In the old days when presentations were done by feeding transparent plastic sheets into overhead projectors, or by scrawling on blackboards with chalk, the presenter used to carry a long stick to highlight specific areas on the board. When overhead projectors gave way to digital projectors and plastic slides were replaced by PowerPoint slides, the wooden stick became obsolete as it was possible to highlight areas on the screen using the mouse. But if you want to bring back the old school feel, or just want to make the mouse pointer huge, here is a tool for you.
PointerStick is a portable program that adds a semi-realistic virtual pointer to the screen, to point out things during a presentation. Being portable, you just need to unzip the downloaded archive and run the program. Immediately a large pointer appears on the screen. The pointer follows wherever your mouse goes. The pointing stick doesn’t replace your mouse, it just runs alongside it.
You can adjust the size of the pointer and the transparency, and change the appearance of the pointer too. Many fancy variations are available including a golden pointer and one that looks like a fairy’s wand, but I suggest you to stick with the default one or try the silver pointer which looks slightly better.
Often the pointer will get in your way, of course, and you might need to hide it. To do that just triple click with the mouse or press Ctrl+Alt+Y or Ctrl+Alt+Z. Using these shortcuts you can toggle the pointer on and off whenever you want.
If you are looking for a less obtuse pointer tool, try MouseShade or SlideMate.
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