Google Workspace provides some of the most useful tools in the online ecosphere. Google has made sure to continuously update its suite of productivity apps since launching Docs, Sheets, and Slides in 2006. Today, the tech conglomerate announced that Slides will be getting a pen tool for presenters to use during presentations.
Google said on its Workspace Updates blog that it has made it easier to emphasize what’s important by adding a pen and eraser to Slides when users are in presentation mode. There are four pen colors to choose from: blue, red, green, and black. In conjunction with the laser pointer tool in presentation mode, there’s almost no way for people to misunderstand what you’re talking about on any slide.
Google will be rolling out this feature to all rapid release domains over the next 15 days starting August 10, and then to all scheduled release domains in the 15 days following August 23. This feature will be available to everyone who uses Slides, both for Workspace customers and users with personal Google accounts.
It’s fairly easy to activate the pen during presentations. While in slideshow mode, mouse over to the three-dot menu in the lower left-hand side of the screen and select “Turn on the pen”. The pen color picker and eraser icons will then appear.
Just this June, Google Docs, Google Slides and Gmail were updated with generative AI to make life easier for everyone. In April, we highlighted a way for Slides users to add music, voice tracks, or any other audio files into presentations.
Everyone who’s ever called a work meeting can relate to this annoying situation: you want to pull attention to a specific figure on screen, but there’s no way to do so without physically pointing to it. No longer is that the case thanks to this addition from Google.
