controlling display used by presenter tools

D

David Duff

i am running powerpoint 2004 on a powerbook g4/1.5GHz running mac os x
10.3.5.

i have an external display attached. i would like to use presenter
tools to have the presenter tools on the powerbook screen while the
slides are projected on the external display. i am having trouble
controlling which display is used for presenter tools and which for
the audience display.

i know how to use the system-wide display preferences. i know how to
control the relative position of the two screens. i know how to turn
mirroring on and off. i know how to control which machine shows the
dock and menu bar.

i read the help in powerpoint that says "Drag the monitor icons so
that the larger icon (representing your monitor) is on the left and
the smaller (representing the audience monitor) is on the right, and
then close the dialog box."

i have done this, but it doesn't seem to make any difference as to
which monitor is used for the slides vs. the presenter tools.
specifically, if i go to display preferences and swap the two displays
left/right this does NOT change which one gets the presenter tools.

as an experiment, i tried swapping which display shows the menu bar
(dragging the menu bar from one display to the other in the display
preferences "arrangement" tab). this DID result in switching which
display shows presenter tools. however, i am uncomfortable with the
fact that this repeatedly does not work as documented. obviously, it
is important to have solid, repeatable, and well-understood behavior
from a tool that you're going to use to give a public presentation...

two further oddities:

a) after i experimented with causing the display used by presenter
tools to switch by dragging the menu bar from one display to the
other, another bug arose whereby the menu bar became visible on the
display which was showing the audience slides. this is obviously
undesirable. quitting powerpoint and restarting seemed to make this
problem go away.

b) in the menubar dragging experiment, presenter tools used the
non-menubar display. the display with the menubar became the audience
display. so even if this were the way you are supposed to control
which display is used for which, this is the opposite behavior from
what i would want and expect - i would want the menubar and dock to be
on the non-audience-facing display.

any help appreciated!
 

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