Present a PDF

Present a PDF as slides

Show a PDF (slides exported from PowerPoint, Keynote, LaTeX Beamer, …) full screen, one page at a time, and move through it with the keyboard, the mouse or a presenter remote.

Press F5 to start presenting and Esc to stop. At a glance:

Presentation: full screen, one page at a time, fit to the screen. F5, Ctrl + L, Shift + F11
Next / previous slide: Right / Left, Page Down / Page Up, Space, a click
Black / white screen: . (or b) / w
Laser pointer: Toggle Laser Pointer (CmdToggleLaserPointer), ver 3.7+
Command line: SumatraPDF.exe -presentation slides.pdf

Start presenting #

Open the PDF, then:

press F5, Ctrl + L or Shift + F11
View → Presentation
Ctrl + K, then View: Presentation Mode in Command Palette (CmdTogglePresentationMode)

SumatraPDF fills the screen with the current page:

one page at a time, zoomed to fit the screen, with no margins
no menu, toolbar, tabs or sidebar
the mouse cursor hides after 3 seconds without moving
the screen doesn’t turn off or go to sleep (PreventSleepInFullscreen setting)

Presentation works for PDF and other page-based documents, but it is not available for CHM help files.

To present two pages side by side, set Fullscreen.DisplayMode = facing (or book view) in advanced settings (ver 3.7+).

Move between slides #

Go to	Keys	Mouse
Next slide	`Right`, `Page Down`, `Space`, `n`	left click, `Shift` + right click
Previous slide	`Left`, `Page Up`, `Shift + Space`, `p`	right click, `Shift` + left click
First / last slide	`Home` / `End`
A slide by number	`Ctrl + G` or `g`, type the number

Most presenter remotes send Page Down / Page Up, so they work without setup.

To open the context menu while presenting, hold Ctrl and right-click.

Blank the screen #

Turn the screen black or white to take the audience’s attention off the slides:

. (period): black screen (CmdPresentationBlackBackground). Press . again to return.
w: white screen (CmdPresentationWhiteBackground). Press w again to return.
b: black screen (in the default one-page layout).

Any other key, or a click, also brings the slide back. The “blank screen” button of a Logitech-style presenter sends ., so it works too.

Point with a laser pointer #

Available in pre-release 3.7

Toggle Laser Pointer (CmdToggleLaserPointer) turns the mouse cursor over the page into a glowing red dot. While it’s on, the cursor doesn’t hide in presentation mode, and links and text still work under it. Run the command again to get the normal cursor back.

Ctrl + K, then Toggle Laser Pointer in Command Palette

It has no default key. To toggle it with a key, add a shortcut in advanced settings (see Customize keyboard shortcuts):

Shortcuts [
    [
        Cmd = CmdToggleLaserPointer
        Key = Ctrl + Shift + P
    ]
]

Stop presenting #

Esc
F5, Ctrl + L or Shift + F11 again
double-click the top-right corner of the screen

The window comes back with the layout and zoom it had before.

Presentation or full screen #

	Presentation (`F5`)	Full screen (`F11`)
Layout	one page, fit to screen	your current layout and zoom
Toolbar, menu	hidden	hidden by default (`Fullscreen.Toolbar`, `Fullscreen.ShowMenubar`)
Mouse click	next / previous page	selects text, follows links
Cursor	hides after 3 seconds	stays

Full screen is for reading. Start it with F11, Ctrl + Shift + L or f, View → Fullscreen, or -fullscreen on the command line.

Start a presentation from the command line #

SumatraPDF.exe -presentation slides.pdf

Start on a given slide:

SumatraPDF.exe -presentation -page 5 slides.pdf

Note: -presentation applies when this command starts SumatraPDF. If SumatraPDF is already running (and ReuseInstance is on, the default), the file opens in the running window in normal view, so press F5 to present it.

See Command-line arguments and Open a PDF at a page or search term.

Tips #

Use -page in a desktop shortcut to start a talk on its first slide every time.
Use . on a presenter remote to blank the screen during questions.
Use Ctrl + K while presenting to run any command without leaving presentation mode.
Use F12 while presenting to show the Bookmarks sidebar and jump to a section.