Sharing slides as a Virtual Background

Owned by Michael Cameron
Last updated: May 26, 2021
2 min read

While you can share PowerPoint presentations or share Keynote presentations in meetings, you can also share your presentation as a Virtual Background for an immersive sharing experience. Sharing your slides as a Virtual Background allows your participants to view your video imposed directly on the screen share. It also allows you to manage your presentation directly from within the Zoom meeting controls.

Note: Sound, transitions, or animations embedded in slides are not supported.

If the presenter records the meeting locally, the recording will also have the video embedded on top of the slides. If the host or another participant records the meeting locally, they must be on at least 5.2.0 or higher for the video to be embedded on the slides. If they are on any version older than 5.2.0 or record to the cloud, the recording will record the slides and video as a normal screen share recording.

Presenter requirements

  • Zoom Desktop Client for Windows, version 5.2.0 (42619.0804) or higher
  • Zoom Desktop Client for macOS, version 5.2.0 (42634.0805) or higher
  • Make sure your computer meets the system requirements for Virtual Background
  • PowerPoint installed locally
  • Keynote installed locally (macOS only)

Viewer requirements

  • Zoom Desktop Client
    • Windows: 5.2.0 (42619.0804) or higher
    • macOS: 5.2.0 (42634.0805) or higher
    • Linux: 5.2.0 (440215.0803) or higher
  • Zoom Mobile App
    • Android: 5.2.0 (42588.0803) or higher
    • iOS: 5.2.0 or higher

Note: If a participant is on a version lower than what is stated above or joining from the Web client, a Zoom Room, or 3rd party endpoint, they will view the slides as a normal screen share, and the presenter's video will not be imposed over the slides. 

Sharing a presentation as your background

Click the Share Screen button located in your meeting controls.

Click Advanced.

Click Slides as Virtual Background.

Browse, and select the PowerPoint presentation file.

Click Open.

Once the presentation has been imported, the slides will be shown as your virtual background. If your video is on, by default it will be imposed over the slides.

Managing slides and video

Once the share has started, you can manage your video and slides from the meeting controls.


Changing slides

To navigate through your slides, use the next and previous buttons in the meeting controls.

Changing video size and position

To reposition or change the size of your video:

Click, the ... in the presentation menu.

Click Resize My Video.

Click and hold one of the 4 corners of the image, and drag your mouse to resize the image.


Click and hold the center of your image, then drag your mouse to reposition the image on the slide.

Remove your video from slides

If you want to stop imposing your video on top of the slides and have it sent as a separate video feed:

Click, the ... in the presentation menu.

Click Split Video from Slides.

Your participants will now view your slides as a normal screen share and your video feed will be sent as a separate feed. You can still navigate slides in the meeting controls.

To re-impose your video on the slides, click Merge Video and Slides.