Presenter Mode (standout) is in Public Preview!

It is always fun to check what Microsoft Teams features are available in Public Preview. To my surprise this time it was the Presenter Mode! Only one of modes is there: Standout but I think it will be very often used one. This means that I need to start thinking how slides are built, so I am not blocking anything there if I put my video on top of it.

  • You need to use Teams Desktop
  • Public Preview needs to be activated. At the time I am writing this I see the option in two out of three of my demo environments – not in all. The rollout must have just started.
  • It only works when you are sharing the screen
  • Meeting attendees get the Standout-experience only if they are using Teams Desktop to join.

In case you try to choose the Standout mode and then select to use PowerPoint Live you will get a notification:

Presenting with Standout mode

When you go to share your screen, select first the Presenter mode

Make sure you have the content ready on the screen you are sharing – just like normally when sharing a screen in Teams meetings. I used my earlier work webinar PowerPoint presentation as a example here so you can see how it turns out on top of a presentation.

After sharing the screen you will see a preview of what attendees are seeing. This window appeared to me on the screen where my main Teams was.

On top of the shared screen you can see sharing controls – you can switch the Presenter Mode on /off from there.

Attendees using Microsoft Teams Desktop get the view where your video is on top of the presentation.

It will be important to think what is going to be on top of your presentation (or demos!) at bottom-right corner so you don’t block anything important there. Time to redesign some PowerPoint templates at least!

Attendees joining via web-Teams get a different experience (at least in this point)

As this is in Public Preview it is good to start experimenting with it but when doing a public presentation (like a webinar) I am not sure I would be using this just yet because browser users get a different experience. But when you know there are lots of attendees using a Teams Desktop then this is a good option to make the event more visual and thus more interesting to the audience.

I also tested how Standout works on Teams Mobile: it doesn’t. People can join the meeting but they don’t see presenter on top of the content. So to them it is just like presenter would be sharing the content in the traditional way.

4 thoughts on “Presenter Mode (standout) is in Public Preview!

  1. Well done Vesa. Just wanted to say thanks for your work. I find your videos and commentary often as good or better as the MS stuff and a good supplement in every case.

    Like

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