Use speaker spotlight

Important: This feature may only be available on certain work or school accounts.

You can insert a speaker spotlight shape in your presentation in Google Slides so your audience can see your live video feed while you’re presenting. A speaker spotlight shape streams your live video feed directly into your presentation.

Insert a speaker spotlight shape

Important: You can only insert speaker spotlight shapes on Chrome browsers.

Open a presentation in slides.google.com.
To insert a speaker spotlight shape, select an option:
- At the top of your screen, in the toolbar, click speaker spotlight .
- In the toolbar, click Insert speaker spotlight .
From the sidebar, choose the speaker spotlight shape you want to add to the presentation.

Edit a speaker spotlight shape

To change the shape of a speaker spotlight:

From the presentation in slides.google.com, go to the slide with a speaker spotlight shape.
Click the speaker spotlight shape.
At the top of your screen, in the toolbar, click the Mask tool Shapes.
Select a shape from the menu.

Other ways to edit a speaker spotlight:

You can apply a drop shadow or animation to speaker spotlight shapes.
1. Select a shape.
2. At the top of your screen, in the toolbar, click Animate.
3. From the motion side panel that opens on the right, select what kind of animation to apply.
You can resize and rotate speaker spotlight shapes like other shapes.

Tip: If you rotate or flip the speaker spotlight shape, your video feed also displays as rotated or flipped.

Add a speaker spotlight shape to all slides

You can have the same shape in all slides in the same spot and in the same size.

From the slide with a speaker spotlight, select the speaker spotlight shape.
Right-click on the speaker spotlight shape.
Click Add shape to all slides.

Tip: This option is only available if there’s more than one slide.

Turn my camera on & off

Important:

If there's a speaker spotlight shape in the slide you present, your device’s camera turns on.
The buttons at the bottom of your screen can also control whether your speaker spotlight camera is on or off if you use slides recording.

From the presentation with a speaker spotlight, in the top-right corner, click Slideshow.
- In the dialog that shows up to start a presentation, click Use camera in slideshow.
Point to the left bottom corner to show the presentation navigation bar.
To turn the local camera on or off outside of a Meet call, turn the speaker spotlight on or off .

Change my camera device

From the presentation with a speaker spotlight, in the top-right corner, click Slideshow.
From the slideshow, point to the bottom-left corner to show the presentation menu.
To open the list of available devices, next to the "On" and "Off" camera button, click the Menu option .
Select a camera device.

Use speaker spotlight in Google Meet

You can present your Slides with speaker spotlight shapes in Meet. Your camera displays in your presentation’s speaker spotlight shapes with the same background effects, images, and other camera settings you apply in Meet.

Important: To control a Google Slides presentation from a Google Meet, you must use a computer with a Chrome browser. We recommend using the current version. Download the latest version.

To use speaker spotlight in Google Meet:

In a Chrome tab or window, open a Slides presentation with a speaker spotlight shape.
In a different Chrome window, open and join a call in Google Meet.
At the bottom of the Meet screen, click Present now A Tab.
- Tip: The “Window” or “Entire Screen” presentation turns off the speaker spotlight feature entirely.
Select the tab with the Slides presentation, then click Share.
In Google Meet, at the bottom of the screen, click Start slideshow.

Tip: At the center of the screen that you present, next to the "Start slideshow," you can turn on and off the speaker spotlight during a presentation to keep your camera feed in the Meet tile grid.

If you experience performance issues, follow these troubleshooting steps. Learn about Meet's hardware recommendations.

Show other presenter with speaker spotlight in Meet

To show a different presenter’s camera feed, the new presenter takes over the presentation.

When another presenter takes over:

Your speaker spotlight automatically turns off and your camera feed remains in the tile grid.
If you resume presenting, you must turn the spotlight back on for your camera to open in Slides.