Get a presenter view in Notion presentation mode and see the next slide

Notion’s presentation mode turns a page into slides. You put a divider between the sections, press ⌘⌥P, and the page title becomes the first slide. You and the audience see the same slide, so the next one appears only when you advance. Keynote and PowerPoint keep that next slide on the presenter’s screen the whole time.

Slide Lookout is a Chrome extension that adds that presenter view. A small window stays on top of the slides. It shows the next slide, and where you are, like “Slide 3 of 12”.

What you need

You need Chrome 116 or later, and a Notion plan that includes presentation mode. Slide Lookout works on Notion in the browser. It doesn’t run in the Notion desktop app, so open the page at notion.so, notion.com or notion.site.

After purchasing it, connect GitHub in Polar, accept the private repository invitation, and download the zip from Releases. It isn’t on the Chrome Web Store. You load the folder into Chrome yourself.

1. Unzip the download and move the folder somewhere it can stay, like Documents. Chrome runs the extension from that folder.
2. Open chrome://extensions and turn on Developer mode in the top right.
3. Click Load unpacked and pick the folder.
4. Click the puzzle icon in the toolbar and pin Slide Lookout.

You should see the Slide Lookout button in the toolbar. If you’ve never loaded an extension this way, Load and reload the unpacked extension is the short version of what Chrome does with that folder.

Chrome will say the extension can read and change your data on Notion. It needs that to show one button while you present. It reads the slides already on the page, it doesn’t change your pages, and it never goes online. There’s no account.

Break the page into slides

Open the Notion page in Chrome. Put a divider between the sections you want as separate slides. Notion uses those dividers as the breaks. The page title is the first slide, before the first divider.

You can present with ⌘⌥P right now. That’s Notion’s own presentation mode, and it’s the deck the audience will see. Set up the presenter view before you go fullscreen.

Open the presenter panel, then present

Press Option+Shift+P on a Mac, or Alt+Shift+P on Windows and Linux. Or click the Slide Lookout button in the toolbar. The panel opens.

Drag it to a corner only you can see, off the slide. Then click the Notion page. On a Mac, press ⌘⌥P to start presenting.

You should see the next slide in the panel, drawn the way Notion will draw it, with its images, callouts and colors. The panel also shows the slide number, in the “Slide 3 of 12” form. It stays on top of the fullscreen slides.

Advance with the arrow keys, with Space, or with a clicker. The panel follows each change. On the last slide it tells you the presentation is over.

If you click the panel by mistake, keep going. Keys you press there go to Notion, so the clicker still moves the deck.

The panel belongs to that Notion tab. Switch to another tab, another window or another app, and it closes, so it doesn’t sit on top of everything else. Come back to the tab and open it again.

If you already started and the panel isn’t open, move the mouse. An Open presenter view button shows up in the bottom right, then fades when the mouse stops, the same way Notion’s own controls do.

Open the panel before you present. If the slides are already fullscreen when the panel opens, Chrome takes them out of fullscreen, and an extension can’t put them back. Click the slides and press F, and you’re fullscreen again with the panel on top.

Keep the next slide off the audience screen

The panel is a separate window. It can sit on top of the slides, and a shared tab can leave it out.

On a video call, share the Notion tab, or share the Chrome window. The audience gets the slides, and the panel stays out of that share. If you share your whole screen, the panel is in the picture too, including the next slide.

With a projector, set it up as a second display. The slides go fullscreen on the projector. The panel stays on your laptop. If the two displays mirror each other, the room sees the panel. Use an extended display instead.

If something looks wrong

If ⌘⌥P does nothing, check where the page is open. The desktop app isn’t supported. Use Notion in Chrome, on a plan that includes presentation mode, with a divider between the sections.

If the panel shortcut does nothing, click the toolbar button. Option+Shift+P opens the panel. ⌘⌥P starts Notion’s presentation. They’re different shortcuts, so the presentation keys won’t open the panel.

If the panel vanished, you left the Notion tab. It closes on purpose. Go back to that tab and open it again, or move the mouse and use Open presenter view.

If the audience can see the next slide, you’re sharing the whole screen, or the projector is mirroring. Share the tab or the Chrome window, or switch the projector to an extended display.

If Chrome dropped fullscreen when the panel opened, click the slides and press F. Next time, open the panel first.

If chrome://extensions shows an error on the card, the folder moved or was deleted. Put it back, or click Load unpacked and pick the new location. When you download a newer zip, copy its files over the old ones in the same folder, then click the reload arrow on the Slide Lookout card. An extension loaded this way doesn’t update itself.

Get Slide Lookout

See your next Notion slide in a floating presenter window while your audience watches the presentation. A Chrome extension with full MIT source.

See Slide Lookout → · $20 including tax, with full source code.

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