Therefore, if you want to point out something, you will need to use the laser pointer feature. Just hold down the Ctrl key on the keyboard while clicking and holding the mouse. The cursor will appear as a small red dot.

How to remove the time set for slides and captions

If you change your mind about including a pre-set time for each slide or presentation, you can easily remove either of these settings or both. You can delete them from the entire presentation or just the current slide.

To do this, simply go to the Slide Show tab , click the drop-down Record Slide Show arrow , hover over the Clear section , then select the desired option from the menu.

Hope you are succesful.