Preparing Audience Handouts

Now that you have finished your speaker's notes, wouldn't it be nice to have a printout of your presentation? Audience handouts are useful to keep the audience in step with your presentation. They also can be used to facilitate note-taking. Printing audience handouts couldn't be easier, and you can select the number of slides you want to appear on each printed page. Audience handouts are a nice souvenir to give out. They are great to take notes on and to help your viewers stay on track during your presentation. Keep this fact in mind: People retain 10% of what they hear, 30% of what they hear and see, and 70% of what they hear and see when they have something tangible to remind them, like handouts.

To print audience handouts, use the following steps:

1. Choose File, Print to open the Print dialog box.

2. In the Print What drop-down list, select Handouts.

3. In the Handouts area, select the number of slides per page (2, 3, 4, 6, or 9).

4. Select the order in which to print the slides, either horizontal or vertical.

5. Change any other options you want.

6. Click the OK button.

If you want your audience to have some room on the handouts where they can write their own notes, use the 3 Slides per Page option. This option prints three slides on the left side of the page with lines on the right side for taking notes.

Unless you're printing color audience handouts, make sure the Black and White option in the Print dialog box is checked. Otherwise, you will have some very dark printouts. When you print audience handouts in black and white, PowerPoint prints only the basic information from each slide. All of the text, some of the graphics, and usually none of the background options are printed.