Do you want to turn your PowerPoint presentation into an outline? You can do it easily by using a built-in feature in PowerPoint. Keep reading to find out the steps to creating an outline from your PowerPoint presentation.
Step 1: Click On The “File” Tab
Start by opening the PowerPoint file that you want to convert into an outline in PowerPoint for Windows desktop. This Create Handouts method needs Microsoft Word installed on the same computer. An outline view is handy when you need a text-only version of your deck for review, sharing, or quick editing. Click on the “File” tab in the upper left-hand corner of the screen.
Step 2: Select “Export”
Upon clicking “File”, new options will appear. Click on “Export” from the options in the File tab.
Step 3: Create Handouts
Click “Create Handouts” under the Export tab, then press the “Create Handouts” button under Create Handouts in Microsoft Word. The original screenshot shows this Windows desktop route; PowerPoint for the web and Mac do not offer the same Export panel.
Step 4: Select “Outline Only”
The Send to Microsoft Word dialog appears after clicking on the “Create Handouts” button. Select the “Outline only” option and press “OK”.
That’s it! Once you do so, PowerPoint will generate an outline, and it will open in the MS Word program. If you want to make edits to the outline, simply make them in Word and then save the document. We hope you found this helpful. Thanks for reading!
If you only need to see or copy the outline, choose View > Outline View in desktop PowerPoint. On a Mac, click inside the outline text, press Command+A and Command+C, then paste into Word or another text editor. Clicking in the text area matters: selecting slide thumbnails copies slides instead. In Windows, File > Print > Full Page Slides > Outline gives a text-only print layout without exporting to Word.
Before sharing the document, compare it with the slides. An outline contains slide titles and main slide text, so it is not a complete transcript of everything visible in the deck. Check for missing text from separate text boxes, diagrams and pictures, and add any essential points in Word. Speaker notes need a notes-based handout layout instead of Outline only.
Conclusion
As you see, it’s quite easy to turn your presentation into an outline using PowerPoint’s built-in feature. Just work through the steps above and you will have a clean text outline ready to edit in Word. Thanks for reading!
