In many of the power point presentations, I have “layered” text elements.  When the presentation is played, layered elements appear one at a time; but when the presentation is printed (particularly in handout form), the top “layer” covers and obscures the lower layers.  Follow the following steps if you want to print the entire presentation so that you can read the obscured text in the lower levels:

1.                 Be sure you are viewing the presentation in power point format.

2.                 Right click the slide and click “Edit Slides.”

3.                 Click the “Slide Sorter View” icon (the four rectangles) or click “View” and then click “Slide Sorter.”  (You should now see a group of the slides in smaller format.)

4.                 Identify the slide that has the “layered” elements and count the elements.

5.                 Make one copy of the slide for each “layer.”  You can do this in two ways.

a.      Select the slide and then, while holding down the control key, drag it slightly to the right.  This will make one copy just to the right of the original.

b.      Select the slide and then type Ctrl-C (Copy) and then Ctrl-V (Paste).  This will also make one copy just to the right of the original.

6.                 You should now have a copy of the slide for each layer, but each copy has all the layers, so your next job is to unpeel the onion.

7.                 Shift back to “Slide View”

a.      By clicking the “Slide View” icon (the single rounded rectangle next to the “Slide Sorter View” icon) or

b.      By clicking “View” and then clicking “Slide View.”

8.                 Move to the first copy and select and delete all the layers above the layer you want to see.  (You select the layer by clicking the element.  Click it close to the edge so that you have selected the element rather than the text within the element.)

9.                 Repeat the previous step until you have a slide showing each layer.

10.             If there are several multi-layered slides, repeat the process for each.  It will be quicker if you perform steps 5 and 6 for all layered slides at first and then perform steps 7 through 9 for each. 

11.             Finally, click “File” and “Print.”  If you want to print in handout form, be sure to select “Handout” in the “Print What” box.  (Otherwise you’ll get a separate sheet for each page.)  If you want to save paper, you can also select “9” rather than “6” in the “Slides per Page” box. 

 

One separate hint:  Occasionally, the colors I have selected for a particular element are fine in color on the screen but do not have enough contrast for easy reading when they are printed in black and white.  If that happens, select the element and change the text color to black and the background color of the element to white.