Change the Default Pen and “Laser Pointer” Colors

SUMMARY: Make the annotating pen and virtual laser pointer appear in different colors while displaying a PowerPoint 2010 slide show.


When displaying a slide show in Microsoft PowerPoint 2010, you can access a Pen tool from the right-click menu and draw / annotate on top of the current presentation. Also, by holding the CTRL key down and then using the left mouse button, you can activate a “laser pointer” to draw attention to certain points of a slide.

By default, both the pen and laser pointer are red. If you want to change these settings, do the following:

1. Select the “Slide Show” tab in the Ribbon.
2. In the “Set Up” section, click the “Set Up Slide Show” button.
3. The “Set Up Show” dialog box appears. Click the pull-down next to “Pen color” to change the default color (it can be changed again at any time during a presentation). Choose one of the provided colors, or click the “More Colors” link to choose from any color.

4. Clicking the pull-down next to “Laser pointer color” lets you change its color to red, green, or blue.

Changing the laser pointer color for the current PowerPoint 2010 presentation

5. Click “OK” to close the dialog box and save your changes.