Working with others on your PowerPoint presentation is often a necessity. You may want input from coworkers, need information from team members, or would simply like someone else to review it. Regardless of your reason, you’re probably wondering how to know who edited what in PowerPoint.
Here, we walk through four methods for seeing who made changes to your PowerPoint slideshow. As a bonus, we’ll explain how the Plus AI add-in can make quick work of creating your presentations.
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Method 1: Enable the Show Changes option
One easy way to see changes being made by your collaborators is to use the Show Changes option. By enabling this feature, you’ll see the most recent edit highlighted in PowerPoint.
Go to the Review tab and select Show Changes. You’ll then see the item that was edited highlighted with the initials or profile photo of who made the change.
Method 2: Check the version history
If you prefer to see a log of all changes made to your presentation, you can review the PowerPoint version history. With Microsoft 365, you can see all edits with the dates, times, and people who made the changes.
Click the arrow to the right of the filename at the top and choose Version History.
In the sidebar on the right, you can then see all previous versions with the most recent at the top. Select a version to open it and review the changes.
Method 3: Look for colored indicators
A sure-fire method for seeing who changed what in your PowerPoint slideshow is by looking for the colored indicators. As your collaborators work on the presentation, you’ll see each person’s initials or profile photo in a colored circle next to the slide they’re editing.
These indicators display on the slides in the thumbnails when you use Normal view and also when you use Slide Sorter view.
If you hover over an indicator, you’ll see the full name of the collaborator.
Notice that you’ll also see the colored circles at the top of the window when others are currently and actively working on the slideshow.
Method 4: Use the Compare feature
One more way to see who made edits to your presentation is with the Compare feature. This allows you to view the differences between two PowerPoint slideshows.
You’ll save a copy of your initial presentation, share the slideshow, and then compare the original and changed files. For complete instructions and additional information, check out our how-to for tracking changes in PowerPoint.
Create presentations quickly using Plus AI
Have you been asked to create a PowerPoint slideshow without much notice? It can be difficult to successfully build a presentation with plenty of time, much less no time at all. Using Plus AI for PowerPoint, you can quickly set up presentations with content, visuals, and the other elements you need.
You can start with a descriptive prompt, upload a file, or paste in text. Then, choose an attractive template and watch as Plus AI builds your PowerPoint presentation in a snap!
With your completed slideshow, you have the option to edit it with Plus AI too. You can add more slides, rewrite text, or switch to a different slide layout.
Visit Plus AI on the web for a list of helpful features, example presentations, and to start your free trial today!
Conclusion
Collaborating with others on a slideshow has many benefits. Along with easing the task of building a presentation alone, you can receive help, input, and data. So, to make sure you know who added something or who changed something else, you now know how to see who made edits to your PowerPoint.
And for creating slideshows with little time, be sure to look at what Plus AI has to offer!
FAQs
How do I give someone permission to edit my PowerPoint?
To provide editing privileges, select Share > Manage Access. Choose someone you’re sharing with, open the Direct Access drop-down area, change the permissions, and pick Apply.
Can you prevent a PowerPoint from being edited?
You can stop a particular person from editing the slideshow by changing the Share permissions to Can View (read only) or for everyone, select File > Info > Protect Presentation and pick Always Open Read-Only or Mark as Final.
How do I see who made edits in Google Slides?
To see the edits to a Google Slides presentation and who made them, go to File > Version history > See version history. Then, use the sidebar on the right to view the changes with the dates and editors.