My PowerPoint Presentation Won't Display Full Screen on a Widescreen TV
By Rob Harris
Creating widescreen slides in PowerPoint 2013 adds a modern, balanced feel to your presentation. PowerPoint provides all templates in the traditional 4:3 aspect ratio or the widescreen 16:9 ratio. Although the software defaults its templates to the widescreen setting, they might be appearing in 4:3 aspect ratio if you changed a setting under the "Design" tab somewhere along the line. However, it's also possible the problem lies in the TV's aspect ratio settings.
Changing PowerPoint Settings
To update your PowerPoint settings so all slides appear in the widescreen format, click on the "Design" tab and select "Slide Size." Change the option from "Standard (4:3)" to "Widescreen (16:9)." Choosing "On-screen Show" provides a slightly smaller 16:9 ratio -- slide dimensions of 10-by-5.625 inches compared with the "Widescreen" 13.333-by-7.5 inches. Although they should appear the same on the TV, the "On-screen Show" prints on a standard sheet of paper without requiring scaling like the "Widescreen" version does.
Changing TV Settings
If your PowerPoint is properly configured, the problem could be with the TV settings. The exact method to change the picture size varies, but in most cases, navigate through the menu to "Picture Settings, "Screen Size" or a similar heading. Change the aspect ratio to the "Widescreen" or "16:9" setting so your PowerPoint presentation fills the screen.