Problem using Presenter View with Multiple Screens (more than 2 monitors)

Question

I cannot believe how devs missed that but there is no option for selecting which monitor Presenter View should run on!

As funny as it is, this simple thing becomes a real problem since (I guess) Microsoft developers doesn't like to give full control to their users. And combination of rare cases does happen guys!

When more than 2 monitors encountered, PowerPoint directly assigns Presenter View to 3rd monitor, leaving open document on monitor 1. I don't want that.

I wanted ppt document to be on 1, Presenter View to be on 1 and presentation to be on 2. Then I can freely use 3rd monitor as I firstly intended, as an expansion to the 2 monitor setup(!) to see my OBS window.

This is a real problem on Microsoft side since multi monitor users / setups deserve full support from whichever aspect you look at (they paid more / tend to pay more; these user's / companies' view is important because they have influence e.g people imitate / ask them; these large setups are so important, if they find some no-problem alternative, they just go that way instantly e.g. lets say AndroidOS ).

Answer 1

PowerPoint presentation mode can’t allow to open another window for work.

Please refer this link for some information

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/msoffice/fo...

https://support.office.com/en-us/article/presen...

Answer 2

The Microsoft Help link is for exactly 2 monitors which I have no problem to present.

The question link explicitly states that problem occures in 3 monitor setup. Although it is nice to see im not alone in this problem, its sad that it didnt even understood correctly at that time...

Many different softwares of today give us so many different options to try, dev options even, but here we are, in 2020, still dealing with Microsoft Office...

My 3rd monitor is a small tablet and i really dont want to do a crazy workaround like defining tablet as primary monitor with a .reg file (even if it exists) every time i connect it to presentation computer (with its app, as a monitor) for an option PowerPoint didnt even bother to add... Let alone doing that would only leave me with the application window opened in that window. But I want to see another application window on that screen...

Therefore the option to show Presenter View on the primary monitor, even if we have 3 monitors should be provided to us, even if it is in the shape of some .reg or .bat file...

Answer 3

I have tried 2 monitors with my notebook, when i use 1 as main display, PowerPoint presentation shows on second and the slide preview on 1, if i open any other app like Excel on monitor 3, i still can use it while doing presentation. (see my picture)

You can decide on windows display settings which one you need to choose as main display.

Answer 4

Thank you for the picture.

Knowing that it can be done, I've figured something I couldn't before: Presenter View window can be non-maximized and moved like any window. It looks funny when im moving it though (from 3 to 1 through monitor 2 ^.^).

But surprisingly, on my setup, Presenter View keeps opening on 3 (tablet) even after system restart or slideshow being closed at the correct placement. PowerPoint does not remember Presenter View window's past place. This non organic behaviour is kinda irritating since I have to non-maximize then move it every time.

To summarize, thank you for your help on directing me to a temporal solution. But its sad that we could not find a solid solution (e.g. your finding a way for it to always open on your - let's say - 3rd monitor from now on.)