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How to Print PowerPoint with Notes (Step-by-Step)

• PowerPoint Tutorials
• Shortcuts & Hacks
• January 22, 2024

In this article, you’ll learn how to print your PowerPoint slides with speaker notes as handouts the way you want them.

Don’t get frustrated with PowerPoint… just get creative. That way you can get out of the office and make it to Happy Hour.

Just keep in mind that, like many things in PowerPoint, there is a variety of ways to print your notes, each producing its own result. I cover each method below.

NOTE:  If you are distributing your slides to other people, I highly recommend customizing your handouts with your company information before you print them. This not only makes your handouts look more professional, but it also makes it easier for people to get in touch with you.

For help turning your PowerPoint notes (without or without note text) into PDF handouts, read our guide here .

Table of Contents

How to print powerpoint with notes (basics).

The most common way to print PowerPoint notes is with the thumbnail image of the slide at the top of the page, and the notes directly beneath (as pictured above). To print your notes like this, simply:

• Hit Ctrl+P for Print (or click File then Print)
• Open the Print Layout options
• Select the Notes Page layout
• Click Print

If you want to print your notes only (without the thumbnail image), see further below.

As you can see in the live preview on the right in the picture above, I have already formatted the Notes Master to include my company’s logo, and my contact information.

If you have lots of speaker notes for a particular slide, the text may run off onto a second or third page. If this happens, keep in mind that your slide thumbnail only appears on the first page of notes.

Also keep in mind that the page number at the bottom of your handouts represents the slide number in your presentation, not the number of pages you are printing.

That means that if you have ten (10) pages of speaker notes for slide number 2 in your deck, each of those ten pages of speaker’s notes will have a number 2 on them.

To learn how to print multiple slides on one page in PowerPoint,  read our guide here .

NOTE: If you are distributing your notes as handouts before or after your presentation, I recommend customizing your Notes Master .

Take your PPT skills to the next level

Formatting the notes master for professional handouts.

To customize your notes page before you print it in PowerPoint first navigate to the Notes Master view.

• Click the View tab
• Select the Notes Master

The View tab in PowerPoint is also where you can find the Handout Master view (discussed further below), and the Slide Master view. These master views control the default formatting of your slides, handouts, and notes.

Once you are in the Notes Master view, you can select which placeholders you want to include in your handouts. In this view, you can also add any images, shapes, or other design elements to jazz up your handouts. I recommend adding things like:

• Your company logo
• Your email address (or contact information)
• Your company website

When it comes to formatting your handouts, more is not better. I recommend adding enough to make your handouts look professional and make it easy for people to contact you.

Printing PowerPoint Notes with multiple slides per page

To print your PowerPoint notes as handouts with multiple slides per page, you need to first export your PowerPoint slides to Microsoft Word using the Create Handouts command.

To convert PowerPoint to Word using the Create Handouts command, simply:

• Click the File tab
• Select Export
• Select  Create Handouts
• Click the Create Handouts command
• Select Notes next to slides

Doing so turns your PowerPoint presentation into a Word document, with all your slides and speaker notes in a table format that you can then update and edit in Microsoft Word. The length of your notes affects how many slides you can have on a single page in Word.

Table of Contents:  If you have a lot of slides you are converting into a Word document, you can make your Word document easier to read and navigate by inserting a table of contents. To learn how to make a table of contents in Word,  read our guide here .

How to print PowerPoint notes only

Yes, you can print just your PowerPoint notes (no slide thumbnail images) without messing up your presentation. I don’t recommend deleting things on your Notes Master, simply follow the steps listed below.

To see how to pull this off using a combination of the Create Handouts command and the Outline View in PowerPoint, see the short PowerPoint video tutorial below (it will make the most sense that way).

1. Push your PowerPoint slides to Microsoft Word

The first step is to push your slides and speaker notes into Microsoft Word. To do that, follow these steps:

• From within PowerPoint open the  File menu
• Click  Export on the left
• Select  Create Handouts  in the middle
• Click  Create Handouts on the right
• Select  Notes next to slides

PowerPoint then exports all your slides and speaker notes to Word in a table format. To make it easier to edit our table, let’s add borders to it.

2. Add table borders to your table to see what you are working with

Once PowerPoint finishes exporting your slides to Microsoft Word, I recommend adding table borders to see what you are working with. To do that, simply:

• Select the table in Word
• Click the Table Design tab
• Choose a table border style

While this is an optional step, it makes formatting your notes in Word a lot easier.

3. Format your PowerPoint notes in Word

As a last step, you simply need to make the formatting adjustments you want to your notes. These can include:

• Delete the thumbnail image column
• Resize the column widths
• Paste your slide title names in from the Outline View in PowerPoint
• Customize your handouts with your contact information
• Continue formatting in order to get your desired result

How to print PowerPoint with comments

Assuming you have comments in your presentation, you can print those in either the Handout view or the Outline view.

To print your PowerPoint slides with comments:

• Hit Ctrl+P for print
• Open the  Slide Layout options
• Choose how many slides you want per page (I recommend 6 or 9 so you don’t waste paper)
• Select  Print Comments
• Click  Print

It’s important to note that PowerPoint comments always print on the second page. Your first page will be the handouts themselves (with the comments marked on the slide). The second will be the actual comments.

As this tends to waste a lot of printer paper and ink, I recommend using the 9-slide layout unless you have a specific reason to do otherwise.

How to print PowerPoint with lines for notes

There are two different ways to print your slides as Handouts with lines for notes:

The easy way: This involves directly printing your slides from PowerPoint with the default blank lines for taking notes.

The customizable way:  This involves converting your PowerPoint slides to Word, where you can then adjust and customize the lines for your notes.

Both options are covered below.

1. The easy way

To print your slides with  non-customizable  lines for notes (in PowerPoint):

• From within PowerPoint, hit  Ctrl+P for print
• Open the  Slide Layout  options
• Choose the 3-slide layout  with lines (you’ll see a live preview on the right)

NOTE:  You can customize this layout using the PowerPoint Handout Master the way I  described above .

2. The customizable way

To print your slides with  customizable blank lines for notes (Converting PowerPoint to Word):

• Navigate to the  File tab
• Click  Export
• Click on the  Create Handouts  button
• Select either Blank lines next to slides  or Blank lines below slides  (depending on what you want)

Once your slides export to Microsoft Word, you can do whatever you want with the lines. For example, you can decrease the paragraph spacing to add more lines if you like. You can also format them and make them bold.

To expand your knowledge and learn more about exporting your PowerPoint slides to Microsoft Word (and the different options you have),  read our guide here .

Printing an outline of PowerPoint

Before you get too excited about printing your PowerPoint outline, it’s important to note that only information that is within your content placeholders prints. That means that text inside regular shapes and text boxes doesn’t appear.

On top of that, an outline can only print text. That means that none of your graphics, charts or pictures show up in your printed document.

There are two different ways to print your outline: You can directly print your outline out of PowerPoint, or you can export your outline to Microsoft Word so that you can edit it before you print it. Choose the option below that works best for you.

1. Directly printing your outline from PowerPoint

To print your PowerPoint slides as an outline only outline, simply:

• Hit Ctrl+P on to open the print options
• Open the Slide Layout options
• Select Outline

Note: If you don’t see all the content in your outline (you only see the slide titles, for example) that means that your Outline View is collapsed.

To expand your Outline View, simply:

• Navigate to the View tab
• Click on the Outline View

Within the Outline View (click into that actual Outline View on the left), hit the expand keyboard shortcut: Alt+Shift+9 . To learn more about working in the Outline view in PowerPoint, read our guide here .

2. Exporting an editable version of your Outline to Microsoft Word

If you want to customize your PowerPoint outline in Microsoft Word before you print it, simply:

• Click on the  Create Handouts button
• Select Outline only

Pushing your outline into Microsoft Word like this allows you to customize and edit the outline before you print it.

So those are all the different ways you can print your notes in PowerPoint.

If you intend to print your notes as handouts for a business meeting or client presentation, I highly recommend formatting your Notes Master and/or Handout Master.

That way you can include your contact information and/or your company formatting, making your handouts look more professional.

If you enjoyed this in-depth PowerPoint tutorial, you can learn more about our online training courses and other presentation resources  here .

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About the author.

This Post Has 2 Comments

Thank you for this useful guide! Is there a way to print the outline with the notes per slide, too?

Hi Juliah and thanks for the question. Unfortunately not. The notes are tied to the slides and not the outline, so there’s no way that we know of to print the outline + notes together.

Comments are closed.

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How-To Geek

How to print just the speaker notes for a powerpoint presentation.

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Quick Links

How to print notes pages, how to print notes pages without slide thumbnails.

You've got your speaker notes set up in your PowerPoint presentation, and now you want to print a copy for quick reference. Here's how to print speaker notes for a PowerPoint Presentation---with and without slide thumbnails.

Open up your PowerPoint presentation and click the "File" menu on the Ribbon.

On the sidebar that opens, click the "Print" command.

On the Print pane to the right, click the "Full Page Slides" button.

You'll see a bunch of different printing options on the drop-down menu. Click the "Notes Pages" option.

This generates a printout of all your slides, with one slide thumbnail per page and any notes accompanying that slide. If that's what you need, select your printer and click the "Print" button.

If your presentation is lengthy or you have a lot of speaker notes, you can also print out those notes without printing thumbnails of the slides themselves.

Switch over to the "View" tab on the Ribbon and then click the "Notes Page" button. This switches you to the Notes Page view. On each page, you'll see a thumbnail of the slide and any accompanying notes.

Select the thumbnail on each page and delete it.

Don't worry! This does not delete the slide itself from your main presentation---just the thumbnail on the notes page. Repeat this step for each notes page.

Swing on over to the "File" tab and click the "Print" command.

Select the printer you want to use, make sure the "Notes Pages" option is selected, and then click the "Print" button.

If you've deleted the slide thumbnails from your notes pages and want to put them back, switch to the slide sorter view, right-click a thumbnail there and choose the "Copy" command, and then paste the thumbnail on the notes page where you want it.

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