Newbie question about printing drafts of presentation

[Rhino]

I am new to Powerpoint, although I've used Lotus Freelance Graphics for
years and am familiar with the basic functioning of programs like these.

I am trying to figure out how I can print my PowerPoint presentation as a
'draft'. In other words, I'd like the presentation to print using the least
amount of ink possible since it is still just a rough draft. I want to
review the draft with someone who doesn't have a computer so I have to
produce a hard copy. I don't want to bankrupt myself printing off umpteen
drafts of the presentation though; the cartridges for my ink jet printer are
quite expensive.

It used to be quite common to see programs offer some kind of 'draft mode'
for their printing but the only thing I see resembling that in Powerpoint is
the ability to choose between color, grayscale, and black and white. But
even printing in black and white is going to be more expensive than I like
because it will need to use a fair bit of ink to print the background design
template.

I'm already using the simplest design template I can find, studio.pot. (I
don't even want to think about how much it would cost to print my
presentations on something with a solid color background!) Is there some way
to print without any design template at all or to ensure that only the text
of my presentation is printed without anything of the template?

All of the pages of my presentation are straight text, except for a few very
simple organization charts.

Any guidance you can give me on minimizing my printing costs would be
greatly appreciated. I can't find anything useful for my situation in the
Help system.

 

[Brian Reilly, MVP]

Welcome over from "The Dark Side" (vbg).
Others will chime in here, but three thoughts that come to mind are:
1. Print choosing Handouts which will give you a choice of multiple
slides per piece of paper
2. Print Outline, which will give you the text in the two text
placeholders, but not the text in added textboxes.
3. Email them the presentation and tell them to open it and proof it
or to print it in Print Preview.

Brian Reilly, MVP

 

[Rhino]

Thanks for your quick and helpful response!

Welcome over from "The Dark Side" (vbg).

Shouldn't that be "Welcome _TO_ the Dark Side?" ;-)

Others will chime in here, but three thoughts that come to mind are:
1. Print choosing Handouts which will give you a choice of multiple
slides per piece of paper

That's a definite maybe. That gives me 11 pages in the Print Preview when I
put 6 slides per page. Is there any way to print just _one_ of those 11
pages so that I can be sure the print is readable in the hard copy before I
try to print the whole presentation that way?

2. Print Outline, which will give you the text in the two text
placeholders, but not the text in added textboxes.

That actually worked fairly satisfactorily. The print is a bit on the small
side on slides that had a lot of text but its still readable. I can live
with this.

3. Email them the presentation and tell them to open it and proof it
or to print it in Print Preview.

That one's not an option; the other person doesn't have a _computer_ let
alone email.

I'm still open to other suggestions if anyone has one. I can live with
Brian's second suggestion but if someone can suggest something even better,
I'd love to hear from you.

 

[Andrea]

Thanks for your quick and helpful response!


Shouldn't that be "Welcome _TO_ the Dark Side?" ;-)


That's a definite maybe. That gives me 11 pages in the Print Preview when
I put 6 slides per page. Is there any way to print just _one_ of those 11
pages so that I can be sure the print is readable in the hard copy before
I try to print the whole presentation that way?


That actually worked fairly satisfactorily. The print is a bit on the
small side on slides that had a lot of text but its still readable. I can
live with this.


That one's not an option; the other person doesn't have a _computer_ let
alone email.

I'm still open to other suggestions if anyone has one. I can live with
Brian's second suggestion but if someone can suggest something even
better, I'd love to hear from you.

You could select a blank background instead of a design template. It's the
background fill that uses up most of the ink.

 

[Rhino]

You could select a blank background instead of a design template. It's the
background fill that uses up most of the ink.

How do I select a blank background? I was trying to do that but couldn't
figure out how and didn't see anything in the Help system.

 

[Andrea]

How do I select a blank background? I was trying to do that but couldn't
figure out how and didn't see anything in the Help system.

When I open PPT, it always starts with a blank slide, but maybe I changed
the default. Go to file, new, then in the task pane: blank presentation).
That will give you a blank slide. To format the fonts and bullets, go to the
slide master (View, Master, Slide Master). This will only format your slides
for the current presentation.