Getting Started
First, let’s clarify that turning your notes into presentations is a feature available for Evernote Premium users only. With that being said, we can begin with the first step. Turning your notes into presentations is very easy. All you have to do is click the “Presentation Mode” button located above the note title between the “Reminder” and “Annotate” buttons.
This mode is also available in the mobile version but with only one customization option: switching between night and day mode. To open Presentation Mode on Evernote Mobile, tap the “More” button on the bottom bar, and choose “Present.”
To move forward through your presentation, you can use the “Spacebar” (or “Shift + Spacebar” to go back). You can also use the arrows keys to do the same. To go back to your notes, go to the top left of the display and click the Close button or hit the “Esc” key. You can customize your presentation, and Evernote will save your settings even if you exit the presentation mode.
Customizing the Display
There are only a few customizations that you can do since the goal of Evernote’s presentation mode is to create a quick presentation and not a flashy one. To access these Settings, move your pointer to the top right corner of the screen. The first one is adjusting the Font size (Control + F). There are three available sizes: small, medium, and large.
The second option is toggling between Day/Night Mode (Control + N) to use a bright/dark background for the display. The night mode is easier on the eyes if you do your presentation in a room with less light.
And the last option is to choose Pointer Color (Control + P). The available choices are Blue, Red, and Green.
Creating Slides
Instead of going through your note continuously in the presentation, you can break it into “slides” to go one segment at a time. To do that, move your pointer to the top left of the screen and choose “Presentation Layout” (Control + L).
A sidebar will open on the right side of the screen. Hover your mouse to one of the dots to change it into a Plus (+) sign, and you can click it to break your note.
Evernote is smart enough to detect paragraphs and different kinds of content, like images and videos, to suggest possible locations to break your note. If you change your mind, you can unbreak your note by going back to the sidebar, hovering the mouse to one of the break points, and clicking the Minus (-) button.
Linking Notes
If you have more than one note that you want to present, you can link them by inserting one note’s link in another note. Then you can just click on that link to continue to the other note within your presentation. To get the link to a note, right click on a note from the list and choose “Copy Note Link” from the popup menu.
To insert a link in a note, select a word or a phrase, right-click and choose “Link – Add” from the pop-up menu or use “Command + K.”
From my experiments, it took me about one minute to turn my note into a minimalist and cool presentation. It would take at least fifteen minutes to make the same presentation using another tool. Have you tried Evernote for your presentation? Share your experience in the comments below.
