From Slides to Style: Using PowerPoint as Your Zoom Background

Did you know that instead of sharing your screen, you can have Zoom display the PowerPoint presentation as a virtual background?

In this post we will walk through the steps on Sharing slides as a Virtual Background

What is a Virtual Background?

First, what exactly is a Virtual Background. A virtual background allows you to display an image or video as your background during a Zoom meeting, which can provide you with more privacy or a consistent and professional look for a presentation. As a PowerPoint presentation is essentially a series of images, with an occasional embedded video), Zoom can set your presentation as a virtual background!

Prerequisites

Presenter requirements

• Zoom desktop client for Windows or macOS: Global minimum version or higher
• System meets the requirements for Virtual Background
• PowerPoint or Keynote (macOS only) installed locally

Viewer requirements

• Zoom desktop client for Windows, macOS, or Linux: Global minimum version or higher
• Zoom mobile app for Android or iOS: Global minimum version or higher
• What Version of Zoom am I using?

How to share a presentation as your background

1. Click on the Share Screen button located in your meeting controls
2. Click Advanced
3. Click PowerPoint as background and then Share

4. Browse to the file location
   • Powerpoints in the example below
5. Select the file
   • May 2022 – Update Presentation.pptx in the example
6. Click Open (or double-click the file)

7. Once the presentation has been imported, the PowerPoint will be displayed as your virtual background and your video, if your camera is on, will be projected as an overlay.

8. To navigate, use the arrow keys to move your slides Forward or Backward