Gesture Control for PowerPoint Without a Clicker

Gesture control for PowerPoint means advancing, rewinding, pointing, and annotating slides with your hands instead of a clicker, from anywhere in the room. AirTouch does it with any standard RGB camera, including the webcam in the laptop you present from. It is patented software that turns hand gestures into the keyboard and mouse input PowerPoint already understands, so a flick becomes the right arrow and a pinch becomes a click. Nothing changes inside PowerPoint, Google Slides, Keynote in a browser, or a PDF. Setup takes about five minutes, and the clicker goes in the drawer.

How do you control PowerPoint with hand gestures?

PowerPoint is driven by keyboard shortcuts in slideshow mode, and gesture control works by sending those shortcuts for you. Right arrow, N, or the space bar advances. Left arrow or P goes back. B blanks the screen, Ctrl+L switches on the laser pointer, Ctrl+P switches to the pen, and Esc leaves the show. AirTouch maps any of its 15 gestures to any key, so you choose the gesture for each action in the gesture map and PowerPoint receives an ordinary key press. Point to move the cursor, pinch to click a link or a video, and swipe to change slides. The same map works in Google Slides and any other presentation app that accepts those keys. The full gesture library is in AirTouch gestures and mapping.

What do you need?

• A Windows PC running the presentation. Linux and Android are supported with the Commercial plan or by contacting us, and macOS is on the way. A 10th-gen i3 with 8GB of RAM is the floor.

• A camera that sees the presenter. The laptop webcam works for a presenter standing near the laptop. For a presenter walking the front of a boardroom, a USB webcam on the display or a camera positioned for the room gives a better view. Any standard RGB camera at 20 FPS or better will do; the hand tracking camera guide explains when a room calls for more.

• AirTouch. Install it, pick a camera, and load the presentation profile. The install guide walks through it.

Which gestures work best for presenting?

A presentation needs very few actions, so keep the map small and the gestures distinct from the ones you make while talking.

• Next and previous slide. Map two mirror-image gestures, such as a swipe left and a swipe right, to the right and left arrows.

• Pointer. An open palm summons the cursor by default. In most setups that is all the laser pointer you need, and the audience sees the system cursor on the big screen.

• Click. Index and thumb pinch clicks and drags, which plays embedded video, follows hyperlinks, and moves objects in a demo.

• Blank and resume. A gesture mapped to B blanks the screen when you want the room looking at you, and the same gesture brings the slide back.

• Annotate. Map a gesture to Ctrl+P, then draw with a pinch and drag. With touch mode on, the display behaves like a touch screen for whiteboard apps too, as covered in touch mode and multiple displays.

Gestures are saved per profile, so a presenting profile can live next to a desk profile with a different map.

Will slides advance when you talk with your hands?

This is the question every presenter asks, and it is the problem that sank earlier gesture systems. AirTouch's patented intent detection confirms that a person means to interact before it acts, and it locks onto the presenter rather than the audience, so ordinary hand movement while speaking is filtered out in most setups. Two habits help further: choose slide gestures you do not make naturally, and keep the camera framed on the presenting area rather than the whole room. Some rooms with unusual lighting or very long throw distances may call for a specialized camera.

Does it work in a conference room, a lecture hall, or on Zoom?

The same setup scales from a laptop to a room. In a conference room, AirTouch on the room PC or the presenter's laptop turns the display that is already on the wall into a presentation surface anyone can drive from their seat, which is the argument in best smart board for a conference room. In a lecture hall, a camera facing the lectern and AutoZoom keep the gestures working as the lecturer walks, as described in gesture control for lecture halls. On a Zoom or Teams call, AirTouch drives the PowerPoint window you are sharing, which is different from the reaction gestures built into those apps; AirTouch vs Zoom and Teams built-in gestures explains the difference. The PowerPoint integration page has the room-by-room setup.

Why retire the clicker?

A clicker does two things, forward and back, and it ties those two things to whoever is holding it. Gesture control does everything a mouse at the lectern does, from anywhere the camera can see, and it passes to the next presenter by raising a hand rather than handing over a device. For shared rooms it also removes one more object everyone touches. Those are modest gains for a weekly team meeting and large ones for a sales floor, a classroom, or a clinic, where the person presenting often cannot touch anything at all.

Where to start

Start a free trial on the laptop you present from, map two gestures to the arrow keys, and run your next deck without the clicker. Teams rolling it out across rooms can book a demo and we will suggest camera placement for each room.

Related: AirTouch for PowerPoint, gesture control on a laptop, gesture control for the office, smart board alternatives, and gesture control and hand tracking software.