Section 15.4. Finalizing Presentations

15.4. Finalizing Presentations

Finalizing a presentation tells your reviewers that the time to make comments has passed. When you finalize a presentation, PowerPoint locks the file so that it can't be changed. If someone opens a finalized presentation, he discovers all the typing, editing, and proofing options on all the tabs are grayed out.

Warning: Because your reviewers can un-finalize your presentation by following the same steps you take to finalize it, finalizing a presentation is nothing more than a symbolic statement of intent; it doesn't keep a determined reviewer from modifying your presentation file. For additional ways to prevent your reviewers from changing your presentation file, check out page 440.

To finalize a presentation:

Choose Office button Prepare Mark as Final.

PowerPoint pops up a message telling you that the presentation will be marked as final and then saved.
In the message box, click OK

A message box pops up explaining that the file has been marked as final.

Click OK.

All the editing, typing, and proofing options on all the tabs appear grayed out and the Marked as Final icon appears in the status bar (see Figure 15-8).

Figure 15-8. Top: After you finalize a presentation, the Marked as Final icon appears in the status bar to let folks know why none of the ribbon options work.
Bottom: The Office button Prepare Mark As Final menu option is a toggle, which means that clicking it once marks a presentation file as final, and clicking it a second time unmarks the file. When the option appears highlighted, as shown here, it means the files marked as final.

Tip: Before you finalize your presentation, you may want to tell PowerPoint to inspect it for sensitive information that you've added to the file yourself (like comments or speaker notes you added as personal reminders) or that PowerPoint has automatically added to the file (such as your name and how many times you've edited the file). You see how to inspect a presentation on page 430.