Print handouts in Word

For your handouts, you might wish for a document format, in which you could edit the content and apply styles and other formatting.

Fortunately, you can print the handouts in Microsoft Word. To do that, when you are ready to create handouts, click FILE, Export, and Create Handouts.

When you click Create Handouts again, PowerPoint opens this dialog box with the Layout choices.

Two of the layouts include your Speaker notes with the slides in the handout.

One of these layouts arranges the Notes next to slides.

The other one places the notes beneath each slide.

Two other Word layouts you might include blank lines for audience notes.

In one of these, the lines are next to the slides.

And in the other, the lines are below each slide.

For the layouts with Notes or Blank lines next to slides, Word arranges the content in a table format.

So, you can work with it in rows or columns.

This means you can use TABLE TOOLS.

For example, when I click DESIGN here under TABLE TOOLS, I can apply a table style, which defines the table borders and each slide row.

If the layout includes Speaker notes, I could select them in a column and change the formatting.

For example, I’ll click HOME and Font Size to reduce the size to 10.

In the Word handout, you edit the text like you would in any document.

Here, I am copying a paragraph and dragging it to the next row.

If there’s a slide that you want to make more readable, you drag a corner to enlarge it.

To make the table columns adjust to the enlarged slide, you click the LAYOUT tab, under TABLE TOOLS, Select, and Select Table to select the whole table.

Then, click AutoFit and AutoFit Contents. The table adjusts to fit the contents.

You might prefer a layout that puts the notes or lines below the slide.

This produces a larger slide image and gives more space for the content below it.

Looking again at the layout choices for Word, note this option, called Paste link.

If I select this when I create the handouts, PowerPoint keeps a link to the Word document.

Then, if I make a change to the slides in the presentation, I can update the handout, too.

I right-click the slide in the document, and click Update Link. And there is the new slide content.

For Word handouts, note that for the header and footer content, I’d click INSERT and use the Header and Footer commands.

When I am ready to print my Word handout, I click FILE and Print to open the print view in Word.

I select my print choices there, such as color and page orientation, and then, I click Print.

With your knowledge of print and handout choices, you’ll create handouts that suit your audience and support a great presentation experience.

For more information, see the course summary and experiment on your own.