Sharing slides as a Virtual Background

While you can share PowerPoint presentations or share Keynote presentations in meetings, you can also share your presentation as a Virtual Background for an immersive sharing experience. Sharing your slides as a Virtual Background allows your participants to view your video imposed directly on the screen share. 

If the presenter records the meeting locally, the recording will also have the video embedded on top of the slides. If the host or another participant uses cloud recording, the recording will record the slides and video as a normal screen share recording. 

Requirements for using virtual background to share a presentation

Presenter requirements

Viewer requirements

Note: If a participant is joining from the Web client, a Zoom Room, or 3rd party endpoint, they will view the slides as a normal screen share, and the presenter's video will not be imposed over the slides.

Table of Contents

How to share a presentation as your background

  1. In the meeting controls toolbar, click Share.
  2. Click Screens.
  3. Under Application windows, click Microsoft Powerpoint.
  4. (Optional) Select from the different layouts available from the right-side panel under Layouts.
  5. (Optional) Select additional options, such as Share sound or Optimize for video clip, as needed.
  6. Click Share to begin sharing with the selected and configured presenter layout.

To change the layout, stop the current share and start a new share, selecting a different layout or configuration. 

Learn more about how to use Screen Sharing Presenter layouts.

How to manage slides and video

Change slides

Once the share has started, you can use the cursor or arrow keys on the keyboard to navigate through your slides.

Change video size and position

To reposition or change the size of your video:

  1.  In the right-side panel, under Layouts, hover over your video or content to change the size and position of your video.

Reposition or change the size of your video:

  1. In the right-side panel, under Layouts, select the In front layout option.
  2. Hover over your video or content to change the position or the size of your video.
  3. Click Share to begin sharing with the selected and configured presenter layout.

To change the layout, stop the current share and start a new share, selecting a different layout or configuration. 

Remove your video from slides

If you want to stop imposing your video on top of the slides and have it sent as a separate video feed:

1. Select the  None (standard layout) to display the program window or slide with no additional overlay.