what are presentation handout

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How to create effective presentation handouts

Whether you create presentations for school, work, or clubs, distributing handouts makes an impression and amplifies your message. The benefits are twofold: putting together a handout prepares you for your speech and allows your audience to retain the information better.

You can put together handouts easily. Learn what to include to ace your next presentation.

Why are presentation handouts important?

Creating handouts help you prepare what you want to say . They also set expectations for your audience members and allow them to focus more on your speech because they don’t have to take such thorough notes.

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If you want to create an effective presentation handout, here’s what you should include.

1. List the key points of your presentation

To create a strong presentation handout, list the key facts from your speech. Keep it simple—you don’t need to rewrite your entire presentation. Remember, you’ll discuss a lot of the material in your slides as well. Listing out your presentation’s key points help your listeners reflect on the information later. By reading your presentation’s key points, your audience may also come up with or remember the questions they want to ask you at the end of your talk.

2. Include your sources

Effective presenters back up their information with sources, especially in science and history-related fields. Providing sources encourages your audience do more research on their own time. You can also provide further reading in your handout, like books or article links, if you aren’t able to cover everything in a single lecture.

3. Make your presentation handout professional

A professional-looking presentation handout establishes your credibility and authority with your audience. When presenting for work or an organization, include your logo on your handout.

You don’t have to be a graphic designer to create an attractive presentation handout—explore dozens of free Microsoft Word templates you can use to polish your handout.

4. Include white space

Not everyone comes prepared for a presentation. Leave white space in your handout so your audience can take notes on what you say. They can also use this space to write down questions they want to ask you, so they don’t forget them by the end of the presentation.

5. Include your contact information

Audience members may want to ask you questions about your presentation later. Include information like your name, job title, website, and email so your audience can contact you in the future.

6. Proofread your handout

Before you print out or email your presentation handouts, make sure to thoroughly proofread everything first. Are your sources spelled correctly? Are there any typos in your email address or links? Do the key points correspond with your presentation? Taking the time to review your handout before finalizing it will ensure it’s a quality handout.

Creating a presentation handout will make your presentation stronger and the information easier to digest. Are you feeling nervous about an upcoming presentation? Learn how to calm presentation anxiety .

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Effective Presentation Handouts: A Step-by-Step Guide

Discover how to create handouts that captivate and educate your audience. From layout to content, learn easy-to-follow techniques to make your presentation handouts stand out. Start now and make a lasting impression

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

• Nostrum non voluptas alias sit ut corporis perspiciatis nihil molestiae. Vitae quidem aut aut quia quia porro explicabo. Similique occaecati sit quo. Enim enim dolor ut. Et error alias nam fuga voluptas inventore placeat et. Eligendi similique officia provident magni aut quasi soluta qui.
• Deleniti totam eius similique repellendus. 
• Deleniti totam eius similique repellendus. Doloremque sunt nihil et. Tenetur delectus velit ut. Pariatur velit ipsa.

3 Static and dynamic content editing

4 static and dynamic content editing.

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

5 Static and dynamic content editing

6 static and dynamic content editing.

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any pa ge and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

"Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system."

Presentation handouts can play a significant role in the process of effective presentation delivery if you know how to use them to your benefit. These supplementary means can back up your main message and make sure that your presentation creates a lasting impression.

Many people think that handouts for a presentation are something they used to work on while in college. However, these additional materials, if they are well-thought-out and relevant, can assist business professionals, educators, and students equally well.

Today, we'd like to discuss the main purpose of presentation handouts. We'll show you how to plan and design effective handout material. Moreover, we will also share a few handy tips and useful tools to amplify the effect of your supplementary means.  

Does that sound like a plan?

Understanding Presentation Handouts

Jerry Weissman , the author of 'Presenting to Win: The Art of Telling Your Story," compares the notion of a presentation handout to a bridge between your presentation and the long-term memory of your audience. We want to simplify the definition a little. Presentation handouts are additional materials that you share with the audience to support the central message of your presentation and improve the level of comprehension.

If you put a handout and a presentation face to face, the first one will remain the static source of additional information that the viewer can refer to at any time. At the same time, presentations are a dynamic source of information, and a viewer does not have any control over its pace.

Usually, a presentation contains multiple vital aspects for the audience to focus on and digest. The main aim of handouts for presentations is to enhance viewer engagement and ensure a lasting impact even when the presentation is over. You can refer to the handouts at any time during the presentation or after it, so the materials improve retention and help to recall specific essential details.

The handouts mustn't replicate the presentation. They should complement it.

Planning Your Handouts

A great example of a handout for a presentation is a well-planned one. It means that you shouldn't treat your handouts as a last-minute task.

Key information

As you brood upon the data to include, you can start with additional statistics, relevant details, and facts that support and strengthen the core message of your presentation. Choose information that helps the audience understand some field-specific or overly complex notions.

Highlight the main aspects that you want the audience to remember in your handouts.

Audience needs

Another critical part of the handout planning is the audience you will interact with. You should consider the level of expertise, needs, and preferences when working on supplementary materials. There will be little use of handouts that are irrelevant, overly simplified, or too complicated.

Format and structure

Even the best handouts will lose their impact if they are unappealing, illogical, and unorganized. A neat structure topped with relevant visuals will enhance user perception and trigger their productivity. That is why you may want to play around with different headings, supporting images, graphs, bullet points, colors, and fonts.

Designing Effective Handouts

A quality presentation handout template relies on effective design as much as it depends on the informative component. There are a few principles to stick to when you design your handouts.

Basic design

Whitepage pitch deck design agency outlines three principles that may assist you in creating a successful handout for presentation.

Use these practical tips to move in the right direction:

• Present different types of content in complementary but distinguishable fonts
• Section information with the help of headings and subheadings
• Outline the main aspects through bullet points
• Ensure that all the data is easy to read, avoid unclear and small fonts
• Use the same color palette and theme throughout the presentation and the supplementary materials 
• Add brand logos to stress consistency

The right visuals make any information twice as easy to remember and digest. Whitepage professionals share the following advice:

• Use charts, tables, graphs, and other visuals to deliver complex notions concisely and more comprehensively.
• Intertwine text content with images that complement the core narrative
• Symbols and icons aid in better understanding

Appeal and informativeness

It is not enough to design visually appealing presentation handout templates. They should carry out an informative purpose as well. You can do the following to achieve the desired effect through your presentation handouts:

• Use different colors to highlight vital points and trigger the reader's interest
• Use whitespaces to define the structure of your handouts
• Use contrast to attract user attention to critical aspects of the presentation

Content Creation for Handouts

We may be stating the obvious, but your handouts should contain clear and concise content. You don't want to distract the audience from the presentation as they are trying to make out some complex notions written in the supplementary materials.

A professional handout sample for presentation should:

• Deliver the main message without unnecessary details mentioned
• Steer clear of tech-savvy language and slang and preserve an accessible tone
• Present essential data through lists and bullet points

On top of that, you can complement your handouts with relevant and appealing, not to mention appropriate visuals. Different charts and images can improve information perception and enhance retention.

Lastly, handout ideas for presentations prove to generate better results when spiced up with well-thought and strategic CTAs(Call-to-Action elements):

• Give the audience clear instructions if any action is requested
• Use questions and activities to promote engagement
• Provide contact information in case someone decides to contact you later

Utilizing Technology in Handout Creation

After you come up with a desired design and content, you will naturally start to wonder how to make a handout for a presentation. Luckily, many tools and software solutions come of use.

Platforms like Microsoft PowerPoint, Adobe InDesign, Canva, Venngage, and Inkscape present multiple features to create and enhance handouts. Some of them are free. Others include paid options. You can work on text, visuals, and charts using these tools.

However, if you want to make your presentation handout example a little more interactive, you should implement such interactive elements as QR codes and online resource links. You can find free QR code generators online to succeed with the task effectively.

QR codes can serve as a linking piece between physical and digital supplements. As the audience exploits their devices during the presentation, they will find additional facts and details that intensify the primary message. The same applies to online resource links if you use digital handouts only.

We would like to stress the fact that a balance of printed information and digital addition will add more dynamics to the learning process. Such an approach ensures that you cater to every user's needs and provide a better and more memorable experience.

Printing and Distribution

You can present your handout examples for presentation in two formats – either physical or digital. Each comes with a set of perks and downsides.

Physical handouts

The physical template for the presentation handout is a good old sheet of paper that contains all the information you want to share with the audience. It is material, you can touch it, and you don't require additional devices to interact with it. On a slightly less bright side, print paper has a negative environmental impact, which is a concern for many. You can try to decrease that impact by using recycled paper, vegetable ink, and double-sided printing.

Digital handouts

Digital examples of handouts for presentations that do not pose an environmental threat can be shared within seconds through email and other online platforms. They can be enhanced with all sorts of multimedia and interactive elements. However, digital handouts can't be accessed without electronic devices that support the format. While that isn't much of a challenge in today's world, the use of various devices can distract the audience from the presentation.

Distribution timing

There's an ongoing debate as to when you should plan to distribute a presentation handout: before, during, or after the presentation. Different timing can have a diverse effect on the audience.

Before . Some of the viewers may get curious and leaf through the material before you start. This means they will know what to expect from the presentation. It isn't entirely a bad thing, but it may have a distractive effect.

During . You can share your handouts to support the presented message and help the audience understand some points or learn more about the subject.

After . If you want to ensure that the message sets in, you can share the handouts after the presentation is over. In this case, you should include your contact information in the handout to make sure that the audience can reach out to you in case of any questions.

Examples and Templates

If you still feel a bit uncertain about how to make a handout that is well-structured and appealing, you can make use of downloadable templates.

Education handouts

A good teaching plan will have a positive effect on the students. You can enhance their interest and involvement with an elegant and straightforward handout template.

Business handouts

Any business plan presentation highlights a fair share of statistics and analytical information. With a template like this, you can coat complex notions into simple visuals and improve user experience, which leads to better understanding and positive actions.

All-purpose handouts

Some templates can be suited for any purpose. While they are subtle and non-specific, they remain well-structured and appealing.

If you need more presentation handout ideas to inspire from, our experts suggest you check these sources out:

• Template.net
• WPSTemplate

Common Mistakes to Avoid

As you try to keep away from making presentation design mistakes , you should try to minimize handout errors as well. There are a few common pitfalls to stay clear of:

• Information overload – use white spaces to avoid clutter and hand-pick information you want to add to the template.
• Poor readability – choose clear and legible fonts, and don't try to overdecorate the handout.
• Color distraction – try to use complementing and subtle colors so that the color palette doesn't hurt the eye and make the viewer's mind wander.
• Absent interactivity – while static content is necessary, you should combine it with such interactive elements as QR codes and links to relative resources.
• Low content quality – you must proofread your handouts before sharing them with the audience to avoid any typos and errors that can put your professionalism under question.

Advanced Tips for Professionals

Is there any professional advice on how to make handouts that promote successful presentations? Professional presentation design services point out a few advanced tips you can benefit from:

• You can use more than a single QR code and place them strategically so that one complements the other and boosts user engagement.
• Make your infographics interactive if you are using digital handouts. Implement additional details that the audience can find by hovering over certain icons. Make sure you highlight those interactive parts.
• Leave blank spaces for the users to write down critical points and make notes.
• Modern design is all about minimalism. Consider the trend when designing your template.
• Consider investing in responsive design when using digital handouts.
• Make sure that your digital handouts work across multiple devices.
• Create collaborative templates that allow different members to interact and discuss some crucial points.

What is a handout for a presentation? It is a practical link between your presentation and the audience. A quality presentation handout can enhance subject perception, improve understanding, and promote desired impact.  

If you consider your audience's needs, keep up with modern presentation trends, and create concise and well-structured supplementary materials, you can count on projecting a lasting impression and succeeding with your project goals.

Wonder how to hire a presentation design agency to help you achieve the desired result and get ahead of the competition? Whitepage team is only a phone call away!

Download "What Should Be in a Pitch Deck Presentation" for free!

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All you need to know about Presentation Handouts

Hitiksha jain.

• Body Language & Delivery

What is a Presentation Handout?

A presentation handout or a handout is a piece of printed information which is handed over to the audience after a presentation, meeting, or a conference. It’s an integral part of the total experience of your audience. A well-thought handout may be your best tool towards ensuring your message is effectively communicated.

It allows your audience to focus more on what you said during the presentation, and serves as a tangible reminder of your content afterwards. 

Let’s assume you’ve been asked to give a speech, and you’re excited to give the best presentation possible. You put in all kinds of preparations– from creating an amazing presentation, probing for perfect examples, to infusing memorable anecdotes, terrific insights, great visuals and even a wry joke here or there. You’ve covered all the possible angles to make your presentation or speech impactful and effective– or have you?

An effective presentation is a combination of not only your PowerPoint Presentation, but also the other forms of communication- writing, reporting, handouts to persuade, convince, inform, and enlighten your audience.

As a brand or a speaker, you would want your message to have a long lasting impact over your audience for which you need concrete manifestations like handouts, as most of us focus on preparing what will happen during the presentation, not what happens afterwards .

You need to convince people of why you are doing something rather than explaining what you are doing .

“ People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do. “ Simon Sinek

Benefits of providing a handout:

1. helps you avoid information overload.

It allows you to cut down the amount of information that you cover in your presentation and combines the most important aspects from it in a handy text form.

By adding the essential and worth-knowing content about your brand will help you make your speech more memorable. 

Chunky paragraphs make your audience apathetic towards reading your handout as the essence is lost.

2. Lays emphasis on your message

Your key message should permeate through all of your business materials- brochures, website, or handouts. You need to provide supporting data around that one message to lay emphasis on it. 

If there is one thing that should be crystal clear in your handout, it is your key message. As it sets you apart from your competition and describes your brand as a whole.

3. Acts as a concrete reminder

Chances are, your audience won’t remember the details of your presentation a year later. With a handout, they have all the important information you covered as well as a reminder of you and your brand. 

As it is a takeaway material, whenever the audience member looks at it, it’ll help them recall all what you spoke.

4. Allows you to add supporting data

Your handout can be supplemented with additional information along with the main elements from your presentation. This can even be visuals, graphics, or references, as it can really clarify and supplement your main argument and tie things together.

It is a good idea to provide your contact information and email. Depending on the type and purpose of the presentation, you can also provide your business address and telephone number.

5. Provides a synopsis of your speech

The information in your handout is short and to the point. Before expanding on individual and main points from your presentation, you need to focus on your target audience.

By doing this, you tailor the handout to their level, avoiding technical terms where they would get distracted from your point. It is very important to condense the core statements of your presentation into key points, rather than including a distracting stream of text. This way, you retain your audience’s full attention.

Pro Tip- To arouse your audience’s curiosity right at the beginning of your handout, you could include an upbeat quote, a proverb or a question.

6. Personal Branding

Personal branding is the practice of marketing people and their careers as brands. It is an ongoing process of developing and maintaining a reputation and impression of an individual, group, or organization.

Your personal brand is more than the brand statement you use as your elevator pitch or to market yourself in your digital, and online marketing communications.

Handouts allow you to define your personal brand. It is the combination of your personal attributes, values, drivers, strengths, passions, and contact details that differentiates your unique promise of value from your peers.

Considering the above points, it’s obvious, then, that a handout can be very useful for your audience, your presentation and yourself. Once you know what to do, they can be relatively straightforward to produce.

Ways on how you can make your handouts intriguing:

1. it is a reflection of your presentation.

Imagine watching FRIENDS from any random episode where you seldom know the character sketch of a Chandler who is witty and full of one liners, or a Joey who is cute but a little slow, or a Monica who is obsessed with cleaning.

In such a situation, you are bound to feel unconnected because you haven’t watched the 1st season and the episode you are watching is nowhere a reflection of it.

In the same way, your handout is a summary of what you’ve spoken in your presentation, so it automatically becomes a reflection of it. The audience should be able to resonate your handout with your presentation that they’ve just attended.

Ideally, your handout should have the same title as your presentation and should follow the same structure, so that audience members can easily find the information they want.

2. Remember, it is not a copy of your presentation

Printing your entire presentation on the handouts is lazy and least effective. It is supposed to have key points from your entire speech.

You need not limit your handout only to the topics covered in your presentation. It’s okay to include related information that further supports your speech.

While you were preparing your presentation, you were selecting the most essential information, offered concisely, that supported your messages. With your handout, you’re free to expand on bullet points and graphics to allow a more complete explanation. Just don’t go overboard. Although you’re offering more information, you must still keep it well organized and to the point.

3. Take proper time to prepare your handouts

As stated earlier, we focus and give time to prepare our presentation and what happens during that in order to not make a fool of ourselves upon the stage. And before your presentation it strikes you that you need to have handouts, so you make it hurriedly- giving it less importance.

Cobbling together a handout at the last moment is not only stressful, it can be counterproductive, as it undermines your professionalism and never goes unnoticed.

Remember, your handouts require the same amount of focus and time as your presentation. In fact it is something your audience will take along with them, so I’m sure you would want your handout to have all the essential information regarding your brand along with CTA. 

4. Professionalism is the key

Make your handouts look attractive and appealing to the eye. Here are certain ways to make it look professional:

• Avoid cluttering of data.
• Avoid putting a lot of data that your handout begins to look like a textbook.
• Use a simple and readable font.
• Use the same graphical elements and the same colours.
• Don’t clutter up your handout with data without sacrificing the essential content.

The handout is a concrete reminder of your presentation. It may also get passed onto other people who were not at your presentation. So make sure it enhances the perception people have of you.

5. It should have more essential information

Presentations are supposed to have a lot of visual content; however, they are unlikely to make sense without the additional text. Going overboard with text in your presentation is not a good idea. They are mainly used for inspiring people to find out more about a topic or your brand. 

Add the extra information in the handout.

As said earlier, your handout is a takeaway your audience will take to review later or maybe pass it to someone else who didn’t attend your presentation. Therefore, it is very important to add essential and supporting data- contact information, case studies, references, marketing literature, or other collateral materials.

6. Add references (if any)

Sometimes it can be confusing to know when and how to cite sources during a speech, especially while using a visual-aid PowerPoint Presentation. 

If you’re citing research, references become an inevitable part of it.

But the question is where to add these references?

Well, it is better if you don’t clutter your slides with references. So the best option is you can add it in your handouts. This will not only make your presentation neat and organized but also make your handouts insightful. 

However, you need to inform your audience that you’ve cited sources for this XYZ research in your handout. Also, try providing information about related blogs, websites, and books (if any).

7. Make your handout a stand-alone

Your handout may be passed onto people who were not present at your presentation. Or an audience member may look at it a year from now when they’ve forgotten most of your speech.

Make sure your handout helps them recall it and something that will make sense to them. For people who weren’t present for your presentation, include a brief credibility-establishing information about you.

When is the best time to distribute your Handout, before or after?

Imagine that you’ve spent weeks preparing your presentation wherein you’ve got wonderful persuasive material as well as a concise handout summarizing and supporting your arguments.

The only one thing that you didn’t plan was when to distribute the handouts. Maybe at the beginning? At the end? In the middle? Or does the timing even matter?

Rule of thumb: Distribute your handouts at the end.

It’s generally to your advantage to distribute handouts at the end of your presentation.

Benefits of distributing your Handouts before your presentation:

• You make it clear that the handout is meant to be taken away. There’s no guarantee that your handout doesn’t end up in the recycling bin, but your aim is to give it a chance to survive as long as possible, carrying your message with it.
• If you plan to hand it out at the end, it can be sued as a summary document (as opposed to making it a less useful transcript of your presentation)
• Your audience will not be distracted reading it during your presentation, when you need their eyes and attention with you
• The surprises, suspense, and case studies won’t be disclosed (which might otherwise be hinted at or spoiled by the handout)
• It is symbolic of giving a gift to the audience to thank them for their attention
• There will be less rustling of papers to distract both you and your audience.

However, there are a number of caveats wherein you will have to distribute it before your presentation:

• When your speech is highly technical and detail-oriented, it is better to put those words in the hands of the audience
• When your content is far too dense, you can’t expect your audience to absorb such voluminous data. So to handle this: you can provide them the material and draw their attention.
• Also, in case of coaches and trainees you will have to handout workbooks for your presentations at the start, as the audience may need to read along, do exercises, etc. in the workbook itself.

Clear and Concise: How to structure a Handout

The motto “less is more” applies very effectively to handouts. In concrete terms, this means: do without whole sentences and make sure you use key points, abbreviations, arrows and symbols. Ideally, your handout should not consist of more than two A4 pages.

In addition to important information from your presentation, a handout needs to include the following:

• Basic information, probably in the upper left corner of the handout, such as the location of the presentation, title, name of the speaker (optional)
• The date, probably in the upper right corner
• Heading– preferably the title of your presentation and it should be centered
• A clear structure, based on the individual headings of the presentation
• An aesthetic page layout with a standard font type and colour– preferably same as your presentation.

The structure of your handout should follow the structure of your presentation. It is best to limit your points to those which support your main argument. Keep the sub-items on the handout as simple as possible and don’t go into too much detail.

To make your handout visually appealing, work on your fonts and colours. In addition to using clear, standard fonts, try to keep the font size in the headers and footers uniform and smaller than in the main part.

Pro Tip- Create an area for your audience to make their own notes on your handout. Either make the right margin wider or leave a few lines of space under your last point.

Here’s an example,

• Overboarding of information will make your handout look very cluttered leading them to lose interest
• Distributing your handouts at the start of your presentation will lead to distraction amid the audience
• It shouldn’t be complex to understand when read by someone who wasn’t present at the time of your presentation
• Do not copy paste your entire presentation as it is. You need to include additional information (along with the one in your presentation)

How to make a Presentation Handout?

The easiest and the simplest way to make your handouts is via Microsoft Word. You can follow these simple steps in order to create one:

• Click on the ‘Create handout’ option and transfer your presentation to Microsoft Word
• After that, choose which presentation slides should appear on your handout
• You can easily adjust your text, graphics, content and decide whether you want to include a note margin, a header, or a footer
•  In addition to the option of printing the handout, you can also save it directly in Word as a Word or PDF document – a simple way to make the handout digitally which is available to your audience.

Voilà! Here you go.

For more help, check this video out,

Types of Handouts:

1. gapped handouts.

As the name suggests, this handout consists of gaps that the audience is required to fill in. It may also include complex graphics or charts or tables of statistics which the members are expected to complete and they can only do that if they heard you well.

You can also outline the main points and leave gaps for key words to be inserted.

For example, 

a) P_ _ _ _ _ t_ _ _ _n/ _ a _ _ _ _t_ (Presentation Handouts)

b) _a_ _ed/ H_ _ _o_ _ _  (Gapped Handouts)

2. Skeletal Handouts

It provides a bare outline of the presentation structure with some key statements and main references. This can be useful to aid members to make notes and follow a structure.

It is a great tool to maintain the audience engagement and focus throughout your presentation.

3. Worksheets

A worksheet is a sheet of paper on which problems are worked out or solved and answers are recorded.

This is mainly used in the classroom scenario in order to encourage students to remember what they learnt. It can motivate them to work without any assistance.

4. Information Sheets

It is also called a short information document. This sheet provides you a brief summary of a subject and its aims.

It may be necessary to draft more than one information sheet if you need to cater to the participants with different needs.

It is mainly used in the areas of education, for example, information on courses provided by an institution.

Also check- How to give motivational speech to students.

Examples of Handouts:

A handout is a useful tool for helping your audience learn important concepts from a meeting, presentation or other business event. When making a handout, it’s important to summarize the key points instead of just printing out the notes you used during the presentation. Include material that goes beyond the information you covered to help your audience better understand the concepts. Here are some examples:

In the above example, they have summarized the main concepts, given information about their brand and pointed out the reasons why you should choose them.

However, one thing that they didn’t focus on is leaving space to add notes. This is important because it allows the audience member to pen down the essentials points in their own words. It fosters the way people learn and understand information. 

The above example is used when you have to lay down the program of an event. Now in such a scenario, you will need to hand it over to the audience beforehand.

So when you look at it, it is filled with a lot of text with no infographics or visuals. Therefore, the audience somewhere might lose interest looking at a handout only filled with text.

Check these examples out for inspiration:

Final Thoughts

A well-prepared handout can be an effective tool to support your presentation, acting as a guide and memory aid for both you and your audience. Used properly, they can increase the interest and attention of your audience, and allow you to give a clear and professional presentation.

Do not forget to add a CTA (Call to action) in your handout, encouraging them to change or act on something in relation with your talk.

Your handout is going to remain with your audience, so make sure you provide all the necessary information in less words. Basically, a summary of your presentation in minimum words.

Let us know if you end up implementing any of these tips in the comments below.

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Home Blog Design How to Create the Perfect Handouts for a Presentation

How to Create the Perfect Handouts for a Presentation

As we presenters know, aiming for a flawless presentation experience involves not only top-notch presentation skills but also graphics, a well-thought-out presentation structure, and articulating both how to start a presentation and how to conclude a presentation. Yet, very little is said about presentation handouts and their role in large-scale meetings, or their value when securing business deals.

Seasoned presenters acknowledge the impact of a presentation handout, and today we’ll guide you in the process of creating these printed-format assets to make your presentation more memorable.

Table of Contents

What is a Presentation Handout?

The role of presentation handouts, why create handouts for large scale presentations, examples of effective handouts for presentations, how to create presentation handouts in powerpoint, how to create presentation handouts in google slides, best practices for presentation handouts, final words.

A presentation handout is a supplementary document provided to the audience by the presenter or the event’s organization during or before a presentation. The core purpose is to enhance the understanding and retention rate of the information shared or to provide contact points with the presenter via email, LinkedIn, website, or social media profiles.

Handouts in presentations allow attendees to follow along more easily, take notes on specific parts, and have a further reference – ideal in large corporation events. The talk may not fully cover information, like detailed metrics, supplementary graphs, etc.; thus, they can be featured inside the handout to provide additional background on the presentation topic. In short, think of handouts as deliverable presentation aids .

Picture yourself attending a series of presentations at a large-scale event, like a medical conference. How many research presentations can you retain in your head? 3-4 top, whereas perhaps you attended over 12 in the past 8 hours. Handouts for presentations simplify attendees’ efforts, as they have a palpable reference about the presentations they attended, who delivered the talk, the conference presentation slides , etc. 

Another interesting point of view for handouts is when we position ourselves in the shoes of an attendee with a physical impairment, like lessened hearing capacity. In this situation, we can picture a handout example, as the presenter integrates the audience, even those who cannot fully participate, by delivering information in a physical format.

When covering examples of handouts for presentations, we can position ourselves in generalistic situations as follows.

Helping people with physical impairments

Handouts don’t necessarily have to be printed in text format. Braille handouts can be used to assist people with low visual acuity to understand the missing gaps between the speech and the visuals shown in the slides. Electronic devices with screen readers can assist, as well as an audible format of the handout.

For people with hearing impairments, printed handouts summarizing the presentation’s key points are valid, but another creative method is to insert a QR code in PowerPoint and link to a PDF document with the transcript of the presentation, plus the slides. 

Illustrations and Diagrams

Think about hard-to-understand topics involving a series of charts or graphs to comprehend the disclosed information. Those same graphics can be given to the audience in the format of handouts, with callouts or visual aids that remind the attendees of the importance of those concepts.

Summarize Key Information

Suppose you attended a chef conference, where new technologies, methodologies, or recipes are shared in presentations. You can refer to the handouts for detailed instructions and focus on the training presentation in real time rather than taking notes.

Contact Data

Finally, we can consider a handout format for people who want to get in touch for business partnerships, academic collaborations, etc. Rather than delivering a business card, provide additional information about your work and deliver a handout.

Follow these steps to create handouts in PowerPoint.

Open your presentation in PowerPoint. Go to the View tab and find Handout Master .

You can customize the appearance of your handout by adding a header, date, logo, contact details, etc. This works exactly the same as Slide Master in PowerPoint , so all changes will be reflected on all pages in your handout.

Now, go to File > Export and select Create Handouts .

Click on the Create Handouts button, and you will be prompted with a context menu with the following options:

• Notes next to slides
• Blank lines next to slides
• Notes below slides
• Blank lines below slides
• Outline only

Select the option you prefer. We highly recommend selecting Paste to add a tiny version of the slides to your new handouts document.

Once that’s done, a new Microsoft Word document will open with your presentation handouts, which can also be customized from Word.

For Google Slides, the instructions are much simpler. Select your desired presentation in Google Slides and go to File > Print Preview . All options for how to print slides in Google Slides are now available.

The option we’re interested in is the menu below the top bar that says 1 slide without notes .

Open that and select Handout , with the number of slides per page you prefer.

Then click on Print, and a new PDF document will be generated. Unlike PowerPoint, you have to edit everything beforehand or opt for a PDF editor like Adobe Acrobat.

Handouts should be concise. The idea is to summarize information, not to confuse the audience with an overwhelming amount of data. Although these recommendations are valid for all handouts created with PowerPoint templates and Google Slides, the same rules apply to handouts created in Graphic Design Software (Adobe Illustrator, Corel Draw, etc.), as it’s tempting to keep adding unnecessary data or complex illustration effects.

Sharing your handout before the presentation starts is advisable, as it’s the moment most attendees will gather and where the expectation about what the talk will be about is at its highest. In our experience, the audience tends to grow restless toward the last 5 minutes of your presentation, with some attendees leaving if they have to attend another conference with a very limited timeframe between both. Distributing a handout during the presentation is distracting and will negatively impact your presentation’s performance.

Finally, as you would do with poster presentations , focus on readability. Avoid using heavily contrasting colors or text that looks too small to read for the sake of adding more data. The handout is a tool to complement your presentation, not to summarize countless words.

Handouts for presentations are not an optional add-in. They are a vital element of effective academic and business presentations. By providing a clear structure to your handout or using digital mediums to help people with impairments, you are taking into account accessibility, one of the best practices you can engage early on in your path to becoming a professional presenter.

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12 Tips to Prepare Handouts in a Presentation

• By Judhajit Sen
• May 14, 2024

A presentation handout is a presentation aid given to people attending a lecture, conference presentation, or talk. It helps them understand the main points and remember what was said. It’s not just an executive summary of the slides; it can include more details about each topic. This makes it easier for the audience to grasp the essential ideas and refer back to them later. 

A good handout adds extra value to a PowerPoint presentation by expanding on what was discussed and keeping the slides tidy. It can include dense facts and figures that might clutter the slides, making the presentation look clean and professional. 

Creating a presentation handout make it easier for the audience to follow along and remember the key points. They’re also handy for people who couldn’t attend the presentation but still want to know what was discussed. So, an effective presentation handout isn’t just helpful for the presenter, it’s useful for everyone involved.

Key Takeaways

• Reinforce Memory: Creating a handout helps people remember key points from your presentation by allowing them to review the information later.
• Detailed Information:  Handouts enable you to delve deeper into topics without overwhelming your audience during the presentation, especially useful for complex subjects.
• Enhanced Calls to Action: Including contact information or action prompts in handouts can facilitate follow-up actions, particularly beneficial in sales pitches or business presentations .
• Potential Distractions:  Handouts might distract attendees, draw attention away from your verbal presentation, and potentially spoil surprises if read ahead.
• Information Security:  Distributing sensitive information via handouts carries risks of unauthorized dissemination, potentially compromising confidentiality.
• Strategic Distribution: Deciding when to distribute handouts depends on factors such as presentation style and audience dynamics, with options including before, during, or at the end of your presentation. Sharing beforehand can enhance focus and convenience for note-taking, while delaying distribution may seem punitive.

Pros and Cons of Using Presentation Handouts

Handouts in a presentation have advantages and disadvantages. Here’s a breakdown of the arguments for and against them.

Arguments for using handouts –  

Helps remember and reinforces points: Handouts are handy because they help people remember what you talked about. After your presentation, folks can take the papers home, review them again, and remember the important stuff. It keeps your presentation alive in their minds even after you’re done talking. 

Allows more details: You can’t cover every tiny detail during presentations. You want to keep it lively and engaging. Handouts come to the rescue here. They let you go into more depth without overwhelming your audience. You can explain technical stuff, timelines, and numbers better. This can be helpful, especially for internal company presentations where you must cover all bases. 

Strengthens the call to action: A good call to action make it easy for people to do what you want them to do. Handouts can make this happen. For example, in sales presentations , you can leave behind papers with all the info prospects need to contact you later. It simplifies things, especially if they need to talk it over with others first. 

Arguments against using handouts –  

Can be distracting: Some folks argue that handouts steal the show. Instead of paying attention to you, people might end up reading what’s on paper. It’s like having a side attraction that detracts from your central performance. Some even say it’s like shooting yourself in the foot because you’re giving people something else to focus on before you start.

Audience might read ahead: Presentations are all about building suspense and excitement. But if people read ahead, it spoils the surprise. Imagine you’re about to reveal a big secret, but everyone already knows what it is. It’s like the plot twist in a movie being spoiled before you even watch it. That’s not cool. 

Loses control over information: Your information is precious, especially sensitive company information. Handing out papers with essential data can be risky. What if they get copied or end up in the wrong hands? It’s like giving away the keys to the kingdom. You want to keep your information safe and sound, not let it wander off where it shouldn’t.

Tips for Creating Effective Handouts in a Presentation

Creating a presentation with handouts is as crucial as planning your speech and slides. These tangible takeaways can reinforce your message, provide additional information, and serve as a lasting reference for your audience. Here are some key considerations to keep in mind when you create effective presentation handouts – 

1. Plan Ahead: Don’t leave handout creation as a last-minute task. Allocate enough time to make your handout alongside your speech and slides. Rushing to put something together moments before your presentation can result in an ineffective and hastily made handout.

2. Avoid Printing Slides: Resist the temptation to simply  go to print option with your slides. This approach lacks effectiveness and may only make sense to readers with additional context. Instead, create your handout by typing out the content in the Notes pane of your ppt software to create more informative handouts.

3. Reflect Your Presentation: Ensure that your handout mirrors the structure and content of your presentation. This cohesion allows audience members to easily connect them with the key information presented during the talk, enhancing comprehension and retention.

4. Add Extra Information: Use handouts to provide supplementary information your presentation couldn’t cover. This additional content can inspire further exploration of the topic and cater to audiences seeking more in-depth knowledge.

5. Include References: Include citations in your handout if you reference research or external sources during your presentation. This enables interested individuals to delve deeper into the subject matter and validates your claims.

6. Create Action Sheets: Consider including action-oriented content in your handouts to encourage audience members to apply the insights gained from your presentation. Action sheets or worksheets  engage your audience  and help reinforce critical takeaways.

7. Ensure Stand-Alone Clarity: Your handout should be understandable even to those who didn’t attend your presentation or revisit it later. Provide brief background information about yourself for context, ensuring that the content can stand alone as a valuable resource.

8. Provide White Space: Leave ample white space for notes pages on your presentation handout design so attendees can take notes. This encourages active engagement during the presentation and consolidates all relevant information in one accessible document.

9. Maintain Professionalism: Your handout represents you and your presentation slides, so it should reflect professionalism. Proofread diligently, maintain a consistent brand identity, and ensure the layout is visually appealing.

10. Offer Additional Resources: Explore alternative handout templates for sharing supplementary materials, such as DVDs, websites, or online platforms. Providing diverse resources caters to different preferences and extends the conversation beyond the confines of the presentation.

11. Consider Digital Options: Consider creating digital alternatives like webpages or social media pages besides Microsoft Word printed handouts. These platforms facilitate ongoing engagement, allowing audience members to comment, ask questions, and access additional resources.

12. Communicate Limitations: If certain information discussed during the presentation is not included in the handout, clarify it to your audience. This transparency prevents confusion and encourages direct engagement for further clarification.

Adhering to these guidelines ensures that your presentation handouts serve as valuable assets that complement your verbal delivery and contribute to a memorable and informative audience experience.

The Best Time to Distribute Handouts in a Presentation

Deciding when to distribute your handout isn’t about finding a perfect moment. To help you figure out what’s best for your situation, it’s good to know how timing can affect your audience – 

Handout before the presentation: If you share your handout beforehand, some of your audience might peek ahead, which could split their attention during your talk. Think carefully if this suits your presentation style.

Handout during the presentation:  Give out handouts when they can support what you’re saying visually or emphasize your points.

Handout after the presentation: If you choose this option, your handout should include your contact information. If you’re sending it electronically, PDF works well. Adding a copyright notice might be smart, depending on who’s getting it.

Tip – Sharing the reading material before the actual presentation can be helpful. Some worry it might make the audience fidgety or distract them, but experience often shows it doesn’t hurt their focus. Many appreciate not having to jot down everything, allowing them to focus better on your words. Plus, they can make their own notes right on the handout. Waiting until the end of the presentation to give it out might make it seem like a punishment.

Crafting Effective Handouts in a Presentation

Handouts serve as invaluable presentation aids in reinforcing key messages, offering additional insights, and providing lasting references for your audience. They extend the reach of your engaging presentations beyond the confines of the spoken word, offering tangible takeaways that enhance understanding and retention.

Planning ahead is essential when preparing handouts, avoiding last-minute rushes that can result in ineffective materials. Resist the urge to simply print out your slides; instead, craft reading material that reflect the structure and content of your presentation while providing supplementary information and references for further exploration.

Consider incorporating action-oriented content to encourage audience engagement and maintain professionalism through diligent proofreading and consistent branding. Offering diverse resources and digital alternatives ensures accessibility and caters to various preferences.

Deciding when to distribute handouts depends on your presentation style and audience dynamics. While sharing them beforehand may seem counterintuitive, it enhances focus and allows for note-taking convenience. Adhering to these guidelines ensures that the distributed content effectively complement your verbal delivery, contributing to a memorable and informative audience experience.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

1. Why are handouts necessary in a presentation?

Handouts help people remember key points and provide extra details not covered in slides, making it easy for the audience to grasp information.

2. How do handouts benefit both the speaker and the audience?

Handouts reinforce the speaker’s message and serve as a lasting reference for the audience. They allow them to review the material at their own pace, even if they can’t attend the presentation.

3. What are the advantages of using handouts during a presentation?

Handouts aid in memory retention, allow for more in-depth explanations and strengthen calls to action, such as providing contact information for follow-up purposes.

4. What are the possible drawbacks of using handouts in a presentation?

Handouts may distract from the speaker, spoil surprises in the presentation, and pose risks of information leakage, especially with sensitive data.

5. How should handouts be prepared effectively?

Handouts should be planned alongside the presentation, reflect its structure and content, include supplementary information and references, and encourage audience engagement through action-oriented content.

6. When is the best time to distribute handouts during a presentation?

The timing of handout distribution depends on the entire presentation style and audience dynamics. However, sharing them beforehand can enhance focus and convenience for note-taking, while distributing them afterward ensures accessibility for further reference.

Craft Stellar Handouts with Prezentium: Your Key to Memorable Presentations!

Are you looking to make better presentations? Prezentium offers expert assistance in crafting stellar handouts that reinforce your message and captivate your audience. With our AI-powered services, we ensure that the reading material are not just summaries of slides but comprehensive documents that add value to your presentation.

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But that’s not all – our Zenith Learning program comprising presentation trainers combine structured problem-solving with interactive communication training workshops, ensuring that your handouts engage and resonate with your audience.

Don’t settle for ordinary handouts. Elevate your presentations with Prezentium and leave a lasting impression on your clients. Contact us today to learn more about how we can help you craft exceptional handouts that amplify the impact of your presentations.

Why wait? Avail a complimentary 1-on-1 session with our presentation expert. See how other enterprise leaders are creating impactful presentations with us.

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13 Best Practice Tips for Effective Presentation Handouts

by Olivia Mitchell | 75 comments

Your presentation handout is the lasting concrete manifestation of your presentation. It’s an important part of the total experience for the audience:

But most of us focus on preparing what happens during the presentation, not what happens afterwards . Here are the benefits of having handouts:

Benefits for the presenter

• They allow you to cut down on the amount of material you cover in your presentation and so not commit information overload .
• They allow you to stop worrying about forgetting what you want to say .
• Audience members will have a concrete reminder making your presentation more memorable.
• Audience members can easily contact you later.

Benefits for audience members

• They allow audience members to relax about having to note down what you’re saying.
• If they like taking notes, they’ve got a place to do it.
• If they’re inspired by your topic, they’ve got more information on it.
• If they want to refresh themselves later on what you covered they’ve got a place to go.

Tips for Presentation Handouts

1. prepare your handouts in plenty of time.

Don’t leave it till the last moment to create your handout. I’ve been guilty of this. We’re most concerned about the actual presentation and not making a fool of ourselves up on the stage so you work on what you’re going to say and the slides, and then 30 mins before your presentation you realise you should have a handout and hurriedly put something together. Handouts are much too important to be relegated to an afterthought.

2. Don’t just print out your slides

This is lazy and not effective. If your slides are bullet-point slides (not recommended) then they will often be cut-down sentences which will no longer make sense to the reader a week later. And if they are visual slides (recommended) then they’re also unlikely to make sense without additional text. If you’re presenting with visual PowerPoint slides, one of the easiest ways of creating a handout is to type the text of the handout in the “Notes” pane of the PowerPoint edit screen. Then print your slides as “Notes”. You’ll have an effective handout.

3. Ensure your handout reflects your presentation

An audience member should be able to relate the handout to the presentation they’ve just attended. If you use the Notes pane of PowerPoint as I’ve suggested above this will happen naturally as you’ll be guided by the visuals you’re using in the presentation. You handout should have the same title as your presentation and should follow the same structure so that audience members can easily find the information they want.

4. Add more information

Presentations are not a good format for transferring a lot of information . However, they are good for inspiring people to find out more about a topic. That extra information can be in the handout. And if you’re the sort of person who wants to tell the audience everything you know about the topic… you can put it in the handout.

5. Include references

If you’re citing research do include the references in the handout. For most presentations (scientific presentations to a scientific audience would be an exception), don’t clutter up your presentation or your slides with references. But do be able to say: “The reference for this research is in your handout.” Let your audience know where they can find out more: books, websites, blogs etc.

6. Consider creating an action sheet

Handouts are a great place to help people put ideas from your presentation into action. You could either list a series of actions that people can take, or provide a worksheet that people fill in on what actions they will take as a result of your presentation. Have people fill in the action sheet near the end of your presentation.

7. Make your handout stand-alone

The handout may be passed onto people who were not at your presentation. Or an audience member may look at it a year from now when they’ve forgotten most of your presentation. Make sure that it will make sense to them. For people who weren’t present include brief credibility-establishing information about you.

8. Provide white space

Some people like to take notes during a presentation. Provide plenty of white space (or even some blank pages at the back) so that they can take notes on the handout and so keep all the information related to your presentation in one place.

9. Make your handout look professional

The handout is the concrete reminder of your presentation. It may also get passed onto other people who were not at your presentation. So it should enhance the perception people have of you:

• Have someone proofread it
• Create a consistent look and feel with your brand (this may include a logo and colors)

10. Consider what additional resources you can provide for your audience

You’re not limited to paper. My bioethics teacher friend who presents at bioethics and education conferences across the globe provides each of her attendees with a DVD with lesson plans and resources.

11. Consider creating a webpage

Cliff Atkinson suggests creating a “home page” for your presentation in his book The Backchannel . If you don’t have a website, you could create a squidoo lens or a Facebook Fan page . Or if you’d like to do more than that, create a wiki website (try pbworks or wikispaces ) or use blog software. Both of these can be done for free and just a little technical courage (techphobics shouldn’t try this). All of these options allow readers to comment on what you’ve written, so it’s a great way of continuing the conversation with audience members. For instance, audience members can ask you questions they weren’t able to ask at the time.

If you decide to go the web way, you can cut down the hard copy handout to one page with the most important points from your presentation, your contact details and the web address.

12. Distribute the handout at the beginning of your presentation

This is a perennial topic of debate amongst presenters. Some people are concerned that if they distribute the handout first, people will stop listening and start leafing through it. The problem here is not the handout, it’s that your presentation is not engaging enough.

Not distributing it till after the presentation suggests that you think you know best how people should pay attention to your information. Let your audience decide for themselves.

Recent research suggests that providing handouts to university students before the lecture does not harm their learning.

Update: In the comments to this post, Cathy Moore , Mike Slater and Adam Lawrence have identified three good reasons for distributing your handout after your presentation. I’ve highlighted these reasons in a new post: Three good reasons to distribute your handout after your presentation .

13. Do tell people if it’s not in the handout

Finally, if you go off on a tangent in reply to a question, do let them know that the answer is not in the handout.

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How to Create a Powerpoint Handout

Last Updated: March 19, 2023

This article was co-authored by Vikas Agrawal and by wikiHow staff writer, Nicole Levine, MFA . Vikas Agrawal is a Visual Content Marketing Expert & Entrepreneur, as well as the Founder of Full Service Creative Agency Infobrandz. With over 10 years of experience, he specializes in designing visually engaging content, such as infographics, videos, and e-books. He’s an expert in Making content marketing strategies and has contributed to and been featured in many publications including Forbes, Entrepreneur.com, and INC.com. This article has been viewed 178,133 times.

If you're giving a PowerPoint presentation and want to provide your viewers with a printed version, you can create a handout page. A handout page is a printed version of your presentation that can help viewers follow along, take notes, and keep the information for their own record. Since you can place more than one slide on a single handout, printing handouts rather than the entire presentation can save you a lot of paper and printer ink. This wikiHow teaches you how to quickly print helpful PowerPoint handouts, as well as how to design a handout master that lets you save handout customizations for future printing.

Printing Handouts the Quick Way

• Keep in mind that the more slides you print on one page, the smaller the text will be on each slide—if your slides are text-heavy, 6 slides per page should be your limit.
• If you want to encourage viewers to take notes as they watch your presentation, try the "3 slide" option—this prints three slides per page with ruled areas for note-taking next to each slide.

• To add the date and time, check the box next to "Date and time" and choose whether to update the time automatically (based on time of printing) or leave it fixed (date of your choosing).
• To add custom text to the top of each printed page, check the box next to "Header" and enter your text in the corresponding box.
• To add text to the bottom of each page, check "Footer" and add text to the corresponding box.
• If you make any changes in this window, click Apply to All to save your changes and return to the Print screen.

• If you're printing multiple sets of handouts, make sure to select Collated from the menu if it isn't already selected. F

Creating a Custom Handout Master

• You should only use royalty free fonts if you don't have a license to use a font.

• It's not usually advised to print a background color on handouts—it uses a lot of ink. Try to keep the fancy colors to your actual presentation!

• If you don't just want a basic background color, click the Background Styles menu again and select Format Background to expand the Format Background panel on the right. Here you can choose different background fills, such as images, textures, and gradients.

• For example, if you want to include an image on each printed handout page, click the Insert tab, select Pictures , choose your image and place it at the desired location.
• If you want to include custom text at the top or bottom of your handouts, click Header & Footer on the Insert tab, check the box next to "Header" or "Footer" (or both!) and type your desired text. When you click Apply to All , the handout master's header and footer will update to your new preferences.

• Now that you've customized your handout master, these settings will be in place when you're ready to print. To print, just go to File > Print , choose your printer and color options, and click Print .

Community Q&A

You Might Also Like

• ↑ https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/print-your-handouts-notes-or-slides-91c62c83-9032-497c-ab76-cae8f3e1a402
• ↑ https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/create-or-change-a-presentation-s-handout-c86f1231-abfd-48de-8d76-807f668512d2

About This Article

1. Go to File > Print . 2. Select how many slides to print per page. 3. Click the Full Page Slides menu. 4. Select a layout from the "Handouts" section. 5. Click Edit header and footer to customize the header and footer. 6. Choose the reset of your printing preferences. 7. Click Print . Did this summary help you? Yes No

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Prafull Sinwal

Jun 22, 2016

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How to Create Engaging Presentation Handouts

So you want to create engaging handouts for your presentations, huh? You’re probably expecting this blog post to tell you exactly how to create amazing handouts in a few simple steps. Well, sorry to disappoint, but that’s not what this post is about. What I’m here to do is to give you the best tips and tricks to transform your ordinary handouts into something your audience will find exciting and inspiring. Creating engaging handouts is more than just picking a font and any old text to fill up the page. It’s about strategizing what content to include and how to make it visually appealing. While the exact form each handout takes will differ from presentation to presentation, the goal should always remain the same: to create something that people will enjoy reading. So let’s dive into exactly how to make your handouts attractive, informative, and truly engaging!

What Are Handouts in Presentations?

Handouts are material given to an audience of a presentation, typically including supplementary information and visuals which compliment the speaker’s discussion. Handouts can be distributed physically, or shared electronically through the internet. Regardless of their form, handouts are effective tools that help capture the interest of your audience and support the message of your core presentation. When creating handouts for a presentation, there is a debate as to whether or not you should include all content discussed in the presentation, or simply key points and takeaways. On one hand, providing handouts with too much detail can lead to audiences relying on them as a crutch and losing focus during important points in the presentation. On the other hand, by limiting what is included in handouts it can leave audiences feeling under-informed once they leave your presentation and lose some of the impact of your talk. It is important to find balance and decide which approach works best for particular presentations based on who your target audience is going to be and what you’re hoping attendees will gain from participating in your talk. In the next section we will examine more closely what the purpose of having handouts in presentations may be so that you can make an informed decision based on selecting the right materials for your specific needs.

What Is the Purpose of Handouts in Presentations?

Handouts can be an effective tool for reinforcing key points and engaging your audience , but it is important to consider their purpose when designing your presentation. Handouts can have both positive and negative impacts on a presenter’s objectives. On one hand, handouts can provide an opportunity for the audience to connect and interact with the presentation, aiding comprehension. They can also help to increase engagement from listeners, as well as acting as a visual reinforcement of key concepts. On the other hand, if not properly designed or used, handouts can detract from a presentation. A cluttered slideshow or distracting graphics can cause confusion or create excessive distraction and boredom in an audience. Poorly tailored handouts such as translations of slideshows into paragraphs or too much material packed into limited space could leave listeners feeling overwhelmed and unable to focus. Overall, it is important for presenters to carefully consider the purpose of their handouts before incorporating them into their presentations. The goal should always be creating an engaging experience that further aids audience understanding. With careful attention to design, thoughtfully chosen materials and allotted time for participation, presenters can leverage handouts as a powerful resource to maximize the success of their talks. Now that you understand the role of handouts in presentations, let’s dive into ways you can improve your audience’s understanding with them.

Improving Audience’s Understanding

Understanding your targeted audience is key for creating engaging handouts that are well received. When preparing a handout, it is important to consider the Age, Gender, Educational background and other relevant factors of those in attendance. Presenters should strive to provide enough information on the topic while also adapting their presentation to meet their audience’s needs. This helps ensure that presentations are meaningful and beneficial for participants. When available, it is beneficial to add data visualizations, such as graphs and charts, to further explain concepts and ideas. Visual representations of data can help viewers comprehend complex topics quickly and easily. Also, providing helpful resources and references in materials distributed during or after the presentation can help deepen participants’ understanding of the presented information. Nonetheless, excessive visual aids may not be necessary; visuals should only be used if they improve understanding of the material and increase comprehension. To reinforce audience’s understanding of main points throughout the presentation, speakers should summarize their message several times during various intervals. Summarizing key points allows viewers to connect core content with the overall message of the handout. Additionally, lecturers should include information on how participants can apply what they have learned in their own lives or work environment for greater comprehension and engagement with the material. Demonstrating understanding of different learning styles is another effective way to engage learners. Differentiating delivery methods – such as transitioning from lecture format to interactive activities like discussion or debate – can be effective for diverse audiences. By becoming aware of a variety of knowledge retention tools, presenters are more likely to create engaging handouts that better meet their attendees’ needs. Once you’ve created an engaging handout that appeals to your audience and improves understanding, it is important to reinforce and summarize these main points throughout the presentation. In our next section, we will discuss strategies presenters can adopt when reinforcing information during their presentations.

Reinforcing and Summarizing

When you’re preparing handouts for your presentations, it is important to remember that their purpose is to reinforce and summarize the content of your presentation. Handouts should be concise and easy to read; an effective handout should include no more than two pages of material that highlights the most important points from your talk. They should also provide supplemental visuals, such as graphs and charts, to help illustrate key concepts. When designing a handout, it is helpful to use the same font and color scheme that you plan on using in your presentation so that they can work together seamlessly. You should also provide enough detail so that viewers can continue their exploration or review content from your presentation if needed. Additionally, consider adding a quote from the speaker or additional text as a reference on the handout for attendees to use in writing about the event online. Some argue that limiting handouts to two pages reduces the amount of material attendees can take with them, but this ensures that only the most important details are present for viewers to access. Without proper reinforcement and summarization included within your handouts, there will be less reinforcement of the content within viewers’ minds and they may potentially forget some of what was discussed during the presentation. It is essential to create handouts that succinctly yet accurately summarize what was discussed in order to enhance understanding of the topics and improve retention of information. To further engage audiences while reinforcing key messaging, handouts can come in multiple forms: physical printed materials as well as digital platforms such as tablets and slide shows. The next section will explore how utilizing both physical and digital materials effectively create engaging handouts for presentations.

Essential Points

When preparing a presentation handout, it is important to make sure that the content is concise and easy to read and that it reinforces the main points from the talk. Fonts and colors should be consistent with those in the presentation and additional visuals, such as graphs and charts, should be included. Handouts can also include a quote from the speaker or additional material for attendees to use when writing about the event online. The handout should not exceed two pages and should provide enough detail so that viewers can review the content of your presentation. Finally, physical and digital materials should both be utilized to create engaging handouts for presentations.

Handouts as Physical and Digital Materials

Handouts are one of the most effective tools for engaging an audience during a presentation. They serve as standalone reminders of what was discussed, making them invaluable as educational and reference materials. Handouts can be physical documents given at the presentation, or digital copies to be distributed via email or online. In either form, handouts should be concise and focused on helping reinforce the message in your presentation. When it comes to physical handouts, there are pros and cons to consider. On one hand, physical documents might not always be the most cost-effective or environmentally friendly option if you’re distributing them to a large audience. However, handing out physical materials helps to make presentations more interactive by ensuring that each attendee has something tangible they can refer back to at a later date. Furthermore, physical documents provide a sense of authentic communication, versus just reading text on a screen. These benefits may be worth the extra expense and resources required for production. On the other hand, when considering digital handouts, there may be advantages over traditional physical materials. For example, digital documents can save time and money by reducing the burden of having to produce physical copies for everyone in the room. Also, digital files may provide more flexibility in terms of design capabilities and customizability when compared to static print material. Additionally, digital copies can easily be shared with more people beyond just those in attendance at a presentation—they can be sent to any interested party with access to email or the web. Whether using physical or digital materials for handouts is best for any particular situation depends largely on audience size and type of content being presented. In either case, it’s important that these resources are easy to use and understand so that attendees retain what they learn after leaving the presentation. The next section will explore how to create effective types of physical handouts that meet these needs while engaging your audience before and after your presentation.

Types of Physical Handouts

Physical handouts are a powerful and essential tool for enhancing audience engagement with your presentation. They provide people with something tangible to refer back to as they revisit the concepts, ideas, and data discussed during your presentation. Furthermore, physical handouts allow you to capture an audience’s attention and draw them into the material in order to have greater impact. The types of physical handouts you choose to provide, however, will depend largely on what kind of material is included in your presentation and the amount of time you have for distribution. Generally speaking, physical handouts can be further divided into three categories: reference materials, visual aids , and discussion prompts. Reference materials are collections of facts or data related to the presentation’s topic that provide a reference point for audiences to review after your presentation. Examples could include pre-packaged binders full of information on a particular topic area or white papers summarizing research findings relevant to the subject. Visual aids consist of graphical displays or images related to your presentation topic that will help increase audience understanding and enhance their experience while viewing. Examples including infographics or charts that map out different elements of the presentation in a visually appealing manner and provide context for understanding the main points of your talk. Discussion prompts are written questions or statements that apply directly to the subject matter presented during your talk but can evoke further thought from the audience through encouraging open dialogue during group activities or roundtable discussions following the talk. This allows for more interactive conversations about your topic by introducing questions and ideas not discussed in depth during your presentation itself. Overall, there are numerous types of physical handouts that can be distributed before, during, or after presentations depending on the type of content being presented. While these include reference materials, visual aids, and discussion prompts, experimentation with various options can reveal which works best for any given situation. With this in mind though it’s important to take into account logistics related to gathering and disseminating physical handouts when planning presentations. Now that we’ve examined the types of physical handouts available let’s move onto looking at how digital ones can shape engaging presentations—the focus of our next section.

Types of Digital Handouts

When it comes to creating engaging handouts for your presentations, one popular way to deliver information is through digital formats. Digital handouts offer the convenience of being able to easily be shared electronically, which can be beneficial in cases where physical copies are not necessary. They can also be highly customizable and interactive, allowing you to quickly tailor your message to the audience. The most popular types of digital handouts are PDF files, PowerPoint slides, and multimedia tools such as videos and podcasts . PDFs allow you to easily share important documents or forms with large groups of people without having to print out hundreds of copies. PowerPoint slides are a great way to add visuals and animation to engage your audience; visual content has been found to be appealing to viewers and can help keep their attention. Multimedia tools provide further opportunities for interaction with audience members by giving them a chance to listen and watch rather than read, enabling increased engagement with your material. Although digital handouts have obvious advantages over physical copies, there are still some potential risks in using them for presentations. For example, if your presentation relies heavily on visuals, complex graphics may not always appear correctly when displayed on different devices or platforms. Additionally, if you’re relying on an internet connection for your presentation then any problems with signal strength or load times can cause disruption. Finally, data privacy is always a consideration when sharing materials electronically; you will need to take the necessary measures to ensure the personal data collected from attendees is kept safe and secure. Despite these potential issues, digital handouts are generally popular among presenters because they provide convenience and flexibility when sharing information. When used properly, digital handouts can help make presentations engaging and impactful for even a large audience. Now that we have discussed the types of digital handouts available, let’s move on to the next section which will explore “When to Use Handouts During Your Presentations”.

When to Use Handouts During Presentations

Whether or not to use handouts during a presentation is an age-old debate that has gone on for decades. Some speakers may feel that passing out handouts detracts from their presentation, while others believe they are a necessary tool to keep an audience engaged. Ultimately, it comes down to what type of content and audience the presenter is dealing with when deciding if handouts are appropriate. On one side, many presenters will claim that handouts should only be used sparingly in order to maintain audience engagement. This can be particularly effective when presenting to small groups or information-packed content that requires focus and concentration. Handouts can be easily misused by providing too much unnecessary information which can cause the audience to lose interest and quickly become overwhelmed. On the other side, handouts can also be a valuable asset when presenting longer lectures or more complex issues that offer an abundance of facts and figures. Handouts are often much easier for an audience to follow along with and can act as a great supplement for topics that require further explanation. Additionally, handing out material ahead of time gives the presenter an opportunity to gauge audience interest before getting started and make adjustments accordingly. In summary, the decision whether or not to utilize handouts depends greatly on the type of presentation and its intended content – being mindful not to overwhelm the audience by introducing too many material at once. With this in mind, let’s look at some tips presenters can use when preparing their handouts for their presentations.

Tips for Presenters for Using Handouts

Using handouts as a part of your presentation can help ensure that members of your audience are engaged and leave with the necessary materials to further their knowledge and understanding. To ensure that you make the most out of using handouts, there are several tips for presenters to keep in mind throughout their presentation. First, no matter how engaging the presentation may be, it’s important to provide handouts which summarize the points of your presentation. By allowing members of your audience to have a physical document of the topics discussed, they’ll be able to quickly refer back to information given or determine additional resources they need to seek out after the presentation has ended . As such, investing time into creating effective handouts can further engage and inform everyone in attendance. Second, it’s beneficial to give each member of your audience a copy of the handout so that they don’t have to rely on someone else’s copy if they miss something. Additionally, by giving each member their own copy your audience will be able to take notes directly on their paper and even make summaries that are most relevant for them. Moreover, if presenting virtually it’s essential you consider how the attendees will access the handouts; whether via email attachment prior to or during the beginning of the session. Some may find that giving handouts throughout a presentation may overpower and even distract from what is actually being said in real-time. This perspective may be valid and should certainly be taken into consideration when deciding when and how often one distributes handouts within their presentation. Ultimately, it should come down to what style works best within a unique setting and situation so that participants remain actively engaged in your information while simultaneously having access to any additional resources they may benefit from during or after the event concludes.

Responses to Frequently Asked Questions

What type of information should be included in a handout for a presentation.

When it comes to creating engaging handouts for a presentation, it’s important to include information that will help make the presentation more digestible and easier to remember after the fact. This could include key slides from the presentation, with accompanying notes and bullet points, highlighted quotes, summaries of key topics addressed in the presentation, as well as useful visuals like infographics and graphs so that participants can easily recall the most important details. Additionally, it’s a good idea to include contact information of the presenter or company, so that participants have an easy way to follow up or reach out for further discussion. Finally, adding applicable tips or tricks related to the topic being discussed can help keep participants engaged and give them something practical to take away from the experience.

How can handouts be used effectively during a presentation?

Handouts can be a very effective tool for aiding presenters during their presentations. Handouts provide audience members with a tangible item to refer back to and review after the presentation. They can also serve as a valuable reminder of key points made during the presentation and help to visually reinforce concepts or evidence that the presenter is attempting to convey. Handouts often have more detailed information than what is given in the presentation, making them an excellent means of providing follow-up materials to attendees who are interested in understanding the topic better. Additionally, since handouts can serve as concrete reminders of what was taught in the presentation, they are sometimes used after a presentation as a follow-up review tool. Finally, handouts can be used to provide insights into topics which may not be suitable for verbal presentation, such as data analysis or complex diagrams. When used effectively and thoughtfully, handouts can be an invaluable resource during any learning experience.

What are the pros and cons of using handouts in a presentation?

Using handouts in presentations can be very beneficial, but there are also some drawbacks that should be considered. One of the main advantages of using handouts is that it allows your audience to refer back to the materials you’re presenting for further study and reference. They can take notes in the margins, re-read information, and review topics they didn’t quite understand during the presentation. Additionally, by choosing handouts with illustrations, captivating images, or attractive designs, you can add an extra layer of engagement for your audience. On the other hand, one of the biggest disadvantages of using handouts is that it does take time away from the actual presentation. You may have to allocate time during your speech for people to get their hands on the material you’re providing or wait as they go through a particular section. Moreover, if your audience isn’t given enough time to review the information before they leave the talk, they likely won’t remember what they read once they get home. Overall, while using handouts in presentations can be beneficial when done correctly, taking note of the time constraints during a presentation and giving adequate time for your audience to review any information provided is essential.

Creating a Handout to Support and Enhance Your Presentation!

Got a  presentation coming up and need to create a useful handout to complement it? Great idea – but how do you go about it? Many people think handouts are just used in college, but in the business world they can be really useful to reinforce the content of your presentation.

Whether it’s a business meeting or a training course, a handout will underscore your points and support your presentation when done right.  It can be tricky, though, to decide on what to include, the format, how to structure a handout and at what point of the presentation to distribute it.

Before starting to create your handout, you need to think about such things as structure, content and timing . This blog covers everything you need to know!

What is a Handout?

As the name suggests, a handout is any type of document that a speaker hands out to participants during a lecture, presentation, conference or meeting. It allows your audience to get a clear overview of the main points, or to sum up what they have heard afterwards.

A handout isn’t just a summary of slide titles; it can be much more detailed, summing up each individual topic and serving as a reference for core concepts and central insights.

What is a Handout actually for?

Your handout must provide added value . It contains information either covered or referred to in your presentation, allowing you to expand upon what might have only been touched on, and free your slides from clutter.

It can not only summarise your arguments, but can relieve pressure on your slides:  dense facts and figures can be sidelined to the handout, allowing your PowerPoint presentation to be slick and professional.

Handouts offer three main advantages to your audience, depending on when they’re given out:

• The audience can follow what is said during the presentation
• The audience can make their own notes to supplement or clarify for themselves what you have presented
• It consists of an overview of what you have presented, which can then be read by interested parties

A handout not only means that you can create a clean and uncluttered presentation, but allows your audience to understand your points better and remember them afterwards .  It’s also very useful for conveying your arguments to anyone who may have missed the actual presentation.

Tip: So why not just Start with the Handout?

There are obvious advantages both to your audience and yourself to having of a clearly structured handout. Once you know what to do, they can be relatively straightforward to produce.  Of course, this still takes time, and you need to allow for this.

Cobbling together a handout at the last moment is not only stressful, it can be counterproductive, as it undermines your professionalism and never goes unnoticed.

TIP: For a change, why not start your presentation with a handout ? By getting the essentials out of the way first, you can then develop your presentation step by step using the handout as a basis.

The great advantage here is that you not only end up with a detailed handout, but you find a s trong common thread , allowing you to  create an equally “crisp” presentation and navigate your way through it.

Creating a Handout: How to Structure it

As with most things concerning design, the motto “ less is more ” applies very effectively to handouts. In concrete terms, this means: do without whole sentences and make use of key points, abbreviations, arrows and symbols. Ideally, your handout should not consist of more than two A4 pages.

In addition to important information from your presentation, a handout needs to include the following :

• Basic information, probably in the upper left corner of the handout, such as the location of the presentation and the speaker’s name and title
• The date, probably in the upper right corner
• A concise heading – preferably the title of your presentation – centered
• Page numbers in the footer
• A clear structure, based on the individual headings of the presentation
• A consistent page layout using standard, unembellished fonts such as Arial or Times New Roman

The structure of your handout should follow the structure of your presentation, especially if you give out the handout during your presentation. It is best to limit your points to those which support your main argument. Keep the sub-items on the handout as simple as possible and don’t go into too much detail.

To make your handout visually appealing, it helps to think about the font. In addition to using clear, standard fonts , as mentioned above, try to keep the font size in the headers and footers uniform and smaller than in the main part.

TIP: Create an area for the audience to make their own notes on your handout. Either make the right margin wider or leave a few lines of space under your last point.

Handout Content – Short and to the Point

You’ve decided the layout of your handout, entered the key points and created a rough outline. Now it’s time to expand on individual points and create the main content of your handout.

Before doing so, focus on your target audience : how much background knowledge can you assume they have on the topic of your presentation?  Keeping your audience in mind means you tailor the handout to their level, avoiding technical terms where they would distract from your point, including them when you are faced with an audience knowledgeable in a particular discipline. 

It is very important to condense the core statements of your presentation into key points, rather than including a distracting stream of text. This way, you retain your audience’s full attention.

TIP: To arouse your audience’s curiosity right at the beginning of your presentation, you could include an upbeat quote, a proverb or a question. Choose a slightly provocative question to get your audience thinking from the start. You can repeat this verbatim on your presentation handout.

Although the main thing about handouts is that they should be short and concise , they should still be understandable when read outside the context of your presentation.  If this is forgotten, they can’t act as an aid to your audience’s memory afterwards.

Nice-to-have: Additional Information on Your Handout

The main elements of a handout, as covered above, can be supplemented by additional information as you choose. This can even include pictures or graphics. Depending on the topic, a visual element can really clarify and supplement your main argument and tie things together.

As a rule, however, it pays to keep pictures and graphics on your presentation slides because they take up too much space on the handout. The costs and benefits need to be weighed up in each individual case.

It is also a good idea to include contact information on the handout; an e-mail address is the minimum. Depending on the type and purpose of the presentation, you can also provide your business address and telephone number.

If your handout consists of several pages, it helps to put your contact details in the header so that they appear on every page. It can be useful to include a short bibliography in your handout if you’re using quotes or information from other sources. This way you can also link to relevant websites or further reading on your topic that may be interesting for your audience.

TIP : At the end of your handouts you can include questions or food for thought to stimulate discussion. This is particularly useful if you wish to conduct a question and answer session after your presentation.

Tutorial: Creating a Handout with PowerPoint

When time is of the essence, PowerPoint has a feature that allows you to create a handout in minutes. Using the “Create handout” function, you can transfer a PowerPoint presentation to Microsoft Word, adapt it there and optimize it for printing.

With just a few clicks you can choose which presentation slides should appear on the handout. The number of slides can also be easily adjusted and you can cut text or expand it as necessary. You can also decide whether the handout should include a note margin, a header and/or a footer.

Your PowerPoint presentation remains untouched during this whole process. In addition to the option of printing the handout, you can also save it directly in Word as a Word or PDF document – a simple way to make the handout digitally available to your audience.

• Open your presentation in PowerPoint.
• To find the handout master, open the View tab in the top taskbar.

3. In the Master Views submenu you will find, among other things, the Handout Master.

The practical thing about this is that with just a few clicks, you can choose slides from your presentation to form a basis for your handout. It’s also easy to customize headers and footers – to insert your contact details or page numbers, for example.

It’s really easy to choose the size, number and design of your pages here; and PowerPoint also offers the option of exporting the handout you have just created to Microsoft Word. This makes it simple to print out or offer to your audience as a file.

• To do this, click on “File” in the upper task bar and then on “Export” .

2. Select Create handout .

3. In the context menu that opens, you can decide whether your handout should have a margin for adding notes, for example, or other useful options.

When is the Best Time to Distribute Your Handout?

There is no such thing as the perfect time. To help you decide the timing for your particular presentation, it helps to understand how timings influence your audience:

• Handout before presentation : In this case, you have to expect at least some of your audience to have leafed through the handout and read ahead, meaning that at any point they know what’s next. This can sometimes mean that your audience’s concentration is divided, so you need to consider carefully whether this option is appropriate.
• Handout during presentation : Distribute your handout at the point when it is useful as support, either in terms of visual illustration or as a means to emphasize your argument.

Our tip: Share your handout prior to the presentation . It is often the same arguments that are used when it comes to giving out the handout before the presentation: ‘Too restless, the audience rustles with the papers and does not concentrate on the lecture’ and many more. You probably know the arguments.

Nevertheless, our 25 years of experience with PowerPoint shows that these arguments should not be believed. Experience shows that it does not negatively affect the concentration of the audience, but even has positive effects for many to know that they do not have to take notes and that a protocol is available so that they can fully concentrate on the presentation.

In addition, listeners can add other relevant notes directly to the handout. If you withhold the handout until the end of the presentation, you also run the risk of having carried out a kind of unspoken “disciplinary action.”

Conclusion: Don’t go without a handout!

Whichever timing you decide upon, a well-prepared handout can be an effective tool to support your presentation , acting as a guide and memory aid for both you and your audience. Used properly, they can increase the interest and attention of your audience, and allow you to give a clear and professional presentation.

Need help with creating a presentation and a great handout to go with it? We have years of experience in the field of PowerPoint presentations. Just get in touch, and our team can help you create exactly what you need ► presentation agency

If you have any further questions about handouts, or anything to do with PowerPoint, feel free to get in touch at [email protected] . We’re always happy to help!

You might also be interested in the following articles:

• PowerPoint Presenter View
• Insert Notes in PowerPoint

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How to Create a Quick & Easy PowerPoint Handout

5 second powerpoint handouts, instructions.

So… you’ve created an awesome presentation, you’ve practiced your delivery, and the presentation date is just around the corner. If the last thing on your checklist is to create a PowerPoint Presentation Handout , this post is for you! If you find yourself always scratching your head when it comes to creating handouts, bookmark this page right now. Trust us, you will be using it often.

How to create am amazing presentation handouts is one of the most frequently asked questions for the Presentation Geeks. Although Microsoft PowerPoint has an easy way to create a handout, many people make these so infrequently that it’s easy to forget what buttons to click and what options to select.

Before we jump into the 4 easy steps to create and print a PowerPoint handout , let’s talk about why a presenter might want to create a handout, what layout options are available for your slides, and finally, how many slides is optimal for your PowerPoint handouts.

Why would a presenter want to create a PowerPoint Handout?

Too much text.

When a presenter is given the opportunity to deliver a PowerPoint presentation, the time that they are awarded is valuable. The average attention span is only 17 minutes. This means that the presenter only has a limited amount of time to click through their slides and deliver their information before their audience loses interest . 17 minutes translates into a limited number of slides. The average presenter can deliver between 10 to 15 slides within this amount of time. Often, this limits the amount of text you can deliver and expect the audience to retain. In this case, a presenter might opt to print a handout that contains additional content so that the audience can take the handout and read through the additional text at a later date. Audiences like this approach because it allows them to focus on the presenter for a more engaging presentation.

Concepts versus Facts

If your presentation slides are filled with charts and data, it may be unrealistic to expect that the audience will retain this information. People generally remember concepts rather than facts. Audiences like when stories are included in presentations as they are often the most memorable parts of a presentation . Concepts are easy to understand because they don’t require additional context. One example of this is that your audience would sooner remember that a human foot contains many bones (concept) before they remember the number of bones in a human foot (it’s 26 just in case you were wondering). For a presentation that contains a number of facts, whether they are charts, tables, stats, or graphs, these are best included in PowerPoint handouts. It doesn’t mean that you can’t include a stat in your presentation, but you should follow them up in your handouts.

Educational Presentations

If you are delivering an educational presentation , you might want to include a handout that includes enough room for notes. Notes are an important way for people to recall information, and Microsoft PowerPoint includes layout options that contain notes. When printed, this may cause the slides on the handout to be smaller and a little tougher to view, and this should be considered when you select your text font size for your slides. The use of PowerPoint handouts in an educational presentation should strongly be considered when planning your presentation.

Microsoft PowerPoint offers multiple different layout options for your handouts. They include:

Additional options included adding speaker notes, or choosing an outline view to try to condense the PowerPoint slides.

Which Layout should I use for my PowerPoint Handout?

How do you know which layout option to select? it would depend on a few factors.

• Is there a lot of text on your slides? If so, you might want to select 3 or fewer slides per page so that the audience can view each slide without having to squint.
• are you slides full color? If your presentation is full of big beautiful pictures that span across the entire width of your slides, you may want to print 4 or more slides per page to avoid the additional expense when. it comes time to print.
• If you are presenting an educational presentation, the experts at Presentation Geeks recommend choosing. the 3 per page layout to allow your audience room to take notes.

HOT TIP: If you want to go for more of a custom handout, print the first slide as a full-page, and print the remaining slides as multiple per page.

Enough background.. let's find out how to use microsoft powerpoint to create a handout., step 1 - file > print.

To access the handout menu, click the File dropdown, and then use the Print option to begin creating your handout. This is the first step needed to create your presentation handout.

Step 2 - Click Show Details

What makes creating a presentation handouts tricky for most people, is remembering to click the “Show Details” button. Click the Show Details button in. order to unlock a bunch of cool new options you can use, including creating handouts. When you don’t click this button it can seem as though the handout option isn’t available, but using these steps will help you make creating a handout simple and easy.

Step 3 - Layout > Slides

The next step is to choose how many slides you would like on each page. We typically choose 3 slides per page allowing for room for notes, but as mentioned above, not all presentations require the audience to take notes. Click the dropdown menu to view all of the layout options. Using the preview on the left-hand side you may want to click through a few different options in order to find out slide size makes the text clear enough to read.

Step 4 - Save as PDF

The final step in your journey is to click the PDF button, and then select or click Save as PDF.

A Few Final Words

And that’s it! With a click here and there, you can use this article to create a PowerPoint Handout in 5 seconds. Hopefully, this helps you remember the steps required to create a handout the next time you have a big presentation coming up.

If you need a little help or require further customization, such as a personalized cover, full-page charts, or a customized infographic, please don’t hesitate to enquire about our Powerpoint Presentation services.

Author:  Ryan

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Laura M. Foley Design

Cheat Death by PowerPoint!

How to make amazingly useful PPT handouts

October 3, 2019 by Laura Foley 3 Comments

PowerPoint handouts help people to remember a presentation. But too often, presenters distribute handouts that are totally useless. Here’s how not to do that.

You might have seen handouts that look like this:

How useless is this handout? If the presenter is lazy and exports every slide, even the ones that don’t contain helpful information or are part of animation sequences, you get a whole bunch of paper that might very well be tossed or a digital file that can’t be edited.

This type of handout is meant to encourage note taking, which isn’t a bad thing. But really, how often do people take notes on handouts during presentations? And how many presenters take the extra step of creating an interactive PDF instead of the static PDF that PowerPoint creates?

A better handout format

The most effective way for you to control your message after your presentation is to create handouts that reinforce it. This works best if your Speaker Notes are detailed and contain all of the information you want people to remember. If not, you’ll have a chance to edit them later. Here’s how to create the handouts:

• Click on the File tab, then select Export (1, below), Create Handouts (2), and Create Handouts (3). (Why PowerPoint makes you click create handouts twice is anybody’s guess.)

2. In the next window that appears, select “Notes next to slides” then click OK.

Watch in amazement as Word automatically launches and formats your handouts!

The best part about creating handouts this way is that it creates a separate Word document that you can edit as you like! Now’s your chance to add detailed notes for each slide. You can also delete slides that work for the presentation but don’t work for print, edit text, add hyperlinks or QR codes, change typefaces and colors, add your organization’s logo and contact information to the header and footer, etc.

When you’re done editing your handout in Word, go to File > Export > Create PDF/XPS Document to publish it as a PDF file. Congratulations! You’ve just created an electronic handout that’s searchable and which contains active links.

How to “hand out” your handouts

• Before your presentation, create your handouts and gather any reference materials you think may be helpful for your audience. Put these in a folder in cloud storage, such as Dropbox or Google Drive .
• Copy the URL of the folder then convert it into a short link using a service such as Tiny.cc . Customize the link to make it easier for people to type it on their devices.
• Also convert the link into a QR code using a service such as QR Code Generator .
• On the last slide of your presentation, put your contact information, the short link for the resources, and the QR code. Encourage the audience to snap pictures of the slide with their smartphones to make it easy for them to contact you and to download the resources. The cameras on some smartphones, such as the iPhone, automatically recognize the QR code and will immediately seek to open the folder.

The takeaway

Printed presentation handouts are virtually useless, but electronic handouts that contain so much more information, live links, and ways to contact you are amazing!

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Erin Wright Writing

Writing-Related Software Tutorials

How to Create Handouts in PowerPoint (Printable & Editable)

By Erin Wright

Quick Links:

How to Create Printable PowerPoint Handouts

How to create editable powerpoint handouts with microsoft word.

This tutorial is also available as a YouTube video showing all the steps in real time.

Watch more than 100 other writing-related software tutorials on my YouTube channel .

The images below are from PowerPoint for Microsoft 365 and Word for Microsoft 365. These steps also apply to PowerPoint 2019, PowerPoint 2016, and PowerPoint 2013.

• Select the File tab in the ribbon.

• Select Print in the Backstage view.

• (Optional) If you don’t want include all your slides, enter specific slide numbers separated by commas or a number range (e.g., 3,5,7,9-14) into the Slides text box.

• Select the Full Page Slides menu.

• Select an option from the Handout section in the menu. (You may need to use the scrollbar on the right side of the menu to see all the options shown here.)
• One slide per page
• Two slides per page
• Three slides per page with lines for notes
• Four horizontal slides per page
• Six horizontal slides per page
• Nine horizontal slides per page
• Four vertical slides per page
• Six vertical slides per page
• Nine vertical slides per page

• (Optional in PowerPoint for Microsoft 365 only) Uncheck Print slide numbers on handouts if you don’t want to include slide numbers.

• (Optional) Enter the number of copies into the Copies text box.

• Select the Print button.

PowerPoint doesn’t provide a way to save the handout options you just chose. So, repeat these steps if you need to print additional handouts in the future.

Important Note: Some users may have difficulty exporting large PowerPoint files into Microsoft Word. If you encounter problems, please see the Microsoft Support website for two possible solutions .

• Select the File tab in the ribbon (see figure 1).
• Select Export in the Backstage view.

• Select Create Handouts in the Export screen.

• Select the Create Handouts button.

• Select a page layout option from the Send to Microsoft Word dialog box. (The dialog box label may be abbreviated to “Send to Microsoft…”)
• Note next to slides
• Blank lines next to slides
• Notes below slides
• Blank lines below slides
• Outline only (This option only pastes the text from your slides, not the slides themselves.)

• Select the Paste or Paste link option. (These options won’t be available if you selected “Outline only” in step 5.)
• Paste duplicates your slides and notes (if applicable) into a Word document.
• Paste link duplicates your slides and notes (if applicable) into a Word document and creates a link between the files. Therefore, if you update your PowerPoint slides, the Word file will update also. (Unfortunately, the links don’t apply to PowerPoint notes.)

• Select the OK button.

Your PowerPoint file will be pasted into a Word document. This process may take several moments if your PowerPoint file is large.

• If Microsoft Word doesn’t open automatically, select the Word icon in the Windows taskbar.
• Within Word, your slides and notes (if applicable) are placed in a table. Select the table selector to see the table rows and columns, which you can adjust or delete.

For more information about working with tables in Word, please see “ Three Ways to Insert Tables in Microsoft Word .”

How to Update the Link between Your PowerPoint Slides and Your Word Handouts

If you selected Paste Link in step 6 but don’t see updates in your Word handouts after updating the PowerPoint slides, right-click the slide in the Word file and then select Update Link from the shortcut menu.

Continue to add content to your new Word file, and then save and print it as you normally would.

Related Resources

How to Save Shapes and Objects as Images in PowerPoint

How to Convert PDFs to PowerPoint Slides in Adobe Acrobat

How to Insert a Linked PowerPoint Slide in Microsoft Word

Updated November 02, 2021

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How to create effective presentation handouts for class lectures, conference presentations, and training workshops

Note: Are you a course member? If you’re enrolled in Visual Slide Design, there’s related bonus materials & handouts waiting for you inside the training, check it out! 😉

Okay, so you are here reading this post because you need to create presentation handouts at some point. 📝

Whether it is for class lectures, training workshops, conference presentations, you are generally expected and should provide some type of written material or handout for our audience.

Does this screen look familiar? 😅

I know it does, because it's the place you go to when you’re done with creating a presentation in PowerPoint, and you want to make a handout.

It's those “Print” options in PowerPoint, the three slides per page with lines.

Yeah, you know the one. 😉

Well, it's time to stop using that option forever . After reading this post, I want you to never again choose that option for your handout.

But before we get started…

Hello! 👋 I’m Dr. Echo Rivera and I specialize in presentation skills professional development for people who present data.

Topics in this post

Why the default PowerPoint handout template is so terrible

Three alternatives to this presentation handout design

2 PowerPoint features to avoid when creating a presentation handout

1. Why the default PowerPoint handout template is so terrible

Let's get started by talking about why this default template design is so terrible and why it should not be the standard go-to handout that we are all using. 👎

To understand why this design is so bad, we need to first take a quick moment to get on the same page about the purpose of a handout.

An effective handout is one that works as a reference for later on.

I mean, that's probably the main purpose of a handout, right?

But a good handout also does things like providing the audience with structure and space to take notes that are helpful for their learning. 💡

It helps them stay engaged and if done really well, it can actually become a written guide or a visual structure for how all that information, all those slides in your presentation, fit together.

And finally, maybe with a little extra effort, a handout can be a great tool to keep your audience engaged from start to finish through your entire presentation.

It is possible for a handout to meet all of these goals.

Basically, we've just created a helpful checklist that we can use to evaluate different handout designs. ☑️

So, let's get started with the standard three slides per page with lines handout.

That was kind of a tongue twister. 🤪

Okay, so do these work as a reference for later on?

Well, your immediate thought was probably, "Um, yes Echo, that's why we use them," but let's take a trip down memory lane together, okay?

Has this ever happened to you? 💭

It's some period of time after a lecture or a conference presentation and you dig out your handout, because you're thinking:

“Oh good! I'll be able to use it as a reference”

“I need something that was mentioned in that lecture (or that conference presentation)”

“I need to review for my exam”

“I need to get a citation”

Whatever it is, you finally dig it out of your bag and then you go, “oh wait, it's so pixelated and so small that I would need a microscope to read this, ah!”🔬

Has this ever happened to you? 😬

I know it has happened to me all the time.

So in that case, does that actually work as a reference later on?

No, it does not. 🙅‍♀️

And here's the twist .

I know this post is about presentation handouts, but we can't talk about presentation handouts if we don't talk about slide design , because that problem is not actually PowerPoint's fault. 💡

It's actually a problem with the slides themselves.

If the presentation is this status quo (text heavy presentation that is everywhere in our field), or even if it's just slightly better than average (it has things like Smart Art and design templates)…

If the presentation has stuff like that, there is no way that those thumbnails are going to work in a handout.

They're just always going to be unreadable and unusable .

On the other hand, if your presentation is significantly better than average, meaning it is actually visually engaging and effective, then these handouts could actually become readable. 🤩

These are all tiny thumbnails of a thumbnail, so let's take a closer look at what I'm talking about here, okay?

So this might depend on if you're reading this on your phone 🤳 or a small screen versus a computer 🖥, but you should be able to read the words in those thumbnails now.

What you’re seeing is a sample of slides from my presentation skills training where I am practicing what I teach: visually engaging and effective slides!

At least I'm, you know, trying to get there. 😅

Now, this is what most people are doing. ☝️

Lots of text crammed on a slide, tiny font sizes, not visually engaging.

There is no chance anybody could ever read that without a microscope and let's be honest, even then that wouldn't work, because it's just the quality of the thumbnail itself.

It's too blurry, it's too pixelated. 👾

So it really could never work with the standard presentations that we are used to seeing, also known as #DeathbyPowerPoint.

So does this handout format work as a reference for later? 🤔

For now, I'm just going to put a question mark to symbolize that it depends, because it depends on the quality of the slides themselves.

So what about the next piece here? The structure and the space to take notes.

Let's do a deep dive on that together.

Do you see some lines here next to the thumbnail? 👆

I bet you are tempted to once again say, "Um, yes, like what more structure do you need, Echo, literal lines for notes?"

I hear you and I'm going to burst that little bubble and challenge that.💥

First of all, the design of the line itself fails to allow for meaningful note taking for most people because:

The line isn't long enough

There's wasted space on each side of the line that’s actually needed

Line spacing may not be wide enough depending on your handwriting

So, there's some problems with the actual design of those lines.

I geek out over design stuff, so that's why I pick up on these things. 🤷‍♀️

What about you?

Have you ever struggled to actually fit all the notes you wanted to take for that slide in those lines?

From what I've heard from other people, it's a pretty common struggle.

The other problem is, you actually have two zones for note taking: with lines and without. 📝

You have the lines, and then you have this loooong blank space.

And there are two shapes , one's a square, one's a long rectangle.

It just makes it awkward in terms of having that space and structure to take notes. 🥴

You don't really know what to put where, it just becomes kind of a mess.

And, you're going to think I'm totally weird for this, and that is totally fair, but I swear, this is a thing.

There also becomes a problem with bad contrast. 😨

So most of us, we're writing with something like a black pen, for example, and when we write our notes and then go back to it later, there's no contrast between our notes and those lines! 🖊

Those lines make it harder to actually use your notes as a reference, because of that contrast problem .

So, one of these things isn't necessarily a deal breaker, but when we look at the impact of all three of them together , our notes kind of turn into a hot mess!

What do your notes look like when you use this?

I know that if I pulled this out six months later, I would look at this and be like, you know what, I don't need this information that badly anymore, and there it goes in the recycling bin. 🗑

That’s the impact of all of these problems put together and I know it's really easy to blame the note taker and to say, "Well, if you would just write neater or smaller or just learn how to take notes, you wouldn't have a problem."

Long sigh. 😮‍💨

That's not really the attitude that's going to help you connect with your audience and make an impact with your presentation.

Making an impact is that connection and it's setting your audience up to succeed and making it easy for them. 🙌

Whereas something like this kind of sets them up to fail and if their notes work, it's in spite of the structure, not because of the structure.

You're here reading this post, because you want to create better presentations .

I encourage more of a thought process of you wanting to make it easy for your audience and to make them enjoy the experience of note taking. 📝✨

So no, this layout does not help provide a structure and space for people to take notes.

And finally, in no world is a handout like this going to keep people engaged.

We all know this, we've never found this handout to be interesting or engaging, so I don't think that's a surprise.

So here's the final breakdown:👇

Basically, that first item about whether it works as a reference will entirely depend on whether your presentation itself is effective or not.

An effective presentation has things like:

correct font sizes ✅

correct amount of information per slide ✅

correct number of slides ✅

But even if that is the case, it is not checking all of the boxes .

It does not check the other two boxes, which are important.

That is why there are some major flaws with this design and why I am hoping you will use some of the alternatives instead of this design because it:

sets your audience up to fail 😩

does not support your audience in following along with your presentation 💭

doesn't help them use the information later on 📝

is not engaging 🙅‍♀️

So what should you do instead?

Let's talk about the three alternatives to this handout.

2. Three alternatives to this presentation handout design

Option 1: use a different handout layout (no lines).

This first option is so easy. You are going to love it! 🥰

All you have to do, is choose a different option when printing or saving your handout as a PDF .

All you have to do is go here 👆, same place, but instead of three slides per page with notes, click that little down arrow and choose something else.

What do you choose? 👀

You choose either four slides per page or six slides per page.

Four slides per page is probably the safest option, but it will depend on how visual your slides are.

If they are highly visual, highly effective , you can probably do six slides per page.

And then in the settings , before you print or save it, you need to change one setting. ⚙️

Remove the slide numbers underneath each thumbnail.

When you start having more effective slides, the whole page number thing becomes unnecessary, irrelevant and unhelpful. 🚫

You will probably be able to stop using them .

That is kind of the goal, but it could be a whole other video one day. 😁

So that's my recommendation. 💡

If you really want those slide numbers on there, you can leave 'em, that's okay.

But that's it, that's option 1!

Now, you probably already caught this, but there is a catch…

If your presentation is that standard status quo , then it's not going to work as an option for your handout.

This option will only help if your presentations are effective and engaging and meet those minimum slide design basics I keep hinting at. 👀✨

(Uses the right font size, correct number of slides, things like that.)

So far, our checklist looks very similar to what we've talked about. 👇

For effective presentations, it will work as a reference later, but it won't if the presentation itself has not been improved (aka standard presentations).

Then why is it better than the three slides per page with lines you ask? 🧐

Well, it's better because the note taking will be a little bit better . 📝

Let's take a look together:

As shown in the handout above, each slide has its own space and there's no lines to get in the way. 👏

There's none of that awkward design where the line is a little too short and the line spacing isn't correct for everybody's size handwriting.

Having blank space actually gives us more flexibility when taking notes.

We don't have lines getting in the way. ⛔️

We are not fighting with any lines. 🤺

Also, there is only one zone to take notes. 😍

We don't have a combination of part of it is lines, part of it is blank space, it's just all blank space and that really is giving us that flexibility we need to take notes in the way that works for your audience.

And of course, that contrast issue I was talking about, we're not going run into that because when people come and look at their notes later on, they're just going to see their handwritten notes. 📝

They're not going to have to look at other ink that is basically the same level of contrast with their handwritten notes.

So this option is an improvement for note taking ✅ and it is an improvement regardless of the slide design itself.

So that's nice. 😄💯

Now, it's not going to be an engaging handout, but again, especially if you've improved your slide design, you've now checked off two of the three boxes and even if you haven't, we've at least checked one box where it will be a little bit easier for people to take notes.

So, you know, a step in the right direction. 🐾

If you have been improving your slide design already, hopefully you are like, sweet, okay, I could totally use this as an option. Yay!

And I do think this is a great handout for :

When you’re in a pinch and have no time at all ⏳

When it's a low stakes presentation (like a lab meeting) 🥼

When you're only giving this presentation once in your life (like a special guest lecture) 👩‍🏫

When you’re presenting new materials for the first time and you're still working out the content. You don't want to spend a lot of time on a handout if the content itself isn't pretty solid or mostly finished. 👷‍♀️

So this is a great option for these situations, BUT there are some downsides to this handout…

The downsides to option #1

If you're going to use these, I feel it's my responsibility to make you aware of the downsides .

1. Editing the header and the footer is super annoying. 😤

You actually have to use an option, I'm going tell you later to avoid .

You have to go into that option to edit the header and footer, so you're probably not going to do it, which means the header is just going to be this, super generic date (the default).

Very run of the mill, this isn't something that is professional or nice, and the header and the footer are not great.

2. The handout starts with the title slide AND it’s impersonal & lacks professionalism. 😩

The handout, as all of these options do, start with the first slide (the title slide).

We also have so much blank space above the first slide.

There's just nothing special about it.

This makes the handout so impersonal and it lacks professionalism that some of our presentations need to have, something important, like a conference presentation or a keynote.

This isn't setting the impression of ourselves that I think we want to.

Maybe your undergrad students won't care (that's debatable 🤷‍♀️), but again, if you're doing like a conference presentation or a keynote and you want to set yourself apart and set yourself up for networking and making a good impression , this is not going to do that.

3. Every SINGLE slide is on the handout (even if you “hide” them first). 🙈

The other problem is every single slide gets put on the handout, even if you hide them first.

Okay, so I'm curious if anybody has done this before, but before making this blog, I could've sworn if you hid the slides, they wouldn't show up when you go to print using this feature.

I could've sworn that happened in the past, but I tested it before making this post and it didn't work. The slides that I hid were still showing up in the handouts. 😱

I don't know what's going on, but that told me that this is very inconsistent and that it inconsistently works.

All I could do was go in and specify the slides I wanted to show up in the handout.

I'd have to type 1-15, 17-35, 40-31, and memorize all that…

No, okay, no. 🤦‍♀️

Now, if you get what I'm saying, you're like, "Oh yeah, that's annoying." 😅

But I know some of you reading this post are thinking, "What are you even talking about? Why would you not want every single slide in your handout?" 🤔

That question is a sign that you have too few slides in your presentation and a presentation that's probably difficult to follow.

Take my free training below, so you can start to see a different way of presenting. 💪✨

That's all I'm going to say, but if you're already in my training and if you've already started to improve your slides, you will totally get why you don't need every single slide in your handout. 💯

All right, let's move on.

4. Lacks customization options you need to fix issues, accommodations, etc 👩‍🔧

The other downside is that you can't do anything about any of this, because there's effectively no customization options.

You cannot fix these issues.

Plus you won't be able to use handouts to address concerns or provide accommodations like you can if you use options two and three.

5. It’s just slide after slide. No organization. 😵‍💫

So what you end up with, is ultimately every single slide and just slide after slide.

There's no organization to it, there's no customization, there's no polished look to your handout, it's just a data dump of all of your slides.

And as you start creating better presentations that are more visual and are more effective, you are going to hit a wall with this really fast.

Here's an example of what I mean.

What you're going to end up with is this really, really, really, really long handout with a lot of wasted space, because it's showing every single slide.

Your presentation is going to have an ebb and flow to it where people will only need to take notes on certain slides.

So your participants are going to end up with a situation where their handouts might look something like this 🥴:

Again, all this wasted space . 😩

It feels very unbalanced and doesn't contribute to a positive experience in terms of note taking, following along, or using it as a reference later on for your participants.

So yes, option 1 definitely has some pros and cons.

It is a great option to have in your back pocket for those situations that I talked about, but we need to talk about options two and three, because those are going to literally solve all of those downsides. ✅

Option 2: Copy, paste, edit in Word or Google Docs

Option two is where you're going to use Google Docs or Microsoft Word to create your handout.

When you use Google Docs or Word, you will unlock a whole new level of customization and professionalism for your handout that you probably never even thought was possible. 🤯

This is what will help you create really nice, professional, sleek handouts that your audience will never want to throw away, because they just love having them and using them as a reference. 😍

It's so, so easy to do this too!

You can literally copy a slide from PowerPoint and paste it into Word as a picture and then you basically just build your own handout.

You can utilize all the features in Word you are familiar with like: text styling, headings, font colors, font sizes, bolding, and shapes. ✨

You can also use that wrapping text around images feature, and also do things like add borders to images, change the color of a border, resize images without distorting them…

And this mostly works in Google Docs too, so that's perfect if you want to share your handout with a link. 🔗

Here is an example of a handout that I created in Word:

1. Add structure & organization to the notes! 🤩

I was able to add structure and organization to the handout.

I did things like add in my own section headers , which is just text with a background color, nothing fancy (Photoshop was not needed).

This way I can add organization to my notes to help the audience know which slides belong in which category and I get to be selective. ✨

It is not every single slide.

I get to choose the best slides, the ones that will actually work as a reference for later on and that the audience actually needs in their handouts. 💯

2. Copy & paste selected slides from PowerPoint to Word or Google Docs. 🖱

Next, all I do is copy and paste the slides I need, super easy, and there's no wasted space when I do that.

And they aren't all the exact same size with the exact same layout either.

3. Adjust size, add borders if needed. 📏

In this example, they are all the exact same size, but you are going to see later on that I did change it up a little bit.

But still, I was able to choose the size I wanted and they are a little bit bigger than the ones in the standard PowerPoint print options.

4. Copy & paste your notes (or add new notes, tips, etc). 🗒

Hopefully, you've checked out my other post where I talked about scripting and practicing your presentations .

Because one of the advantages when you do that, is then you can do things like add your notes in the slides. 😱

You can copy and paste those, maybe format them a little bit, and add even more information for the audience and have that waiting for them.

That means less notes that they're maybe scrambling to take.

It's less stressful for them. 😮‍💨

You already have some key information in there and it's a much more enjoyable experience for them as well.

But you have control over that, whether you're going to apply it or not, it's in Word, so it's just a matter of copy, paste, and reformat.

Plus, like I said earlier, there's something so generic and bland about the standard print options in terms of the header, the footer, and that wasted space on the first page before the first slide.

So if you hop into Word and do this, you get to customize it and make it a little bit more professional and special.

You can tailor it to that situation. 💯

This creates a custom experience that your audience will really appreciate . 🙌

For example, what I do for my training workshops is:

Have a photo, welcome message and a little note before we begin the workshop.

Used this space to put things like contact information.

Place a URL that you want your audience to know about.

For example, if you're doing a paper presentation or a conference presentation about an article or a report, you’ll put that URL or information about how they can find the full report or the publication. 📰

You could make this feel like a very custom experience that you are prepared for and it wasn't done at the last second.

That's how those print options from PowerPoint can make things feel, like it was rushed and finished at the last second. 😥

Whereas option 2 feels like you've put time and effort into your presentation and you want it to be a positive experience for your audience, which is a win-win for everybody .

And because you’re choosing what slides go into the handout, you could do things like resize and reformat them.

Each page can be customized to fit how much space the participants will need to take notes. 👇

So this is what I was talking about earlier, where you can do things like resize the images.

It's nothing super complicated and it's actually very easy to do . 🤩

You're simply choosing your best slides (the ones that have information that will be helpful as a reference for later on) and then you re-size them and place them appropriately.

If you have a standard presentation with lots of text on a slide, well, then this is actually a helpful option because you can put it into Word and make the text large.

This way, people can actually still read it on a handout, and they will really appreciate that you took the time to do that because you can use the information later. 🙏

This is also helpful if you want to do things like keep certain segments together and group your slides.

Again, it helps with organization , so when someone is looking at your handout later on, they will see how the slides fit together. 💡

That's another problem with the standard four slides per page layout.

Every single slide looks the same, so there is no organization. 🥴

So let's sum it up!

1. Reference for later. 📎

This option works perfectly as a reference for later and because you can make those slide images really big, it works even if you do have a lot of text on a single slide.

Your audience will extra appreciate that at least the handout is something they can read.

2. Structure & space to take notes. 🪶

Because you can customize the handout, you can make sure that it has a good structure and space for someone to take notes and you could do it in a way where it's not going to be a lot of wasted space in the handout.

And if you've also grouped items together, it's really going to be appreciated by your audience!

3. Keep audience engaged. 💡

This handout is so much more customized and it doesn't look like that generic PowerPoint print option, which means it's going to be engaging and your audience will enjoy it.

So win, win all around! 👏👏👏

And here's the best part.

Once you've done option two, then you just need to make a few adjustments to get to option three, because option three is literally the same thing, but you just spend more time to make them interactive and useful, aka fancy. ✨

Option 3: Copy, paste, edit in Word or Google Docs + make them fancy!

Fancy's my favorite word, if you don't know. 🤣

All right, let's take a look at this example here made in Word.

This is from my online course and it's an activity from the course. 👇

The idea for this handout is that, in the course lesson video, they're going to see this handout and look how big I made it. 😱

It's not a tiny little thumbnail in the corner, right?

It's a full page, nice and big, and easy to see. 🤩

And then of course, this corresponds to the video, but there's instructions I mention and I've also put them there with a nice little icon to indicate, yes, you need to write something down now. ✍️

I used a gray shape so that there is enough space to write down their answer and the answer is shown on the next page , because I don't want to give any spoilers. 😉

I used a little hand icon 🖐 (PowerPoint and Word have nice icons!) and a little text box, that stays, hold on, don't turn the page until you're done, because the answer is on the next page!

This is all done in Word and it's so fun!

I've received a lot of positive feedback from people who take my course about these handouts and yes, that means even professionals enjoy interactive, fun handouts like this in the right context . 🤸‍♂️✨

For example, don't do this for a job talk or a conference presentation even, but for a class lecture, this would be very fun!

You can also do things like create fill in the blanks.

I did a video collaboration with Dr. Barbi Honeycutt , we've done quite a few things together, one was even an interview on her podcast , and we were talking about these kind of handouts and notes and she calls them guided notes.

Basically, you have most of the sentence there and then a blank line where they have to sort of fill in the answer. 👀

It's a great way to keep your audience engaged, because they know they need to fill in the answer or fill in the blank.

So this is something you can do at this stage for option three. 💡

Go through some of the notes that you have, delete some words here and there, and replace it with an underscore, a long underscore.

That's it! That's all you have to do to create guided notes.

All in Word, super easy. 🙌

You can do so many cool things to make your handouts significantly more engaging, interactive, memorable, and effective.

Here's another example. 👆

This is an activity in my course where people learn a scale called the Ban-All-That-Text-Scale ( I have a blog post about it too ).

BATTS is a rating system to help you know whether you have too much text on your slides, which literally everybody does. 😮‍💨

That's the biggest problem with standard presentations.

So, I wanted to make it fun to learn how to get some of that text off the slides.

It’s a rating system and we do an activity where they see a slide and have to guess the BATTS score. 🦇

The first page on the handout is where they can write their guess down.

I have instructions on the handout and a video to guide them through it and then, for each slide, I've put the scale options there so they can circle what their guess is. ⭕️

On the next page, I have the exact same handout, but this is where while we're going through the answers together, they can mark what the correct answer is. ✅

So that's just one more example.

The sky is the limit in terms of how you can use option three. 🚀

These are just some examples and I wanted to show you that you can create handouts like this in Word.

If you're really good at using Google Docs though, I'm sure a lot of this is possible in Google Docs as well.

I don't talk about it as much just because I'm more familiar with Word and not as familiar with Google Docs, but if you’re loving Google Docs and you can already see how you can do it in there, go for it. 👍

This is why option three checks all of these boxes too, because it's basically option one, but with more effort and with a higher level of impact. 🔥

Almost everybody at this point has kind of the exact same reaction, which is like, "Echo, you're ridiculous. I do not have time for this, okay?" 😬

I hear you and I have four responses for you. 🎙

Let’s break this down together below:

1. That's why I shared Option 1. ⏰

Like I showed you an option 1, it takes literally no extra time to complete.

So, if you don't have time, do option 1, that is why I shared it with you.

Yes, there are some downsides, of course there are, but I wouldn't tell you to use option 1 if it was total garbage, okay? I wouldn't do that to you.

It’s at least a little better than the three slides per page with lines.

So there you go, option 1!

2. Option 2 takes less time than you think. 😱

I can't actually read your mind.

I don't know how long you're thinking it could take, but when I talk to people about this and they experience it the first time, quite a few of them will say things like, "Oh, that actually wasn't too bad!"

And again, you have control over what you're doing.

I mean, the first time you do option 2, you could just be copying and pasting the best slides, resizing them a little bit, and then that's it.

And then maybe the next time you do option 2, you do things like add a few more notes, add some text to it, things like that.

So, you do actually have more control than you might think!

3. Yes, it takes time (but it’s worth it!) 💪✨

I want to validate that, yes, it is going to take some extra time to do option 2 and it's gonna take a lot of time to do option 3.

Absolutely.

So maybe the question is more, is it worth it to take that extra time?

Let’s talk about the benefits of taking the time to do options 2 and 3.

(a) First of all, it’s going to be a way you can make a better first impression 👌

If you are at a conference and you really want to be there to show up as a professional, to use it as a networking opportunity, really get your name and research out there, options 2 and 3 are definitely going to do that more than option 1 and definitely more than the three page per slide with lines.

So, it's a really good way to set that good impression. ✨

(b) Options 2 and 3 are also more accessible + customizing allows for certain accommodations 💖

We don’t talk about that in this post, because I'm planning on a whole new post/video just about accessibility and accommodations.

But just as a heads up, I'm going to say, "watch my handout video," because options 2 and 3 are how you're going to do this type of accommodation and why this is going to be accessible.

So you kind of already have a head start with that. 🏁

(c) The other benefit is that your audience is going to appreciate it and they're going to be more likely to use it as a reference later on 👀

And just in general, this is something that's going to be good for your reputation, and it's going to be something that is good for your audience.

It's a win-win! 👏👏👏

(d) Positive feedback loop with your presentation quality ✨

One thing that I've really seen, not only in myself, but in clients that I work with, is that creating better handouts creates a positive feedback loop with your presentation quality.

Because in a way, the only reason I'm able to make my handouts so interactive or fancy, is because the presentation itself has met a certain level of interactivity and are high quality. 💡

They just feed into each other and you'll start to notice that even while you're creating your presentation, you might be thinking about your handout and how you can make your handout engaging, and that will actually make your slide more engaging.

Then as you work on your handout, you might think, oh, I wish I did this in my presentation. So this part would be easier to take notes and then you improve your overall presentation.

It actually has these really wonderful ripple effects. 🌊

And I want to mention that just so you knew that that was in your future. 🔮

(e) It addresses a lot of different concerns people have about creating more visual presentations 🖼

Having the power to customize your handout addresses a lot of different concerns that people have about creating more visual presentations.

I hear all sorts of concerns like:

What if my students are used to text heavy slides?

What if my audience is multilingual?

What if my professional audience expects to see all the data, all the text, all the things, all at once?

Well, having a good custom handout can actually let you address some of those, but that's something I talk about more in my training .

And finally, my most important point of all, which I kind of hinted to already, but let's just bring it out here. 👇

4. It’s not necessarily “or" – it could be the order .

It's not really a matter of which one you choose (option 1, 2 or 3), instead of thinking this as an “or” situation, think of it as the order . 💡

(a) The first time you give this presentation

What I mean by that is, the first time you are giving your presentation, you spent so much time creating it from scratch.

Do yourself a favor and use option 1, okay? 😮‍💨

(b) The 2nd through 5th time you give this presentation

Then maybe the 2nd through 5th time you give that presentation, that's where you stay in option 2.

Even the first time you do option 2, just get your best slides on there, resize them, leave some space for notes, and move on with your life. 🙌

But then maybe you add a little bit more to that.

Maybe some shapes to take notes. 👀

You can even stay there and just do little improvements over time. 👌

(c) The 6th+ time you give this presentation

And then if you find yourself giving this presentation a lot, and it's something like a training, then that's when you can think about doing option 3.

Because the content is solid, you’re not going to change it much, so you can turn it into an amazing option 3, a super interactive handout! 🤩

This is particularly useful if you are teaching an online course.

For example, if a lot of your undergrad classes or grad classes have moved online, you might spend a lot of time creating your video, so use option 1 the first time you create your class lecture.

Then if over time, you know that video itself is solid, and you're not going to have to change it for a while, then you can focus on improving the handout. 💯

Basically, so many people are worried that when they come to me for training, that I'm going to tell them they must have the most beautiful slides for every single slide in every single presentation, and they must do option three for every single presentation ever.

Absolutely not. 🙅‍♀️

I'm always recommending that you implement strategies in waves or phases. 🌊

I've sometimes called it a “phased praxis” approach when I want to sound fancy.

So you can do it in stages. 🙌

The idea that you're always setting yourself up for success so that you can just take things one step further each time you give a presentation.

You don't go from 0 to 10 right away and you don't go from 0 to 10 for every single presentation. It's not realistic and it's not sustainable. 💯

This is a concept I talk about my free training below!

Now that you know the three best alternatives to that standard handout option, I want to take some time to talk about two options that I recommend you don't use. 🚫

3. Two PowerPoint features to avoid when creating a presentation handout

These are both features in PowerPoint that you will probably come across, so I knew I had to talk about them. 😬

1. I don’t recommend the “handout master” feature in PowerPoint

The first is called the handout master in PowerPoint.

This is where you are supposed to be able to go in and:

edit the basics of a handout template

delete the date at the top

remove the page number on the bottom right (which you wouldn't do)

edit the header (I was talking about that earlier and how it's annoying because this is where you have to go to do it, which is why most people aren't 😩)

edit the footer

But beyond that, there's not much you could do to make these handouts better. 🤷‍♀️

For example, here is the master template for the three slides per page with lines:

How awesome would it be if I could just fix those lines and then we could use that template? 😱

If we could, I would make them like a super light gray.

Maybe I would also do something like add shapes to give people the space that they need to write the notes, right?

So I was like, hmm, okay, I'll be clever. 💡

I'll be clever and just put shapes over the lines and hide them and then we can use this!

Oh, oh, Echo, you're so smart, you hacked PowerPoint, yay! 👏👏

No, no, I did not hack PowerPoint, because this is what it looks like when you go to print, it looks even more ridiculous than it did before. 😅

I've spent quite a bit of time trying to sort of hack this and make this work. 🛠

Let me just tell you, it doesn't, it doesn't even come close to what we can do in option 2, definitely not option 3.

So honestly, I recommend you just avoid the handout master altogether (unless you're doing option 1 and you want to edit the header and the footer). 🙈

2. I don’t recommend the “export” feature in PowerPoint

This is the other feature that you are probably going to come across in PowerPoint (and get excited about only to be disappointed, which is literally what happened to me). 😑

I even used to recommend this as a good option, but I don't anymore, here's why.

Basically, this is an export not print.

You go to “Export”, and you'll see this seemingly perfect option called "Create Handouts” and then what it does is, it's going to send your slides to Word so you can create the custom handout.

Huh, sounds a little bit like options 2 and 3, doesn't it? 😲

Well, look at that.

So at first you might think, perfect, now I don't have to copy and paste my slides, because I can basically just click, create handouts. 😀

There's a popup with a few different options but let me go ahead and show you the lines next to slides options.

So here's what it looks like:

Looks familiar, doesn't it? 🤨

It's basically three slides per page with lines, but we can customize it now, at least that's the idea.

When it goes into Word, it's three columns and so much space is dedicated to the slide number.

I do not get this, we don't want that. 😤

So we can delete that column and that makes our life easier, so great.

And then we want to maybe keep the column for the lines, but delete them so we can replace them with our own formatting.

So I was like, okay, okay, off to a good start. 😀

I'm liking what I'm seeing, here we go, all right!

So I cleaned it up, got rid of those line numbers, deleted the lines, and so now we have a table of two columns basically, and we have a cleaner look already.

All right, so off to a good start.

And then here is where everything just goes downhill. 😰

We pretty much can't effectively do anything else.

The best I could do was create one long shape for taking notes, and I actually think, okay, this looks kind of nice.

I feel like we could work with this!

But then I started doing things like, okay, let me try to increase the size of those images and adjust the spacing and then it just kind of like broke on me. 😰

It was so glitchy (and I have a pretty fast computer).

For example, I would increase the size of the column and it would freeze. 🥶

It was honestly awful to work with and it's so much easier and faster to use Word the way I was talking about, where you copy and past slides into Word.

And the other thing is that when it's exporting from PowerPoint to Word, it takes forever and you cannot do anything. 🥲

Like you don't even look at your computer, just hit the button to create handouts and walk away, and come back like 10 minutes later.

Because if you so much as breathe on your computer or click anything while it's exporting, you get an error message and it cancels the whole thing and you have to start over. 😡

It is a really frustrating experience and if you do this, you won't want to create custom handouts, whereas option 2 is so much easier and so much faster.

So that is why I recommend you avoid this option.

Okay, there you go.

I bet you didn't think someone could talk so long about presentation handouts, but here we are. 🤣

I truly hope that you found this post to be helpful and that it will help you not only create better handouts, but also better presentations! 💯

If you've been wanting to make better presentations but:

you feel stuck,

you're not really sure why things aren't getting better,

or you're not even sure how to move forward,

I am here to get those gears moving! ⚙️

If you are an academic, researcher, evaluator, TTA provider, federal or state staff, I am here to help you share your data in effective and engaging ways. 🙌

Check out my free training below where you will learn about the six gears of creating engaging presentations!

At the very end of that video, you will learn a little bit about my presentation skills masterclass training program. ✨

All right, if you enjoyed this post, please share it with someone you think might find this helpful.

And again, if you want to improve your presentation skills, I am here for you.

Sign up for that free training workshop to get started!

Thank you so much for reading and I will see you next time. 👋

with joy, Echo Rivera, PhD

Links shared in this post >>

How to write a presentation script and practice your presentation the right way

Are virtual (aka online) conferences bad for academia? A chat between Dr. Echo Rivera & Dr. Barbi Honeycutt

Lecture Breakers Podcast Episode 109 >> Content Overload: How to Avoid Overwhelming Your Students with Too Much Data with Dr. Echo Rivera

You're using too much text on your presentation slides! (BATTS)

Information about my presentation training

My unique presentation training framework

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Let’s work together to make you a highly-paid, fully-booked keynote speaker and get you that that TED talk.

You want to train people to be better at something?

Let’s work together to make your workshops or online courses sell out fast, get fully-booked, and sell themselves.

You want to be an author?

Let’s work together to showcase you’re a trusted expert so you get that book deal, and then — of course — sell that book by going on a book tour.

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So, you want to make better presentations and need to know what alternative to PowerPoint to learn. Read this first!

Blog > How to export & print handouts in PowerPoint

How to export & print handouts in PowerPoint

08.09.21   •  #powerpoint #tips.

PowerPoint allows you to easily create handouts to share with the audience after the presentation. You can also export your presentation with slides and notes to Word for further editing and formatting. You can find out how this all works and how you can print out the handouts at the end in this blog post.

Format & print handouts without notes

Format & print handouts with notes

If you want to make them available to the audience, you can easily print them out. All you have to do is select "Notes page" instead of "Full page slide" in the print settings.

Exporting and editing handouts in Word

When exporting a PowerPoint presentation to Word, a lot of memory is used. Therefore, this process can also take for a while. If you get the error message "PowerPoint could not write to Microsoft Word", try restarting your computer.

Share slides digitally with the audience

Printing handouts for every attendee is cumbersome and also not quite environmental friendly. A much better solution is using SlideLizard (a cool software for live audience interaction in PowerPoint) for your presentations. Attendees can join your talk with their smartphone (or Laptop) and see your slide live during the presentation . They can also browse previous slides and as well download the slides directly as a PDF (if you allow it). In addition, participants can take private notes on their own smartphones directly within SlideLizard. These notes remain linked to the slides and at the end of the presentation all participants receive their own notes via email. Moreover, attendees can mark the most important slides with a star to find them more easily later. Live polls & quizzes are also possible with SlideLizard. You can try SlideLizard for free today !

How do I create handouts in PowerPoint?

To create handouts in PowerPoint go to "Handout Master" in the "View" tab. You can format your handouts for all pages there.

How do I print handouts from PowerPoint?

To print your handouts you have to go to "Print" in the "File" tab. You can then choose how many slides you want per page under "Full page slides" in the "Handouts" group.

Related articles

About the author.

Miriam Rapberger

Miriam supports SlideLizard in the area of marketing and design. There she uses her creativity for blog posts, among other things.

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How to make presentation handouts

• Written by: Kieran Chadha
• Categories: Presentation skills , Visual communication
• Comments: 1

Presentation handouts and leave-behinds are a great resource, giving your audience a tangible reminder of you and the company you represent. The problem is that they’re oft-neglected and oft-ignored. So how can you create presentation handouts that not only accurately represent your content, but look great and don’t take a fortnight to make?

How to make presentation handouts in PowerPoint: Basic method

If all you want to know is how to print your slides and speaker notes together, you came to the right place!

• Save a new copy of your presentation.
• Delete any overlapping visuals or anything that won’t print well.
• Go to File then Export and select PDF .
• In the window that opens there is an Options button – click it.

• Click OK then Save .

Your PDF will feature an image of each slide with the accompanying speaker notes underneath. Needless to say, make sure your presenter notes are ‘audience safe’ first. You can send the PDF file as an email or print it. The finished result is cheap ‘n’ cheerful – a great option if you’re in a rush.

The problem with simply using your slides and notes is that presenter notes often aren’t written with the audience in mind – they’re there to jog the presenter’s memory, not inform the audience. Any materials you leave with your audience should be just as thought-through and polished as your presentation. So, let’s go back to square one and think about what should be in a presentation handout.

What should a presentation handout include?

Begin by pinning down what you want your presentation handout to achieve. Do you want your audience to remember the benefits of choosing you as a supplier? Do you want them to understand a specific process? Do you want to remind them of your pricing options? Or do you want to provide a place for them to make notes whilst you present?

Only the last aim actually calls for a presentation handout. Anything you give to your audience during or before your presentation will inevitably be a distraction; they will read the information, rustle the paper and generally pay less attention to you. Any presentation handout – that is, any material you give out before or during your presentation – should include a simplified version of your slides and plenty of blank space for notes. And that’s it.

However, if you want to provide your audience with a tool to refer back to, to remind them of what makes you unique or how they should carry out a certain process, what you need is a leave-behind.

What is a presentation leave-behind?

A presentation leave-behind can pack a punch, covering less material than the presentation, or more. It’s a piece of content you can either leave behind you when you’ve finished your presentation, or send to your audience a couple of days later to jog their memories. A good way to get started is to think about how you want the piece to be used. Here are a few less traditional leave-behind options to get you thinking:

• A 1- or 2-page summary of the most critical points

• A one-slide-per-page recap of the content you covered
• A process diagram

• An in-depth exploration of all the content plus much more
• A reference guide covering technical specifications, pricing etc.

Once you free yourself from the idea that a presentation handout or leave-behind has to be an exact replica of your slides and notes, the sky is the limit. When you’ve decided on the format for your leave-behind you can start to create it. A cut-and-paste job might not be the best solution; you may well have to rework some of your material to make it accessible for an audience revisiting it a week or two down the line.

How to create effective presentation leave-behinds

If you don’t want to create something from scratch, then a good approach is to use what you can from your slides, and write new notes to accompany them. We all have a dire recall rate when it comes to new information (see Ebbinghaus’ 1885 research for just how bad), and audiences are no different. Don’t overestimate how much they’ll remember; make your hand-out self-explanatory, accessible and informative. Cut out all the extraneous data (e.g. the history of your company) and focus on your key points.

There are two main formats to choose from when you’re ready to share your leave-behind.

Method one: PDF

• Save a copy of your presentation and create a simplified version of your slides

Be brutal and delete all the slides that don’t contain need-to-know information. Good content to include is your value proposition and main benefit points as these remind your audience of what differentiates you from the competition. You may also want to include any useful technical information or processes.

• Copy your slides into a word document and add text

In your PowerPoint file, right click on the slide you want to copy and select Copy . Then, in your Word document go to Home , Paste , Paste as Picture .

To create appropriate text pull from your presentation notes but also make use of any other collateral you have, like brochures, your website, promotional videos etc. To avoid overwhelming your audience with too much information add hyperlinks to relevant sections of your website or other resources. If you publish the document as a PDF, your audience will be able to click these hyperlinks and access the information they need.

And finally, it’s a good idea to add a call to action to encourage on-going communication.

• Save the document as a PDF

To save a Word document as a PDF go to File , click Export , then Create PDF . A benefit of doing this in word rather than exporting directly from PowerPoint, is that you have more control over the formatting so can keep it on-brand and looking good. If you want to add more design elements, you could also build the leave-behind in PowerPoint. Change the slide size by going to Design > Slide Size > Custom Slide Size .

Of course, you could print the document but, putting aside poor print quality and environmental concerns, with paper handouts you have no way to track how many people have looked at the document or whether it has been ignored. However, with a PDF you can…

• Distribute using an email marketing service

Instead of printing and handing out your material, save the trees and save it as a PDF, then use an Email Marketing System like MailChimp to distribute it. You might not be able to see super detailed analytics, but you’ll still get useful data on who opened your message, and who showed interest in the material – all helpful stuff.

Method two: Video

There’s a sort of unwritten assumption that handouts have to be a document, particularly a document with slides. That’s not the case, and it’s often not the best method of delivery for follow-up content. Paper or a PDF has its advantages – it’s simple, easy to distribute and reasonably effective. However, it is limiting. It is less personal and might be ignored if it’s too dense. A powerful alternative to the conventional paper hand-out is to use PowerPoint to record narration and to output as narrated video. It’s a much more engaging, effective way of refreshing your audience’s memories.

• Make a simplified version of your PowerPoint deck

Again, you don’t want to send your audience your full twenty-five-minute presentation. Go through your content and trim it down to the essentials. Keep the key visuals and key benefit points.

• Write a script

A video with you um-ing and ah-ing over your slides isn’t particularly engaging or professional. You need to write a script so you can say precisely what you want to with no irrelevant detail or mistakes.

You audience won’t want to take much time out of their day, so aim for 3 – 5 minutes of content. We have some useful resources for script writing on our blog – start here .

• Record yourself presenting the new version

Once you’re happy with your script, you need to record yourself presenting the deck. Again, we’ve got a few stellar recourses to help:

• How to record narration in PowerPoint
• Recording voiceover for a narrated presentation
• Preparing for a presentation voiceover
• Export the video

To save your video go to File > Export > Create a Video . Make sure Use timings and narrations is selected on the drop-down menu.

• Host the video online

Finally, make your video accessible to your audience. The beauty of using a platform like Vimeo is that it sits in the cloud so can easily be updated with new material. Viewing figures can be tracked, there are integration possibilities with other platforms, and reminders can be sent out for those that haven’t yet watched it. Vimeo is one option – but any trackable multimedia platform is a good method for delivering your content.

To see some example of short, narrated videos, visit our YouTube page .

Conclusions

Digital, custom-made leave-behinds are a change. And you’ll want to address this change when your audience sits down, eager to take home a couple of sheets of A4. However, the benefits are great: they get a more engaging, helpful resource, and you can track its reach, easily refresh the content and measure its success.

If you decide to use the good old-fashioned paper method – there’s one thing I’d encourage you to avoid: don’t distribute your presentation hand-out before you start speaking. It’s one of the most common mistakes we see, and it can really negatively impact the audience’s attention level. If you give your audience something to read, they will naturally start to read it. And from that point on, it’s a struggle for even the best presenter to command the room’s full attention.

Hold off until the end of the session but let everyone know that a handout will be available, so they don’t spend the entire session making their own notes. You want them attentive and engaged throughout and a little reassurance at the start goes a long way to help ensure that.

However, choosing a less traditional route can help you stand out from the crowd, so consider ditching the standard presentation handout for something a bit more creative.

Ready to transform your sales presentation too? Read our ultimate guide !

Kieran Chadha

Principal consultant; head of brightcarbon academy, related articles, review: glisser online interactive presentations.

• Presentation skills / Sales presentations / Presentation technology

Glisser is an online platform that allows you to create interactive presentations that can be used for marketing, training or any other type of events. The site has different functions available for presenters, attendees at events and event planners which all focus on allowing for increased presenter-audience interaction. Since creating engaging visual presentations is what we do, I decided to take a closer look at Glisser and see what it’s all about and how the various functionalities work.

The ULTIMATE guide to presentation skills

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Presentation skills is a daunting area for many, but being a good presenter isn't something you're just born with. Even the most nervous, or clueless of presenters can learn how to present like professionals just by following some key advice.

5 ways to make your presentation more visual and effective

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Looking for some quick tips on how to create a more effective presentation? Know you want to make your PowerPoint slides more visual but not sure how?

Kieran, surprise surprise, someone’s commenting on a three year old article! I agree with all of your comments in relation to a live presentation but do you think they apply equally to an eLearning presentation (not a webinar)? For instance, I have sometimes used an on-line workbook/journal to encourage audience reflection/journaling/note-taking which some individuals don’t like. It seems that an ‘off-line’ paper version would benefit those who prefer not to leave the current screen or who distrust digital privacy. Do you think this would be distracting or does the fact that the individual could pause (be advised) to pause on-line content whilst writing make the difference?

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• Jan 26, 2023

Presentation Handouts [What, How, Why & When]

Are you looking to learn about presentation handouts in detail? This is the best article you can read on the subject matter. So, you’ve reached the right place.

Presentation handouts are often considered an “afterthought” when preparing for a presentation, but they are a powerful tool for engaging & educating the audience. Whether you’re giving a business presentation, teaching a class, or speaking at a conference, handouts help reinforce key points and ensure that the audience retains most of the information. Isn’t that the ultimate goal for the presenter?

In this article, we will explore what exactly is a presentation handout, where they’re used, how to create your own handouts & most importantly…when should you distribute them.

But, before you trust our information & expertise, you have the right to know…

Who are we? & Why are we writing an article on presentation handouts?

Ink Narrates is a presentation design agency specializing in creating impactful and high-stakes presentations for executives, professionals, and founders. To help our clients make the most of their presentations, we always recommend the effective use of handouts. With that in mind, we’ve put together a comprehensive guide for anyone looking to learn the ABCs of presentation handouts.

I’ll tell you the truth. Making handouts isn’t really a piece of cake. So, let’s break the complex subject into small parts for better learning.

What exactly are presentation handouts?

In my opinion, this quote does the best job of explaining,

“The handout is the bridge between the presentation and the audience’s long-term memory.” —  Jerry Weissman (Author of Presenting to Win: The Art of Telling Your Story)

I must admit, the quote served as the motivation for writing this article.

Presentation handouts are materials that are distributed to the audience during or after a presentation. They can be in the form of a printed document, flyer, brochure, infographic, or PDF.

For example, a teacher giving a lesson on a certain topic might provide handouts with exercises or puzzles related to the topic, as well as a list of key terms and definitions. This would allow the students to engage with the material in a more interactive way, and also have reference material to use after the presentation is over.

How are handouts used in business presentations?

For those of you who’ve heard the term presentation handouts for the first time. Here are some examples where presentation handouts are commonly used in business presentations,

Sales presentations: To provide detailed information on products or services, pricing, and other relevant details that can help close a sale.

Conferences and trade shows : To provide attendees with a summary of the key points discussed during a panel discussion or keynote speech.

Board meetings and company-wide presentations: To provide detailed financial reports, performance metrics, and other important data to shareholders or employees.

Annual general meetings: To provide shareholders with detailed information about the company’s performance, plans for the future, and other important information.

Training and development sessions: To provide attendees with a summary of the key points discussed during the training, as well as additional resources for further learning.

Business proposals and pitch decks: To provide potential investors or clients with detailed information about the company, its products, and its vision for the future.

Product launch events: To provide detailed information about the new product, its features, benefits, and target audience.

Employee orientation and onboarding: To provide new employees with detailed information about the company’s culture, policies, and procedures.

Project progress reports: To provide team members and stakeholders with detailed information about the progress of a project, including timelines, milestones, and key achievements.

It’s not an exhaustive list, there are many more events depending on the company and the industry. But, I hope you got a general idea.

How to make your presentation handouts? (The DIY tips)

So, you’re crafting your own handouts? How brave of you! I know you’re not a designer by trade so let’s make it simple & divide the process into two parts,

How to write content for your handouts

How to design your handouts.

Even though I can’t teach you designing & content writing through an article, I can definitely share some useful tips in detail. So, you can refer to this article while making your own presentation handouts.

1. Use the “upside-down” approach

Use an “upside-down” approach when you start planning for the content. This means to start thinking about the ultimate goal of your handout & what you would like your audience to do with the information they have received. By starting with this end goal in mind, you can ensure that your handouts are focused on achieving it.

For example, if your goal is to generate leads/sales, you may want to include a clear call-to-action (CTA) in your handouts, such as contact information or a discount code.

If your goal is to educate your audience, you may want to include additional resources or a summary of the key points discussed in your presentation. By imagining your CTA first, you can ensure that your handouts are tailored to achieve your desired outcome.

2. Decide on your message structure

Creating a presentation handout is a complex and challenging task. Hence, before beginning to write the content, it is essential to establish a clear structure for your message. Having a well-defined message structure in place ensures that the information is presented in a logical and easy-to-understand manner.

Without a message structure, the content writing process can become disorganized and scattered, leading to a lack of focus, direction & loads of burnout!

You’re not the only one to suffer though! It may cause confusion for the audience and make it difficult for them to understand and retain the information presented.

3. Imagine the visual design

It is essential to think about the visual design in conjunction with the content. By considering the design elements while writing the content, you can ensure that the two elements are seamlessly integrated and work together. This coordination between design and content is crucial as it can greatly enhance the overall impact of your presentation handout.

4. Write impactful content

It is crucial to ensure that the content is easily understandable for the intended audience. One way to achieve this is by avoiding the use of jargon and technical terms, as these are often confusing or off-putting for those who are not familiar with the subject matter. Instead, it’s important to use clear and concise language that is easily accessible to all members of the audience.

Also, keep in mind that handouts are a supplement to the presentation, not a replacement for it. So, it should be to the point key takeaways and additional resources for further learning.

1. Keep it consistent

Ensure that the presentation handouts align with and reflect your brand. Consistent branding across all of your company’s materials helps to establish a professional image and create a sense of cohesion and recognition among your audience.

Incorporating your company’s logo and color scheme into the handouts is a simple yet effective way to establish branding. You can do this by using your company’s official font, color palette, and imagery. Apart from that, use a consistent format throughout the handout, so it looks and feels like it’s part of your company’s materials.

2. Mind the white spaces

Utilize whitespace effectively. Whitespace, also known as negative space, refers to the areas of a design that are left blank or unoccupied by text or graphics. Utilizing whitespace can be beneficial in a number of ways.

Firstly, using whitespace in your handouts helps to make the content more visually appealing and easy to read. By allowing for negative space between text and graphics, you can create a clean, uncluttered design that is easy on the eyes. This is especially important when dealing with a lot of text or detailed information, it breaks up the content and makes it more manageable for the audience to digest.

Furthermore, whitespace helps to draw attention to the most important elements of your handout. By strategically placing whitespace around key takeaways or graphics, you can make these elements stand out and draw the audience’s attention.

3. Use bullet points

Bullet points help break up long blocks of text and make the content more visually appealing and easy to read. Instead of listing everything in a long-form text, bullet points allow you to present the information in a concise and structured manner.

It also helps to emphasize the key takeaways and make them stand out, which is especially useful for audiences who are pressed for time or easily overwhelmed by a large amount of information.

4. High-quality images

High-quality images in presentation handouts are an essential aspect of visual storytelling & greatly enhance the effectiveness of your message.

Images are a powerful tool that can help convey complex ideas and information in an easy way. They are used to illustrate key concepts, provide visual examples, and engage the audience in the story you are telling. By using high-quality images that are visually appealing and relevant to the presentation, you can create a more engaging and memorable experience for your audience.

5. Use a clear hierarchy

Visual hierarchy is important for designing presentation handouts. It refers to the arrangement of elements on a page in order of importance and is used to guide the viewer’s eye and direct their attention to the most important information, making it easy to understand, navigate, and remember.

For example, good typography can help you achieve hierarchy, making it easier for the audience to understand and follow the information presented.

6. Leverage icons & illustrations

Icons are simple and easily recognizable symbols that can be used to quickly convey a specific idea or concept. They can be used to break up text and create visual interest on the page. Illustrations, on the other hand, can be used to provide a more detailed and in-depth visual representation of a concept or idea.

The use of icons and illustrations helps to create a sense of fun and excitement for the audience, making the presentation handouts more memorable and enjoyable to read. Additionally, the use of icons and illustrations makes the handouts more accessible and inclusive.

What’s the best time to distribute handouts in a presentation?

The best time to distribute handouts in a presentation can vary depending on the context and the specific goals of the presentation. However, here are a few general guidelines you can follow

Distribute handouts at the beginning of the presentation: This allows the audience to have the handouts in front of them as you present, which can help them to follow along and take notes more easily.

Distribute handouts after a key point: If you have a key point in your presentation that you want the audience to pay extra attention to, you can distribute the handouts after you’ve covered that point. This can help to reinforce the key information and make it more memorable for the audience.

Distribute handouts after the presentation: If you want the audience to be able to refer back to the handouts later, it might be best to distribute them after the presentation is over. This can also be useful if you want the audience to fill out a survey or evaluation form on the handout.

Distribute digital handouts: In the case of online presentations, you can distribute handouts in the form of a pdf or a digital file, which can be shared with the audience via email or cloud storage.

Ultimately, the best time to distribute handouts will depend on the specific goals of the presentation and the audience’s engagement & attention span.

Work with us

If you find this to be overwhelming or feel that the DIY method isn’t for you, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us. We specialize in presentation design and would be happy to assist you with your presentation needs.

Ink Narrates is a Presentation Design Agency .

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How To Add Fun To Finance Presentation [Tips]

Marketing Presentation/Deck [What, How, Why & When]

What is a Proposal Presentation [Explained]

Create or change a presentation’s handout

You can use the Handout Master tab to edit the appearance of presentation handouts, including the layout, headers and footers, and background. Changes made to the handout master appear on all pages of the printed handout.

To see the handout options, click the View tab, and then click Handout Master in the Master Views group.

This opens the Handout Master view.

Change the layout

In the Page Setup group, you can specify the number and layout of slides to print on each page, change the orientation of handouts, and set the slide size. You can use settings on all three menus— Handout Orientation , Slide Size , and Slides Per Page —to customize your layout exactly how you want it.

Set the slides per page

Click Slides Per Page .

Choose a layout option from the thumbnail images.

Tip:  The 3 Slides option includes lines that your audience can use to take notes.

Set the orientation

Click Handout Orientation , and then choose Portrait or Landscape .

Set the slide size

Click Slide Size , and then choose one of the options.

When PowerPoint is unable to automatically scale your content, it will prompt you with a message. Select Maximize to increase the size of your slide content when you are scaling to a larger slide size. (Choosing this option could result in your content not fitting on the slide. ) Select Ensure Fit to decrease the size of your content. (This could make your content appear smaller, but you’ll be able to see all content on your slide.)

To set a custom size, including width, height, slide numbering, and orientation of slides and notes, click Custom Slide Size on the Slide Size menu.

To make sure your slides will print the way you want, preview your handouts before printing.

Change headers and footers

You can adjust headers and footers in the Placeholders group. By default, the placeholders appear in the top and bottom corners of the Handout Master page.

Click in a text placeholder (Header, Footer, Date, or Page Number) to make changes to it. You can do things like:

Edit or add content in the text placeholders : In addition to text changes, you can use commands on the Insert tab to add graphics or other content types.

Format text shape and appearance : Select the text and use the options on the Format tab to make changes.

Change text placeholders : Drag a text placeholder to move it, and use the text box sizing handles to change its size.

Turn placeholders on or off : Clear the check box of the placeholder (Header, Date, Footer, or Page Number) that you want to turn off.

Change the background

You can change the background of your handouts (but not the background of your slides) in the Background group. You can also quickly change the font for all for your handout text at once, and you can apply special borders and visual effects.

Colors : Choose a color theme for your handout background. You may have to click Background Styles and choose an option to see it applied.

Background Styles : Choose a style option from the list. The colors displayed depend on your choice in the Colors list.

Tip:  Click Format Background at the bottom of the Background Styles list to open the Format pane and choose from more background options, such as advanced fill settings, artistic effects, and color and image settings.

Fonts : Choose a font from the list to quickly apply it to all headers and footers.

Effects : Choose an effect from the list to apply a theme effects, with features including shadows, reflections, lines, fills, and more.

Preview your handouts

To preview the way your handout will look when printed:

Click File > Print .

Go to Settings > Full Page Slides , and then under Handouts , select the layout you want and look at the preview pane. Click the File tab again to return to your previous view.

For more information about working with PowerPoint handouts, see:

Work with handout masters

Print your handouts, notes, or slides

Create your own theme in PowerPoint

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Make Your Handouts Look Great Without a Graphic Designer

Make your presentation handouts look professional without a graphic designer.

Step #1: Use a Canva Template to Create a Great Presentation Handout.

Canva ( https://www.canva.com ) is one of those online resources where the more that you use it, the more that you can’t do without it. It is graphic design software, similar to Photoshop, but made for the amateur designer. The software is so easy to use, that you can be designing and editing professional graphics in minutes. The major difference between Canva and Photoshop though, (other than being really easy to operate) is that it is loaded with thousands of templates for just about anything that you want to create.

I was first introduced to Canva when I was looking for a way to create eye-catching social media images. I knew that if I wanted to post images that would get the attention of the casual Facebook or Twitter reader, that I had to create my own. (Stock photos just wouldn’t do.) I had invested in Photoshop, but since I didn’t have a lot of experience with it, the software was very frustrating. Then I was listening to a podcast by Michael Stelzner and Social Media Marketing, and they mentioned Canva. I tried it out for about 15 minutes, and I was hooked. In fact, most of the images that you see on my websites and social media accounts are created using Canva, now.

Create Your Background from Scratch or Start with a Template.

Because I’ve been using Canva for a while, I now publish most of my backgrounds from scratch. But when I first started using the website, I often used the pre-installed templates. If you decide to use a template, for a handout background, you might want to start with the “Letterhead” templates. Most of these letterhead templates have white backgrounds and really nice and colored borders, so they are ideal if you will be adding a lot of text. The great thing about the software is that if you find a design that you like, but you need to customize the colors, just click on the template, and it will load onto your design. Next just select the border or shape item that you want to alter, and a colored square will pop up in the top-left corner of the toolbar. Click the square, and you can change the color to any that you like.

If you decide to create the background from scratch, just click the “Use Custom Dimensions” button in the top-right corner of the Canva homepage, and enter 8.5 in X 11 in. You’ll start with a blank white page, but you can quickly add shapes, colors, images, and icons at will. You are only limited by your creativity. When I create a custom template or background, I usually use either a custom border or a half-page image.

For a small monthly fee, Canva will allow you to use royalty-free images that are fantastic. If however, you want to kick your images up a notch…

Download Professional Stock Photos on a Budget.

There are a lot of stock photo companies out there, and many are really good, but my favorite is ShutterStock . The reason I like this service so much is that the images are very economical, and they have just about any type of image that you’d ever want. In the past, I was using stock images so much for social media and my blogs that I had a monthly plan where I could download up to 50 different images per month for just $100. Now, though, I purchase five images for $49, and I have an entire year to choose which five images that I want to download. So, the images are only $9.80 each. Once you purchase the license for the picture, you can use it (and re-download it if needed) forever. This is a fantastic deal compared to companies like Getty that charge $500 per image, and you have to buy different licenses for each type of use.

ShutterStock actually has a built-in editor that you can use before you download the image. However, I have never been able to use it effectively. However, once you find the perfect image that you want to use, download it, and then upload it to Canva. You can then insert it into your half-page photo background, or you can edit it and alter it as needed. For examples of what you can do when you combine Canva and Shutterstock, go to my Instagram page at https://www.instagram.com/leadersinstitute/ .

Once you have the background just like you like it, you can either download it as a PNG from Canva, or you can save your Canva background, copy it, and create your handout right in Canva itself.

If You Are Not Technical, Here is a Tip After Downloading Your Background.

To download your background from Canva, just click the Download button and select PNG. An image will be saved on your computer in your download folder. Open up Microsoft Word, Google Docs, or any other word processor. Insert the PNG that you created. Click the image and drag the corners to the edge of the page, so that the image takes up the whole page. In the top toolbar, you will see a new option called Format. Click that button, and select Wrap Text. Now, select the option to Send Behind Text. One last thing. Right-click the image, and select Size and Position. Select Position. De-select Move Object with Text and Select Lock Anchor Position. These little technical tricks will push the image to the background of the page so that you can type whatever you want on top of the photo without moving it. If you don’t do this, when you start typing your content for your handout, the image will move around and look strange. If you need a second page for your handout, just click anywhere on the image and Copy. Then on the new page, hit Paste. Viola, a professional handout without any technical or graphic design skills needed!

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Microsoft Office vs. Google Docs, Sheets, Slides: Which Is Best?

6 steps to ensure you never lose a microsoft office file again, 15 console and pc games you can play on android, quick links, customizing a powerpoint handout's layout, exporting the handout to a word document.

PowerPoint handouts are a great resource to distribute to your audience so that they can follow along during your presentation or use for future reference. If you’d like to customize the handout layout before its distribution, PowerPoint has a way.

Go ahead and open up the PowerPoint presentation you'll be working with if you haven’t already. Switch over to the “View” tab and click the “Handout Master” button.

This action opens a new “Handout Master” tab on the Ribbon. Here you’ll find several available options for customizing the PowerPoint’s handout, such as Page Setup, Placeholders, Edit Theme, and Background.

Let’s first look at the options available in the “Page Setup” group, starting with “Handout Orientation.” By default, the orientation is set to “Portrait,” but you can change it to “Landscape” from the drop-down menu.

“Slide Size” gives you three options: Standard (4:3), Widescreen (16:9), or Custom Slide Size. Selecting “Custom Slide Size” lets you specify the exact width and height of the slides.

“Slides Per Page,” as the name suggests, lets you select how many slides appear on each page, ranging anywhere from one to nine slides per page.

Moving on to the “Placeholders” group, you can select or deselect the specific placeholders you want to appear on the handout. Placeholders include the header, footer, date, and page number.

To edit the content within these placeholders, make sure the option is enabled and then click the space to start editing.

Finally, you can edit the fonts, effects, background style, and color scheme of the handout by using the tools in the “Background” group.

Once you’re finished customizing the layout of your handout, click the “Close Master View” button.

Be sure to save before closing PowerPoint.

To export the PowerPoint presentation to a Word Document to create handouts, first select the “File” tab.

Next, select “Export” in the menu options on the left-hand side.

On the list of options that appears, select “Create Handouts.”

Finally, click the “Create Handouts” button.

Now the “Send to Microsoft Word” menu will appear. Select your desired page layout type and then select “Paste” or “Paste Link.”

Once you're ready, click “OK.”

Once you’ve selected “OK,” your presentation handout will open up in Word.

To edit the content within the slides, double-click the slide to be edited. Selecting the area next to the slide allows you to enter notes about the slide.

Feel free to add a header or footer to the handout. Once you’re finished, be sure to save the document and print out however many handouts you think you’ll need plus a few more just in case!

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