Teacher Tech blog with Alice Keeler

Paperless Is Not a Pedagogy

Alice Keeler

7 Ways to Get Fancy in Google Slides Speaker Notes

Try these 7 Ways to Get Fancy in Google Slides Speaker Notes. Speaker notes can be fun and fancied up!

7 Ways to Get Fancy in Google Slides Speaker Notes

The speaker notes in Google Slides is the space below the slide that the participants do not see. Like me, you may jot down some notes or talking points on what the slide is about in the speaker notes. Did you know you can make those notes a little fancy?

Google slides screenshot with an arrow showing the speaker notes are below the slide.

Show Speaker Notes

If you can not see the Speaker Notes it is possible that they are disabled. Use the View menu and select “Show speaker notes.”

View menu with an arrow pointing to "Show speaker notes."

1. Enlarge the Speaker Notes

Did you know you can CHANGE the size of the speaker notes? I find this particularly handy when I have a lot of text in the notes and I want to focus on reading what I put in the notes. There is a bar dividing the slide canvas from the speaker notes. You can grab any part of the bar and drag it up or down to change the size of the speaker notes box.

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2. Increase the Font Size

You can add rich text to the speaker notes. Change the font size, color, and type. If you are having a hard time reading the speaker notes, MAKE THE FONT BIGGER!

The speaker notes under the slide have one word that is large, hot pink, and a different font. An arrow is pointing out how it looks different in the speaker notes.

Since you can add rich text to the speaker notes you can also add links. In the same way that you add links to a Google Doc you can add them to the speaker notes in Google Slides. Highlight text and use Control K or simply paste the link and put a space after it to activate the live hyperlink.

4. Voice Type in the Speaker Notes

You can not voice type into text boxes in Google Slides unless you use the Slides Translator Add-on. However, you CAN voice type into the speaker notes!! You are practicing what you want to say for your Google Slides, activate the voice typing and let those ideas be captured!

Control Shift S

Use the keyboard shortcut Control Shift S to voice type or use the Tools menu to select “Voice type speaker notes.”

5. Add Emoji’s

Sorry, you can not add images or video to the speaker notes. However, you can add emojis! Fancy up your speaker notes with

6. Search the Speaker Notes

Use Control F in your Google Slides to FIND things. Not only will Control F search the slides, it will search the speaker notes. Particularly handy if you are like me and try to have no words on your presentation slides. If you use Canva images as the background where the text is now an image, it is particularly helpful to have your speaker notes.

7. Use Mote

Leave yourself audio notes in the speaker notes. Use mote.com to install the Mote chrome extension. This will allow you to record your voice in a Mote note and place the link to the audio recording in the speaker notes.

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