How to see your speaker notes while sharing slides on Zoom or Google Meet

A screen share sends whatever is in the thing you picked. Pick the whole screen, and everything on it goes out, including a notes pane. Pick the presenter view window, and your notes are in it.

• Entire screen: the audience sees every window you open, notes included.
• Presenter view window: it exists to show you the notes, the next slide and a timer, so sharing it shows them too.
• Slide show window or browser tab: only the slides go out. This is the one to share.

In Zoom, choose Share Screen and pick the window that holds your slide show from the list of open windows. In Google Meet, choose Present now, then A window or A tab and select the slides. Microsoft Teams offers a similar choice between screen, window and some app-specific options.

If you present from a browser (Google Slides, for example), sharing the tab is often the cleanest option. Whatever the app, look at the preview your meeting tool shows before you confirm.

• Two displays: start the slide show on the display you share and put the notes on the other. This is the simplest set-up and works the same in every meeting app.
• One display: play the slides in a window, share that window, and keep the notes in a second window that you do not share. Slide apps differ in whether they can play a show in a window (PowerPoint and Keynote both have a setting for it, though the name and place depend on the version), so check yours before the call.
• Presenter view: use it for rehearsal and for sharing a single window only if you have tested that the audience sees the slide show, not the presenter view. Some people report a meeting app grabbing the wrong window, so test it.
• Another option is to put the notes on paper or on a second device such as a phone or tablet on your desk.

Notes on a second display often sit far from the camera, so your eyes visibly drift sideways. If you can, move the notes window to the top of the screen just under the webcam, make it narrow, and use large type so you can read it in short glances. Our guide on eye contact on video calls shows how to place it.

Do a dry run. Start a meeting with yourself, or with a colleague or a second device logged in as a guest, share the same way you will on the day, and look at the shared view. Check that notes, the presenter view, other tabs and notifications do not show.

• Turn on Do Not Disturb so notification banners don’t pop up on the shared screen.
• Close tabs and windows you don’t want seen, even if you only share one window.
• Re-check if you change monitors or update the meeting app, because the share options can change.

If you share a screen or display rather than a window, something can still slip through. Know how to stop sharing quickly, and keep a way to hide the notes and bring them back without hunting through windows.

• Learn the stop-sharing control in your meeting app before the day.
• If you lose your place, finish the sentence you are in and continue from the next point. The audience cannot see what you skipped.
• Keep notes short: a few lines per slide are easier to find again than paragraphs.

Talkzy for Mac is a script bar that hangs from the MacBook’s notch, or sits top-centre on a display without one, and stays above other windows without taking focus. That puts your notes right under the webcam without taking a slot on your slide window. It is on the Mac App Store for macOS 14 or later.

• In Settings you can show between 2 and 6 lines and set the text size from 14 to 36 pt.
• Start a line with # in your script to make a section, for example one per slide, and jump between sections with shortcuts. By default ⌃⌥⌘← and ⌃⌥⌘→ move between sections, ⌃⌥⌘P plays or pauses, ⌃⌥⌘↑ goes back a line and ⌃⌥⌘H shows or hides the bar. You can change them in Settings.
• Speed is adjustable from 60 to 260 words per minute, and ⌃⌥⌘= and ⌃⌥⌘- change it while you present.
• Settings include a check of what others would see: it captures your display once, the way a screen share does, on this Mac only, and tells you whether the bar shows up. It needs the Screen Recording permission, and some meeting apps and recorders may still show it, so run the check before you present, share a window rather than the whole display, and use the hide shortcut if you share the screen.
• The bar, the shortcuts and timed scrolling are free; voice-follow is free for 3 sessions a day, and Pro removes the limit. The on-bar section chips are a Pro feature, while the section shortcuts stay free.

The iPhone and iPad app is coming soon to the App Store.