adobe reader presentation mode

How to Present a PDF like a PowerPoint

With Adobe Acrobat Reader, you can present a regular PDF in similar fashion to a PowerPoint presentation.

Format presentation

• Under the "Edit" tab, click "Preferences".
• Under the "Full Screen Navigation" Section, you can loop the presentation by checking the "Loop after last page" option.
• You can also set the "speed" of the presentation with the "Advance every [ ] seconds" option.
• It is recommended to leave the "Escape key exits" option checked in order to quit the presentation early.

Present PDF

• Under the "View" tab, click "Full Screen Mode". This will start the presentation.
• In order to end the presentation before it's finished, press Esc

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Writing-Related Software Tutorials

How to Use Full Screen Mode in Adobe Acrobat and Acrobat Reader (PC & Mac)

By Erin Wright

First, we are going to turn on Full Screen mode for an open PDF (Adobe Acrobat and Acrobat Reader). Then, we are going to set a PDF to open directly in Full Screen mode starting at a specific page number (Adobe Acrobat only).

Table of Contents:

How to Turn On Full Screen Mode (Adobe Acrobat and Acrobat Reader)

How to set a pdf to open directly in full screen mode (adobe acrobat only).

Watch all the steps shown here in real time!

Explore more than 250 writing-related software tutorials on my YouTube channel .

The images below are from Adobe Acrobat Pro DC. These steps also apply to Adobe Acrobat 2020 and Adobe Acrobat 2017. In addition, the process is the same for PC and Mac.

• Select the View menu.

• Select Full Screen Mode from the drop-down menu.

Your PDF should open in Full Screen mode immediately.

You can use your mouse, trackpad, or the arrow keys on your keyboard to navigate through the pages.

Here are some additional keyboard shortcuts:

• Zoom In: Ctrl + = (PC) Command + = (Mac)
• Zoom Out: Ctrl + – (PC) Command + – (Mac)
• Exit: Esc or Ctrl + L (PC) or Command + L (Mac)

If you are giving a presentation, you may want to open your PDF directly in Full Screen mode.

• Select the File menu.

• Select Properties from the drop-down menu.

• Select the Initial View tab in the Document Properties dialog box.

• (Optional) Enter the page number you want to start with in the Open to page text box. (The default is to open to the first page.)

• Select the Open in Full Screen mode option.

• Select the OK button.

• Save and reopen the PDF.
• When the PDF reopens, select Remember my choice for this document in the Full Screen alert box.

• Select the Yes button.

The PDF will open in Full Screen mode.

When you reopen the PDF later, it should open directly in Full Screen mode without showing the alert box. Therefore, you can give your presentation without the audience seeing the Acrobat interface.

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How to Convert Web Pages and Websites to PDFs in Adobe Acrobat (PC & Mac)

Updated November 13, 2022

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Adobe Reader – How to loop PDF as a presentation

The following steps show how to use Adobe Reader to make a PDF document display like a power point presentation – full screen and automatically progressing through pages.

These instructions are written for Adobe Reader DC on Windows 10, but will be similar for other versions.

• Open the PDF document in Adobe Reader DC
• Select the ‘Edit’ menu then ‘Preferences’

• Under the left hand menu select ‘Full Screen’
• To loop the presentation place a tick next to ‘Loop after last page’
• To progress through each page automatically place a tick next to ‘Advance every’ (and optionally set a different amount in seconds)

• Click ‘OK’ to save the changes
• To display the PDF as a presentation now select the ‘View’ menu and select ‘Full Screen Mode’

Thanks for this simple yet effective solution ! I was scratching my head hard until I found this page !

Thanks again

Thanks, Adrian. This guide was super helpful and hard to find on the internet. Much appreciated.

Sooo… what about a simple ‘play’ button?

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How To Present a PDF Like a PowerPoint

May 2, 2024 by Hung Nguyen

Learn to present a PDF in full-screen mode like you would a PPT file or convert it to PPT for easy presenting.

You can present a PDF as if it were a PowerPoint presentation in two ways. You can either open a PDF and view the content in full screen or save the file as a PowerPoint. If you choose the latter, you can then open the file in Microsoft PowerPoint and present it as you usually would. Check out the full instructions for both methods below.

How To Present a PDF Like a PowerPoint Presentation

Open your pdf document with your pdf reader., click “view” and choose “enter full screen” or “slideshow.”, present as you usually would and navigate using the arrow keys., press the “esc” (escape) key to exit the slideshow when finished..

There are a few limitations to presenting PDF files like this: some media file types, such as animated GIF images, won’t work and will remain static in your presentation. You also can’t add speaker notes to PDF presentations. While we believe PDF is quite versatile, in this case, it might be better to convert the PDF to PPT format using our free converter.

How To Change a PDF to PPT To Present

• Go to the  PDF to PPT  converter.
• Drag and drop your PDF.
• Wait for the tool to convert it to PPT.
• Click “Download,” and you’re done.

Convert your PDF to PPT format in a heartbeat

Once you have the PPT file open, you can present the data as you would normally. If you have an older version of Microsoft Office, you’ll have to click the “Slide Show” tab and choose “Play from Start” to start a presentation.

While you have a PowerPoint file open, you can also edit the content as you’d like. Optical Character Recognition (OCR) is available within the PDF to PPT tool, where we’ll pluck the content of each PDF into an editable PPT file for your convenience. And while you’re on our blog, check out how to insert a PDF into a PowerPoint — learning new PDF and PPT-related tricks is always good!

We offer the most popular online PDF to PPT converter. A big part of our popularity comes from our simple and intuitive drag-and-drop interface as well as our range of practical tools to convert, edit, sign, protect, and lock PDFs and other documents. Of course, we also offer a tool to reverse this whole process and turn PPT back into PDF.

Easy to Convert and Present

Regardless of the PDF reader, from Adobe Acrobat/Adobe Reader to Preview, or even on your web browser, you should be able to present PDF like a PowerPoint with ease. If you want the extra benefits of presenting using PowerPoint, our tool is free to use, without the need t download software.

We hope this guide could be of help, and good luck with all of your future presentations!

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How to View a PDF Document in Full Screen View

Last Updated: December 27, 2023 Fact Checked

wikiHow is a “wiki,” similar to Wikipedia, which means that many of our articles are co-written by multiple authors. To create this article, 13 people, some anonymous, worked to edit and improve it over time. This article has been fact-checked, ensuring the accuracy of any cited facts and confirming the authority of its sources. This article has been viewed 363,966 times. Learn more...

Adobe Acrobat enables you to view a PDF document in full screen view. The full screen view is useful when you are reading an online document or making a presentation using a PDF document. In the full screen view only the pages of the document are displayed with items such as the window controls, toolbars, the title bar, the status bar, and the menu bar hidden. You can also set various preferences for the full screen view such as automatically advancing a page after a specified time duration thereby creating a slide show effect.

Things You Should Know

• Go to View > Full Screen View . You can also use the shortcut Ctrl + L in Acrobat. [1] X Research source
• To set your preferences to always choose full screen view, go to Edit > Preferences > Full Screen .
• Use Ctrl + L to exit full screen mode. You can also check the Escape key exits box in Preferences to use the ESC key to exit.

To view a document in full screen view

To set preferences for the full screen view

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• ↑ https://helpx.adobe.com/acrobat/using/viewing-pdfs-viewing-preferences.html
• ↑ https://helpx.adobe.com/acrobat/using/setting-pdfs-presentation.html

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Solutions for presenting PDF slides with presenter notes on second display [closed]

I made a presentation using the latex beamer class with notes. Now I have a problem displaying notes only on my display while presenting the slides to the audience using a projector. Beamer notes produce very wide pdf pages, each half page should be presented on its own display. A single page looks somewhat like this:

Currently I use the smaller display of my notebook for notes and the larger display for the presentation in my test setting. The second screen is extending the desktop. The screen order doesn't really matter but both displays have a different resolution. I don't know what the actual resolution of the screen/projector will be for when presenting.

Here are some applications I've tried. I the got fullscreen/window issues as described above if not otherwise explained.

• Adobe reader X
• Foxit reader
• PDF-XChange Viewer
• single display fullscreen, task bar still visible
• single display fullscreen
• window mode: large resolution not supported by graphic card (only about 3/4 of both monitors)
• most promising, if I extract all notes into text files
• plain text notes, too small, would need zoom tool
• no keyboard shortcuts, must click button
• similiar to above one, notes in text files (?) couldn't compile on windows yet.
• PDF presenter
• somewhat promising; displays fullscreen on one screen while other screen is in window mode
• notes are more a whiteboard feature, can't be hidden to audience
• notes cant be saved

I also tried the default Ubuntu pdf viewer using virtual box. Unfortunately virtual full screen also shows only a single display.

Are there any solutions to display pdf slides in fullscreen on one display and notes about the current slide on another display?

• multiple-monitors
• software-rec
• presentations

• 6 Just a remark: If you used PowerPoint, then it already has this mode, called Presenter view . This is simpler than your current complex solution. –  harrymc Commented Sep 27, 2011 at 13:12
• 1 How many features are required for making a presentation ? You might be underestimating PowerPoint. –  harrymc Commented Sep 27, 2011 at 14:45
• 1 @harrymc Not that many features on second though, mainly it's having a progress-bar like overview of the presentation, basically like a table of contents on (almost) every slide that highlights the current section. Also source code syntax colouring (rtf copy&paste would work, but not when linking files I edit externally). Not really required, but portability with pdf is better than ppt.I also just like to type more and click less. –  kapex Commented Sep 27, 2011 at 15:11
• 2 You might look at the free IguanaTex or the commercial TexPoint . –  harrymc Commented Sep 27, 2011 at 15:51
• 5 You can use github.com/pdfpc/pdfpc as pdfpc presenation.pdf -n right to achieve what you described. –  nijoakim Commented Apr 29, 2016 at 13:13

2 Answers 2

You can achieve this under Linux with a combination of xrandr and impressive.py .

First use xrandr to set the screens' resolutions, e.g.:

where LVDS would be your laptop's screen and CRT1 the projector. You can verify your device identifiers and available resolutions by just running xrandr .

Once you have the screens set up, run impressive.py with the -g flag signalling the complete workspace size, e.g.:

Source: Phillip Merensky's blog .

Merensky's blog also points to a more complex example of xrandr usage for multiple-projector presentations .

I found a nice little tool called VirtualScreenMaximizer , which does exactly that. Works like a charm!

• Please read How do I recommend software for some tips as to how you should go about recommending software. You should provide at least a link, some additional information about the software itself, and how it can be used to solve the problem in the question. –  DavidPostill ♦ Commented Oct 27, 2016 at 20:34

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged windows multiple-monitors software-rec pdf-reader presentations .

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How to present a PDF like a PowerPoint or convert a PDF to PPT

• July 26, 2022
• Karolin Koestler, Senior Marketing Manager EMEA

Sometimes, you may need to use content from a PDF file in another program such as Microsoft PowerPoint AKA convert PDF to PPT. Yet, copying and pasting can cause formatting problems. It can be difficult to clean up, so you might be tempted just to retype it to save time.

Fortunately, there are two easy ways that you can essentially present a PDF like it’s a PowerPoint presentation. One is to open your PDF in full screen. The other is to convert the PDF file into a PowerPoint presentation. Both are simple to achieve. Here’s how:

Present a PDF in full-screen mode as if it were a PowerPoint presentation.

• Foxit PDF Editor and Foxit PDF Reader allow you to open your PDF documents.
• Click on “View” to choose “Enter Full Screen” (or “ Slideshow ”).
• Navigate using the arrow keys while presenting.
• Once you are done, press the escape key and exit full-screen mode.

Converting PDF to PPT using Foxit

Foxit PDF Editor allows you to convert PDF files into Microsoft PowerPoint. This is a great way to make use of all the features that PPT files have to offer for presentations such as:

Use transitions

PowerPoint allows for smooth, customizable transitions between slides. They add motion and visual flair to your presentations. Speakers can also use transitions to express their creativity and create a transition that matches their presentation’s theme. Transitions allow content on-screen to appear at different times. This creates depth and layers.

Make easy use of video

A PowerPoint presentation can be enhanced with a video just like an image. You can use video in many different ways. If done correctly, it can be very powerful and engaging. PowerPoint allows the presentation to play a video clip and also allows for looping video backgrounds that are engaging and slick.

Give presenters familiar control

You can give your user more control over how you present by running your presentation deck in the same software it was created. PowerPoint files can be saved to ‘show mode’ so that they open on slide 1, in full screen. To create a non-linear presentation where the speaker can move from one section to another, you can use features such as ‘ zoom ‘.

Here’s how to convert your PDF file to a PowerPoint presentation:

• Click CONVERT or select FILE > Export.
• Choose the PPT format.
• In the Save As dialog box, select which page(s), as well as whether the document contains images or pure text.

This is all there is to it. Foxit gives you a lot more flexibility when it comes to changing or reusing PDF files in presentations.

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Use Full Screen Mode to present PDF documents in class or meetings.

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Using the Laser Pointer

Use the Laser Pointer tool as a pointing device during presentations. The laser pointer is a large red circle that can easily be located even from a distance.

Alternatively, press the O key to switch to the laser pointer. Pressing the Esc key will get you back to the previously used tool.

In Full Screen Mode , the laser pointer is by default available as an Action Button .

Using the Pointer

As an alternative to the Laser Pointer tool, you can use the Pointer tool as a pointing device during presentations. The pointer is a large arrow, similar to a mouse cursor, that can easily be located even from a distance.

Alternatively, press the V key to switch to the laser pointer. Pressing the Esc key will get you back to the previously used tool.

Blacking out

To switch to a temporary black screen during a full screen presentation, press the Black Screen action button or the Alt+B keyboard shortcut.

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Open pdf in presentation mode vie command line using Acrobat Reader DC

I used to open pdfs in an electron application directly in presentation mode using following command

But it seems that those parameters are not working anymore since Readers DC version. Does anyone know if there are still possibilities to open a pdf in presentation mode via command line?

• command-line

Acrobat Pagemode refers to the sidebar the default is none. commandline parameters for DC https://corpora.tika.apache.org/base/docs/bug_trackers/pdf.js/pdf.js-LINK-2843-0.pdf and older https://pdfobject.com/pdf/pdf_open_parameters_acro8.pdf are effectively still the same set.

Hence using Pagemode=fullscreen is a perpetuated urban myth (much like robot outputs)

There were several ways in the past to obtain a full screen reader page. So if loaded in past by an Internet Explorer ActiveX Web Application it was perhaps possible (with sidebar pane perhaps default to "none" as fullscreen now would simply be ignored)

"When PDFs open in a web page, they open in Read mode. Read mode displays the PDF without the menus, panes, or toolbars visible."

However with default Reader MSEdge "Powered by Acrobat" those Trident methods are effectively gone. There may be other options unknown to me, especially as its newer behaviours, but for presentation Kiosk mode is required.

A PDF creator can set a PDF to open in Full Screen mode, or you can set the view yourself. Full Screen mode (light background) is often used for presentations (dark background), sometimes with automatic page advancement and transitions.

For Acrobat PDF's Presentation / Fullscreen mode is controlled by documents.

Acrobat Pro, Action wizards enable changing default settings for multiple documents.

For Presentations: Select Open in Full Screen mode check box. For the Navigation tab, select Page Only. For Page layout, select Single Page. Set Open to page to the page where you want to start the presentation.

Other readers that do not allow document control such as SumatraPDF will have a command line option for -fullscreen and or -presentation .

For Windows the general purpose file viewer in window or presentation web mode is native MsEdge.exe. Here running in application mode with an ePub as window or started full screen (not presentation). You can use whichever switches work well together.

For full screen (not presentation) you currently need both switches (Chrome PLUS Edge) and with or without either of the two above --enable-features=msEdgeEpubReaderEnabled --app= , however to switch from full screen to presentation you need to click an extra icon, which switches to "PDF fullscreen" (Black presentation background).

• As it is true that "pagemode=fullscreen" might not work any more it is not an urban myth. I used it long enough in my software and it worked perfectly. Sadly I do not have access to the pdf files, so I cannot change them. The task is opening them in Adobe reader in presentation mode without altering the files. Until the DC version this could be done. –  Torf Commented Oct 2, 2023 at 11:05
• I can absolutely assure you it worked. Regardless of the pdf-file. My software had that implemented for years and I never had any troubles. Maybe it was a never officially supported - I don't know. But it worked. –  Torf Commented Oct 2, 2023 at 11:15

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