You can record your PowerPoint presentation and capture narrations, slide timings, and ink gestures.  After you have made the recording, it's like any other presentation that can be played for you or your audience in Slide Show—or you can save the presentation as a video file.  For instructions on how to save the presentation as a video file, see this article.

For macOS:

  1. Open the presentation you want and click the Slide Show tab.

  2. Select the slide where you want the recording to begin, and then click Record Slide Show


  3. PowerPoint doesn't record audio or video during transitions between slides, so don't speak while advancing the slide. Also, include a brief buffer of silence at the beginning and the end of each slide to make the transitions smooth and ensure that you don't cut off audible narration while transitioning from one slide to the next.

  4. During recording, you can use Ctrl+click to access the recording commands that let you navigate through the slides or change cursors (under Pointer Options). This is particularly useful if you would like to make the cursor either hidden or more obvious, depending on if you would like to annotate or point to particular parts of the slide as you are speaking.

    Control-click to see a list commands while you're recording
  5. Click End Show to stop recording.

  6. A Save dialog box appears. Click Yes to save your recording, or No if you want to record it again.

  7. Click Play from Start to preview your recording.


Notes:

  • Recordings are added to the presentation on a per-slide basis, so if you want to change a recording, you only have to re-record the affected slide or slides. Also, you can rearrange the order of slides after recording without having to re-record anything. This also means it's easy to pause for a break while recording a presentation.

  • As soon as you finish your first slide recording, play it back.  This way, you can make sure that the audio sounds the way that you expect before you get too far down the road of recording your presentation.

For Microsoft 365 for Windows:

  1. Turn on the Recording tab of the ribbon: On the File tab of the ribbon, click Options. In the Options dialog box, click the Customize Ribbon tab on the left. Then, in the right-hand box that lists the available ribbon tabs, select the Recording checkbox. Click OK.

    The Customize Ribbon tab of the PowerPoint 2016 Options dialog box has an option to add the Recording tab to the PowerPoint ribbon.
  2. To get ready to record, select Record Slide Show on either the Recording tab or the Slide Showtab of the ribbon.
    • Clicking the upper half of the button starts you on the current slide.
    • Clicking the lower half of the button gives you the option to start from the beginning or from the current slide.

      The Record Slide Show commands on the Recording Tab in PowerPoint.
  3. The slide show opens in the Recording window (which looks similar to Presenter view), with buttons at the top left for starting, pausing, and stopping the recording. Click the round, red button (or press R on your keyboard) when you are ready to start the recording. A three-second countdown ensues, then the recording begins.

    The Presentation Recording window in PowerPoint 2016, with video narration window preview turned on.

    • You can record audio or video narration as you run through your presentation. The buttons at the lower-right corner of the window allow you to toggle on or off the microphone, camera, and camera preview:

      On/off buttons for the microphone, camera, and camera previewing window
    • If you use the pen, highlighter, or eraser, PowerPoint records those actions for playback also.

      Inking tools in the Recording window

  4. To end your recording, select the square Stop button (or press S on your keyboard).

  5. To preview the recorded slide show, click the Slide Show tab, click From Beginning or From Current Slide.

    During playback, your animations, inking actions, audio and video will play in sync.

    Shows the "from beginning" button on the slide show tab in PowerPoint

Notes: 

  • If you re-record your narration (including audio and ink), PowerPoint erases your previously recorded narration (including audio and ink) before you start recording again on the same slide.
    You can also re-record by going to Slide Show > Record Slide Show.

  • PowerPoint doesn't record audio or video during transitions between slides, so don't speak while advancing the slide. Also, include a brief buffer of silence at the beginning and the end of each slide to make the transitions smooth and ensure that you don't cut off audible narration while transitioning from one slide to the next.

  • As soon as you finish your first slide recording, play it back.  This way, you can make sure that the audio sounds the way that you expect before you get too far down the road of recording your presentation