Linking Google Slides and Google Keep

If you’re reading this blog post, chances are you’re already familiar with Google Workspace. It has a whole host of productivity apps and tools that we, at BrightCarbon, use regularly. We’ve found that so many of Workspace’s helpful features often go unnoticed, so we’re going to walk you through one that we think you’ll love having in your toolkit.

Google Keep is a free, web-based note-taking service that you can access on your phone and desktop. The app has a variety of tools for capturing ideas like text, lists, images, and audio. It can sync across devices and is integrated with Google Workspace so you can bring your notes into Google Slides, Docs, Sheets and more.

Google Keep is a useful tool for pooling all your ideas at speed. If you’re not already familiar with it, it works as both a notepad and a canvas, allowing you to jot down, paste in, or draw whatever’s on your mind and return to it later. You can label your notes, archive them, add collaborators, and even attach photographs and links. Just be aware that images must be smaller than 10MB and 25 megapixels, putting a stopper on most high-res photographs.

Regardless, there’s no denying Google Keep is a handy feature of Google Workspace. And did you know that it also seamlessly integrates with your other Workspace apps? Take Google Slides for example, if you open up a new deck, you’ll find the Google Keep logo (a lightbulb in a yellow box) already in the quick-access toolbar on the right-hand side of your screen. If you click on it, it’ll open a tab with a chronological list of all the notes you’ve been making in Google Keep.

Once you’ve opened it, you can simply drag and drop your notes directly into your slides – images and all.

Here’s one way Google Keep could make your life a little easier. Let’s say you’re in an online meeting and everyone on the call is discussing the same slide deck. Perhaps you’ve been scribbling some diagrams using the ‘draw’ button in Google Keep to try and test some ideas – then, hey presto! – you’ve got it! Time to stop everyone in their tracks and show them how this could look on the page. All you’d need to do is tap the lightbulb button in your toolbar, drag your drawing into the slide, and let the ooh’s and aah’s commence.

Google Slides’ standard “new slide” template includes text boxes, which can encourage us to create text heavy content without realising it. However, an effective presentation tells a compelling visual story that engages your audience and does the heavy lifting for you. That’s why bringing across your Google Keep drawings can be a great addition to your presentation creation journey. For more information on why and how to use visuals in your presentations check out this blog post, and for more information on how to write great sales presentations check out this blog post too.

One thing to note is that the default background color for your drawings is an off-white-gray, so they generally won’t blend well with the background of a slide or document.

Once you become a little more familiar with this integration, you might be interested to know that you can pin your notes. Whether you’re accessing them from Google Keep or the toolbar of another application, press the pin button in the top corner of a note to see it pinned across all applications. If you don’t want all your notes to be available in your toolbar all at once, simply archive the ones you want to hide and viola!

Equally, if you’ve been a loyal Google Keep user and find you’ve got too many notes to sift through in such a small panel, you can search for specific notes using the search tool at the top of the tab or within Google Keep itself so you won’t lose that idea you had a month ago.

And last but not least – you can set reminders for yourself. Just click ‘Reminders’, write the note and set the date and time you want to see it.

A word of caution: these reminders won’t pop up unless you have Google Keep notifications enabled on your phone or Chrome browser.

They also won’t pop up if you don’t have Google Chrome installed on your device. For example, if you have Microsoft Edge, Safari, or another browser installed. The good thing is, you don’t need to have Chrome open on your device to receive the notifications. But you do need to have Google Keep open and your device should be on. Then you’ll receive a notification like this, at the bottom right of your screen:

So, we wouldn’t recommend Google Keep Reminders as your most bullet-proof alert system if you have something important lined up. But it’s a useful feature to be aware of.

Hope you found this helpful! Google Keep is a useful toolbar for reducing the amount you switch between tabs and tools on your computer to add photos, notes and drawings, but it may not offer the functionality you need for every occasion. Let us know how you get on, and enjoy using Google Keep! Also be sure to check out our ultimate guide to Google Slides blog post for all the best tips and tricks in Google Slides!