Handyout Editor
The handyout editor lets you add, reorder, and customise content modules on each slide using drag-and-drop. An AI chat panel lets you describe changes in plain language and see them applied instantly.
Editor layout and toolbar
Describes the editor's three-column layout, the top toolbar buttons, how scrolling the phone canvas advances slides and syncs the editor's active slide, which pages are excluded from the editable canvas (intro, TOC, key takeaways, FAQ, feedback), and how Preview and Present modes work.
Editor layout
The editor is a full-screen page with a top toolbar and a flexible work area.
Left panel
The left panel is collapsed by default. Click the info icon to open Slide Details (AI-extracted notes for the current slide) or click Preview in the toolbar to open a full-size image of the current slide.
Phone canvas
The phone canvas shows your content slides as a continuous, scrollable list — each slide that has modules appears as one or more pages in the phone. Slides that do not yet have any modules appear as empty placeholders in the list.
The canvas shows content slides only. The following pages are auto-generated by Handyout and are intentionally excluded from the editable canvas: the intro page, table of contents, key takeaways, FAQ, and feedback pages. You can see all of these pages — including key takeaways and FAQ — by entering Present mode (see below).
When you navigate to a different slide using the toolbar or keyboard shortcuts, the phone canvas automatically scrolls to bring that slide into view. Conversely, when you scroll the phone canvas past the boundary between two slides, the editor's active slide updates to match — so the toolbar breadcrumb, left panel details, and module chat all stay in sync with what you are looking at on the phone.
Clicking on an empty slide area (a slide with no modules yet) automatically opens the Modules panel so you can drag a module onto that slide straight away.
A breadcrumb in the toolbar shows the title and position of the currently active slide (e.g. "Slide 3 / 12 (Page 2/3)").
Navigating slides
- Scroll the phone canvas to move through slides. The active slide in the editor follows your scroll position.
- Scroll down to advance; scroll up to go back.
Colour palette
Click Colouring in the toolbar to open the colour picker. The palette is extracted automatically from your presentation by AI. Click any swatch to set it as the primary accent colour for your handyout.
Preview mode
Click Preview to open a side-by-side panel showing the full-size slide image next to the phone canvas. This lets you compare your original slide with the handyout content without leaving the editor.
Scrolling with the mouse wheel inside the Preview panel moves one slide at a time. Rapid consecutive scroll events within a single wheel burst are treated as a single advance, so you will not accidentally skip multiple slides when using a high-momentum trackpad or scroll wheel.
Present mode
Click Present to enter full-screen present mode, which simulates the exact view your audience sees after scanning the QR code. Present mode shows the complete handyout including all auto-generated pages — intro, table of contents, key takeaways, FAQ, and feedback — in addition to your content slides.
Modules — adding, reordering, and editing with AI
How to open the modules panel, drag new modules onto a slide, reorder existing ones, and use the Module Chat panel to edit or delete module content in plain language. The AI chat now shows a structured activity log (thinking steps and tool calls) that collapses when the AI finishes responding, and auto-scrolls to new messages.
Working with modules
Opening the modules panel
Click Modules in the toolbar. A panel slides in from the right showing module categories on the left and draggable module previews on the right. Categories include Charts, Lists, Callouts, Quotes, and more.
Adding a module
Drag any module preview from the panel onto the phone canvas. The module appears on the canvas immediately as a placeholder while the AI reads the slide's context and generates fitting content. While generation is in progress, the Module Chat panel opens and shows a live activity log of what the AI is doing.
If the AI is unable to generate content (for example due to a connection problem), the placeholder is removed from the canvas automatically and an error notification is shown. Nothing is permanently saved to your handyout until the AI confirms the content is ready.
Reordering modules
Drag existing modules on the phone canvas up or down to reorder them within a slide.
Editing a module with the Module Chat
Click any module on the phone canvas to select it. The Handyout Module Chat panel opens on the right, showing the conversation history for that module.
- Type your request in plain language (e.g. "Change the chart to a bar chart comparing Q1 and Q2").
- Press Enter or click Send.
- The AI's response unfolds in two stages:
- An activity log appears first, showing a timeline of the AI's thinking steps and the tools it is calling (such as reading the slide or updating a module). Each completed step is marked as done.
- Once the AI finishes its work, the activity log collapses automatically and the final response text appears as a chat bubble. You do not need to dismiss the log manually.
- The module updates live on the canvas as the AI applies changes.
You can also ask the AI to remove a module entirely (e.g. "Delete this module"). The module disappears from the canvas and the Module Chat panel closes.
Understanding the activity log
The activity log shows what the AI is doing before it produces its response. It is a live feed that collapses once the AI is done. Each entry in the log is one of:
| Entry type | What it means |
|---|---|
| Thinking step | The AI is reasoning about your request or the slide context. |
| Tool call (read) | The AI is fetching slide or module data to inform its response. |
| Tool call (edit) | The AI is applying a change to a module. The module loading indicator on the canvas appears at this point. |
Undo and redo
- Ctrl + Z (or Cmd + Z) to undo the last module change.
- Ctrl + Shift + Z (or Cmd + Shift + Z) to redo.
- Click History in the toolbar to see a timestamped list of all edits and jump to any previous state.
Publishing
When you are happy with the handyout, click Publish in the top-right. This makes the handyout publicly accessible via its QR code. Clicking Publish again unpublishes (takes it offline).
Auto-generated handyout pages: Key Takeaways and FAQ
Explains the two AI-generated pages that Handyout adds automatically to every handyout — Key Takeaways and FAQ — including where they appear, how to view them in the editor, and why they are not part of the editable slide canvas.
Auto-generated handyout pages
In addition to the content slides you uploaded, Handyout automatically generates several pages that appear in the handyout your audience receives. Two of these — Key Takeaways and FAQ — are produced by AI when your presentation is first processed and are added to the end of the handyout.
Full handyout page structure
Key Takeaways page
The Key Takeaways page is placed after your content slides. It contains a bulleted summary of the most important points extracted by AI from across your entire presentation. Audience members see this page when they scroll to the end of the handyout, giving them a concise recap they can reference later.
FAQ page
The FAQ page follows Key Takeaways. It contains a set of questions and answers that the AI generated from the presentation content — anticipating common questions the subject matter might raise. This page helps audience members who want to dig deeper without searching through every slide.
Where these pages appear
| Where | Key Takeaways and FAQ visible? |
|---|---|
| Audience-facing handyout (QR scan) | Yes — appear after the last content slide |
| Editor — editable phone canvas | No — excluded from the slide editing list |
| Editor — Present mode | Yes — appear as part of the full handyout simulation |
| Analytics — per-slide view | Yes — appear in the page picker |
| Comments page — phone preview | Included in the handyout data; not individually navigable as slides |
Why they are not in the editor's slide canvas
The Key Takeaways and FAQ pages are fully generated by the AI and do not map to a single original slide in your deck. Because of this they are intentionally left out of the editor's editable phone canvas, which lists only your uploaded content slides. You cannot add or rearrange modules on these pages the same way you would on a content slide.
To see how these pages look to your audience, use Present mode in the editor toolbar — it renders the full handyout end-to-end.
When the pages are generated
Key Takeaways and FAQ are generated during the initial AI processing of your presentation — the same step that extracts slide content and builds the table of contents. If your presentation has very little text content, the pages may be sparse or absent. Re-uploading a richer version of the deck will regenerate them.
