Problem with annotating slides in PowerPoint Live in Teams and in PowerPoint Live Events from the web

Question

I recently learned how to use PowerPoint Live in Teams—and there is so much to love about it! A colleague and I tested it together and thought that it was fantastic that we could see our slides, notes, and Teams chat and other features, all on the same screen. For those reasons—along with it being touted as the most accessible way to deliver online events, we couldn’t wait to use it in our deliveries!

When my colleague and I shared what we learned with a small group of other presenters, they noticed when I was presenting that I seemed to be drawing on the slides, but none of it was being displayed on their view of my screen. Another trainer confirmed that he wasn’t able to annotate slides (pen, highlighter, laser pointer) either when he tested the feature. The annotations are displayed only for the presenter, not the audience.

Then I tested creating PowerPoint Live Event from the web-based version of PowerPoint and sharing via Teams—and I had a similar experience. I could draw on the slides, but annotations were only displayed in the Teams meeting on the shared screen.  However, the notes were not available to the audience when accessing the PowerPoint Live Event via the web.

Is that a bug, or is it that way by design? I checked with the Disability Answer desk and confirmed that the screen annotations do not work well with screen readers. However, if that is the case, it seems like a usability issue that you all should know about. Presenters think that they are making notes for everyone to see.

Thanks so much for whatever help or suggestions that you are able to provide. Please let me know if you need additional information from me or what I might do to help you.

Answer 1

Hi Linda,

Thank you for posting your query in our community.

Per your description, users could not see the annotations on their side when in PowerPoint Live in Teams. I tested it on my side, however, there was no problem. You can check below images:

Presenter view:

User view:

Given this situation, I suggest you contact the administrator in your company if you aren’t the administrator and follow the steps in the article to open a ticket. As we have no resource to investigate more from the back end while the support team there may have the related resource to verify if there are issues with PowerPoint state service at the moment.

Additionally, about the Live Presentation in PowerPoint for the web, based on our test, the result was same as yours. A thread for your reference: Present Live-drawing while presenting - Microsoft Community

Appreciate your understanding.

Best regards,

Jazlyn