Reading the chat while sharing your screen on Microsoft Teams is getting a lot easier

What’s worse than presenting to a group of people with screen share on Teams? Doing so, but being unable to properly read the chat, meaning you can’t see what people are saying and reply to their queries. Fortunately, Microsoft has heard the cries of presenters everywhere and decided to add an enhanced chat feature that allows screen sharers to keep tabs on the text chat.

Microsoft Teams gets a new “private chat” option for screen sharers

In a post on the Microsoft Tech Community website, Senior Product Manager for Microsoft Teams, Elisa Meazza, discussed what’s coming to Microsoft Teams users. It includes a special “private chat” window that won’t show up in a screen share, meaning you can continue reading the text chat without blocking the view for your attendees:

Many of you told us how important it was to be able to see and respond to chats while presenting in a Teams meeting – and now this is possible! With this new feature, you can react in live time to questions or comments. This enables you to stay on top of participant input and looped into crucial conversations. Because the chat box will only be visible to you, you also don’t have to worry about it conflicting with your presentation – ensuring a seamless and uninterrupted workflow.

Right now, the feature isn’t quite ready for release. However, you can give it a try if you’re signed up to either the Teams Public Preview or the Microsoft 365 Targeted release. If you tick that box and download the new Teams client, you should see a new “Chat” button on the upper toolbar when you share your screen. This will open a chat box where you can read, respond, and react to what people are saying in text without it showing up in the video feed. Very handy.

If you haven’t been keeping track of all the new stuff Microsoft Teams has received lately, you’re missing out. Microsoft has actually been doing a really good job of adding new features at a good pace. Check out all the things Microsoft added to Teams over the month of April for a quick digest of the latest features.