How to Print PowerPoint Slides

Whether or not you’re a fan of public speaking, a good PowerPoint slide presentation can help you get your message across. Improve your communication even more by giving attendees a printed version of your slides. With such a handout, listeners can refer to all of your slides in context, and go back to any they’d like to revisit. They can also use the handout paper to take notes.

PowerPoint Print Settings

When you print PowerPoint slides, there's an array of options including printing all slides, printing multiple slides on one page, plus the general settings like double-side printing, orientation, and color vs. black and white.

Here's a full list of print settings in PowerPoint:

• Print All Slides, Print Current Slide, or Custom Range. If you choose Custom Range, specify the slides you want to print. For example, type 1-3, 5-8 to print slides 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, and 8.
• Full Page Slides. This option is for printing multiple slides on on the page. To print multiple slides on one page, choose 2 slides, 3 slides, up to 9. Consider limiting the number of slides to three, since it gets harder to read them with any more than that on the page.
• Print One Sided or Print on Both Sides.
• Collated or Uncollated. Collated prints each copy in order; uncollated prints all copies of page 1, then all copies of page 2, etc.
• Portrait Orientation or Landscape Orientation.
• Color, Grayscale, or Pure Black and White.

How to Print PowerPoint Slides on a PC

The process for how to print PowerPoint slides using a PC or PowerPoint Online is pretty basic.

1. From the PowerPoint presentation, select File.

   

2. Select Print.

   

3. Choose a printer and the number of copies you want.

   

4. Under Settings, use the drop-down menus to make your selections, which are outlined in the above section.

   

5. Back at the top of the screen, click Print.

   

How to Print PowerPoint Slides on a Mac

When using PowerPoint for Mac, the process follows the same basic steps, with some minor differences.

1. Go to File and select Print.

   

2. In the Print dialog box, select Show Details.

   

3. Select the various drop-down menus and radio buttons to apply the settings you want.

   

4. Pay particular attention to the Layout menu. Here you'll choose the layout of your printed pages. Select a slides-only option.

   

5. At the bottom of the box, select Print.