Prepare a basic handout

To prepare my handout, I'll click FILE, Print to open the print view, where I'll choose a layout and other settings.

I'll start with the page layout button, which shows all the layouts.

Until I choose a different layout, the one that is selected is Full Page Slides. This prints the slide full page in a landscape, or horizontal page orientation.

You might want this layout for a slide that has very detailed information, like this process diagram.

If you didn't want the full page layout for all your slides, you could print just one slide, such as this one, using the Print Current Slide option.

Then, you'd choose another layout for the rest of the slides.

Let's look at the layouts in the Handouts section. These look more like handouts. I'll compare the 1 Slide layout here with the Full Page Slides layout.

In the 1 Slide layout, the slide is smaller, and the page now has a Portrait, or vertical orientation.

It also has headers and footers, a date and page number, which emphasize the handout format.

Looking again at the full page slide, there are no headers and footers, and these are the slide details, like the Slide number, that are emphasized.

Let’s see some other Handout examples. This is the 2 Slides layout and this is 3 Slides. This one is popular because it includes lines for audience notes.

The other layouts in the Handouts section have 4 slides, 6 slides, or 9 slides on a page.

The numbers of slides per page are set, and you can't change those.

However, there are different slide arrangements.

These three are horizontal meaning that the slides read left to right on the page.

These three are vertical. I'll click 9 Slides Vertical. Here, the slides read top to bottom, left to right, as if in columns.

For this handout, I'll go with the 3 Slides layout. The slides will be readable, and I like the lines for notes.

Regarding Page Orientation, this layout automatically uses Portrait.

So, the slides are laid out vertically, top to bottom.

I'll compare the Landscape Orientation. This turns the page. So, it is horizontal and arranges the slides left to right.

I am going to keep the Portrait Orientation setting because I like the way that orientation uses the space.

Now let's think about color options for the handout. My printer is set to print in color, so that is what we see in the Preview.

It looks great, but I'd rather save the color ink and print in black and white. I'll see how Grayscale looks.

I'll zoom way in, so we can see the details better.

Grayscale renders all the slide colors using gray shading. So, the wild grass detail is now gray.

Grayscale also preserves color fills, such as in these chevrons, where the slide number appears.

I'll compare Pure Black and White.

This removes color fills. Notice, how the chevron is pure white, so the slide numbers aren't visible now.

There is no gray, so the grass detail is solid black.

The simplicity of this can be good.

For these handouts, I like Grayscale better because it shows the slide numbers.

So, I have picked a layout, page orientation, and color setting for the handout.

Up next: Before we print, we'll edit the headers and footers.