Draw on slides while presenting

Highlighter: about two and a half seconds

A temporary stroke stays at full opacity for a second and a half after you lift the pointer, then fades out over another second. It is the right tool for circling a number while you say it, because the mark is gone by the time you have finished the next sentence and you never have to remember to clean up. This is the one most presenters should use most of the time.

Pen: stays until you clear it

A permanent stroke persists on the slide. Use it for something you will refer back to across a minute or two: a ring around the option you are recommending, a line joining two figures. The bin button in the toolbar wipes every stroke on the current slide, temporary and permanent together, in one click.

Spotlight: a ring that follows the pointer

Not a stroke at all. Turning it on draws a coloured ring around your cursor so a remote audience can see where you are pointing, which they otherwise cannot, because your arm is not in the video. It costs nothing to leave on for a whole call and it is the single most useful of the three when you are presenting over a screen share.

Marks are wiped when you change slide

Advance or go back and the strokes on the slide you left are gone, following the convention every presentation tool uses. Nothing is stored with the deck, so drawings never appear in an export, in the shared link, or the next time you present. If you want a mark to be permanent, it belongs on the slide as content rather than as an annotation.

While a pen is active, clicks draw instead of advancing

That is the trade off and it catches people out once. With no pen selected, clicking anywhere moves to the next slide. With the highlighter or the pen selected, the click is a stroke and you advance with the arrow keys or space instead. Clicking the active tool again turns it off and gives you back click to advance. There are five stroke colours: red, yellow, green, blue and black.

How it works, in three steps

1. Step 1

   Open the pen toolbar in present mode

   It sits over the slide with the highlighter, the pen, the spotlight, five colours and a clear button.

2. Step 2

   Pick highlighter for anything transient

   Circle the number as you say it. The mark clears itself, so you never build up clutter.

3. Step 3

   Use arrow keys while a pen is on

   Clicking draws instead of advancing. Space and the arrow keys still move through the deck.

The full walkthrough with screenshots is in the guide Present your slides with speaker notes and a pen.

Limits worth knowing

• Drawing tools are a paid feature. On a free account they do not appear in present mode at all.
• Marks are wiped when you change slide and are never saved with the deck.
• Five stroke colours, and no eraser. The bin clears every stroke on the slide at once.
• While a pen is active, clicking draws rather than advancing the slide.

See it on a finished piece

Quarterly business review deck

10 slides

Training and onboarding presentation

9 slides

Project kickoff deck

9 slides

Questions people ask

Related pages