PowerPoint’s Inspect Presentation feature can be a lifesaver and should be used anytime you send a presentation to a client.
Picture this: It’s 10pm on a Thursday night. You and your team have been working late every night this week to finalize a presentation you have in the morning, and now your manager asks you to send the PPT file to the client.
Panic mode sets in. You’re exhausted from working all day (more like all year) and you’re not sure you can even concentrate long enough to check all the slides before sending, so you just send it as it is.
Oops, bad idea. Turns out you forgot to delete your manager’s comments throughout the deck, and instead of your client reading through your fantastic growth projections, they get to read through your internal comments about footnotes and font sizes.
Sadly, this sort of situation happens all the time. Fortunately there’s a very simple fix that most people don’t know anything about. It’s PowerPoint’s Inspect Presentation feature and it’s a complete game changer.
Essentially, it checks for anything you might want to remove before sending your slides to a client. Things like comments, presenter’s notes, personal information, and a whole lot of other stuff you don’t want your client to ever see. Here’s how you use it:
1. Click on the file tab
2. Select the Check for Issues drop-down menu
3. Click on Inspect Document
4. Select which options you’d like to check for and click Inspect
5. Remove whatever you don’t want (e.g. comments)
6. Close the window and breathe normally
You’re gonna love this one, we promise. And once you start using it you’ll wonder how you ever did without it.
If you’re interested in a more thorough inspection of your slides, you may want to check out our Consulting Slide Checklist, which is a 29-point checklist that’s included in our flagship course: Advanced PowerPoint for Consultants.
