The best drawing appliation ever -- and you already own it!

Based on feedback I've received at hundreds of presentations, the most important single piece of visual thinking advice I can give is this: if you want to draw on-screen, just open PowerPoint.

Yes, the best drawing program on the planet is already on your computer -- and it's not even from Apple. :-) It's the built-in "PRESENTATION MODE" drawing application in PowerPoint (aka PPT).

The drawing is smooth, touch-sensitive (for those of you on a tablet PC) and intuitive to use. Here's how to access this wonder:

1. Open your PPT document.
2. Go to presentation mode.
3. You will see 4 faint icons in the lower left corner (if you can't see them, open up a blank white page in PPT; sometimes colored backgrounds make the icons difficult to see.)
4. Still in presentation mode, mouse over the PEN; a set of options will pop up (see attached)
5. From there, select pen type, color, etc.
6. Draw directly on your slide.
7. When you exit presentation mode, PPT will ask if you want to "keep notations" If yes, your drawings will become embedded 'vector' objects in your original PPT; if no, you'll go back to your original.*

* For Office 2003 and earlier, you'll need to right-click on your presentation and choose "pointer options".

I use this lovely little application 100% of the time when I am presenting. It works for large audiences (you draw on screen while connected to a projector) and small audiences (people can see you work right on-screen). I even use this as my standard drawing tool when creating new illustrations while on the plane or anyplace where I don't have access to a scanner. It even works for live drawing during webinars online.

Although I use a tablet PC, the drawing application works exactly the same with a regular mouse and screen.

Funniest thing of all, I was giving a "back of the napkin" presentation to 100 people last week at Microsoft up in Redmond. It was a great session and at the end someone asked me what application I was using to do the live sketching on-screen. When I showed them it was plain-old out-of-the-box PPT, the crowd went wild! I've never had so many cheers.

Made my day. And theirs. 

Comments

[pertain]

Dan:

Thanks for this tip! And your drawing is lovely :-)

[ExcelPro's chart blog]

Dan:
one thing I want to know,when you draw in PPT draw model,do you use a digital panel and pen? such as wacom's,it is to hard to draw with mouse.
and ,when drawing in PPT,the "pen"is just a dot ,hardly to see it ,how could you draw so freely when you are giving a speech?
thanks!

[David Hay]

I use this quite often in teaching Physics, but it seems that PowerPoint on the Mac doesn't keep your annotations.

[diane Tye]

i have powerpoint 2004 (lovely mac version). when i come out of presentation view, i am not asked to keep notations
what am i doing wrong - i am missing out on the fun!

[Eric Yingling]

Dan-

This is the first time you disappointed me. Love your work and your book, but when I read your headline, I assumed you were going to say our brains were the best tool ever. Quite the opposite when you mentioned PPT. I find that this suggestion is not congruent with many principles you have shared.

Brain, pen, napkin..... That is all we need, right?

Thanks!

Eric

[Lissa Boles]

Hey Dan,

You made my day too cause I didn't know this either. I was so jazzed I immediately fired up PPT, played with it and created a goofy little rendering in under 60 seconds.

I'm really going to enjoy this. What a kick!

Thanks Dan,

Lissa

[Dan Roam]

Ed -- thanks for the OneNote comment. I personally know thousands of people with PPT, and about two with OneNote, so I'll keep pushing on the PPT side.

As for why it took *me* this long to release this top-secret info about the best part of PPT, I think we should take that up with Bill and Steve. I hate doing their job for them. Don't get paid enough, either. :-)

- Dan

[Dan Roam]

Mike -- the instructions and screenshot above are *from* PPT 2007. Just go into presentation mode and look at the bottom left of your screen. Presto! Instant drawing tool.

[Ed Engberg]

Why did you wait so long in telling us about this use of PPT? You can draw as well on Microsoft OneNote pages. I haven't done enough napkin sketches yet to compare the pluses and minuses to see which I'll adopt.

[Mike]

Where do you find this in PPT 2007...thanks

[Tom]

Brilliant. In all the time I've used PowerPoint I never knew this existed.

[Dean]

Dan, you seem to manage to pile simplicity upon simplicity. Makes it kinda hard not to get on board. I am loving my back of napkin journey and this tip is a bit of a missing link for me. Many thanks. Dean