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Help needed with office 365 on Surface Pro 3

Mahesh

New Member
While I am on office 365 on presentation mode (Slide Show Mode), I can move to the next slide by swiping from right to left on the screen. And similarly I can move to the last page by swiping from right to left. Can I disable this swipe feature when I am in presentation mode on office 365?

The reason I am asking this is.... When I write with PEN on the presentation mode, occasionally office 365 accidentally moves to next or previous page. This is really annoying while I am taking notes....

Thanks in advance!!
 

bluegrass

Well-Known Member
Welcome to the forum Mahesh.

I opened PowerPoint 2013 for the first time to see if I could duplicate your problem. I created 5 quick slides using the insert new slide. When I started the slide presentation my slides showed on the left side and a slide in the middle. Swiping didn't function for me. I had to use my finger to select the slide I wanted to write on with my pen. I could use the pen to move to a different slide if I chose the scroll bar on the right, which only showed up when I hovered the pen over the space to the right of the slide. I'm not sure how you turned on the side swipe method of moving to different slides. I'm sure your answer is somewhere in PowerPoint settings. Have you tried their help?

I think you're the first person that has posted any question about PowerPoint, so I guess there must not be many PowerPoint users in the forum.
 

jnjroach

Administrator
Staff member
I use PowerPoint daily, I far as I can find there is no way to disable this functionality, when inking make sure you touch the tip of pen to the screen prior to placing your palm on the screen....
 
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Mahesh

New Member
Hi John,

Thanks for your reply.

The primary reason I bought Surface Pro 3 is because I can write on powerpoint slides in "SLIDESHOW MODE". What you mentioned is absolutely right. When I do exactly what you mentioned above I do not see any issues too. But you have to do one more thing before you start writing on the powerpoint screen..... "Slide Show Mode". On my windows dell desktop (Not Surface Pro 3) at home I can hit F5 to get to slide show mode after I open the powerpoint. I have attached a picture to show you exactly what I mean. When you click on that icon in the attached document (It does not work with F5 on Surface Pro) you will see the powerpoint in the slideshow mode where you will only see one slide at a time.. You will not see any slides on the left etc... When in slideshow mode, you can switch between slides by left and right swipes with your finger. When I am writing with my pen in "Slide show mode", you will see that occasionally the surface thinks that I want to move to the next page. What should I do to make sure that when I am writing in "Slideshow Mode" the PEN touch is not mistaken as a swipe.

Mahesh
 

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Mahesh

New Member
I use PowerPoint daily, I far as I can find there is no way to disable this functionality, when inking make sure you touch the tip of pen to the screen prior to placing your palm on the screen....


Hi Jeff,

I made sure my palm was not touching the Surface at all. It still happens. I am pretty confident it is the PEN Swipes in a certain fashion or while writing certain letters.... that is making the slides to change.

Thanks a lot for all your comments guys!
Mahesh
 

jnjroach

Administrator
Staff member
Are you accidentally hitting the advance arrow with the Pen when you're writing?

Another thought are you using Presentation Mode? If not it probably would work better.
 
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Mahesh

New Member
I took it back to the Microsoft store. The technician looked at it and said there is nothing much they can do about it. Maybe Microsoft will fix it in future. He tried everything possible. I had to return the machine since I bought it to capture my video lectures using Camtasia software. In its present form Surface Pro will not serve that purpose.
 

tonypitt

Member
I use my SP3 for lecture capture with Camtasia. I ink PowerPoint slides continuously. I've had the issue occur which you mention, but it is uncommon for me. It probably happens on average 1 time per lecture. That's not a big deal for me, and I find it easy to swipe back to the slide I was inking.

What I do find to be a frustration is that PowerPoint 365 does not provide a way to increase the thickness of the pen tip when inking. I teach in lecture halls where the stroke thickness is just too small for everyone to clearly see. Given that changing thickness is possible when in slide creation mode, I don't understand why changing thickness is not possible when in slide display mode. If nothing else, I'd like to be able to select a thicker default thickness. No luck.

I've been looking for PowerPoint addins that might supply this functionality. So far I'm out of luck. I love my SP3, but if students start complaining about being able to read the ink, I might be forced to abandon it.
 
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Mahesh

New Member
I agree with the thinkness too... I think my writing style makes it happen more often. The difficult part has been to know what move of my PEN is making the slide move... Since it happens in a blink of an eye...
 

jnjroach

Administrator
Staff member
I did a lot of teaching online and started printing my slides to OneNote or PDF (Using Drawboard PDF).....much more flexibility.
 
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