How to photograph and organize presentation slides

Slide photos get lost in a camera roll with no event, talk or date. A few habits fix that, with or without an app. Below: how to take a photo you can read, how to sort it, and how to turn slide text into notes you can search.

Is it okay to photograph a slide

Often, but not always. Photographing slides is common. One attendee advice thread calls it:

But a slide can show unpublished results, client names or draft work, and the speaker may not want it shared.

• Check the event's rules or the speaker's opening slide for a notice about photos.
• If you are unsure, ask the speaker or the organizers. It takes ten seconds.
• Keep the photo for your own notes. Do not post it or send it to others unless you are allowed to.
• Turn off the flash and the shutter sound, and do not block the view of the person behind you.

Take a photo you can read

Text recognition only works on text you can see. Most unreadable slide photos fail for the same few reasons.

1. Fill the frame with the slide

   Step forward or zoom a little so the edges of the screen just fit.

2. Hold the phone square to the screen

   A steep angle skews the text and blurs one side.

3. Hold still and tap to focus

   Wait until the slide stops animating, then take one clear photo, not five blurry ones.

4. Avoid glare

   Move a step sideways if a light reflects on the screen.

5. Add a second photo for dense slides

   Two sharp halves read better than one small whole.

Name and sort photos by event and talk

Do this the same day, while you remember which talk was which. A simple structure is enough:

1. One album or folder per event

   Name it with the event and year, for example Growth Summit Berlin 2026.

2. One group per talk

   Name it with the speaker or title.

3. One line per talk

   The main idea and what you will do with it.

Without this, photos are sorted only by time, and a talk you saw at 14:20 on day two is hard to find a year later.

Turn slide text into searchable notes (OCR)

OCR, short for optical character recognition, reads the text in a photo and gives it back as text you can search and copy. Once the words are text, a search for a product name or a number finds the slide, even if you forgot which talk it came from.

How Eventnote does it

Eventnote is coming to iOS and Android. You photograph slides in the app or import photos you already took, and it sorts them into events and talks by date. It reads the text on each slide, so you can search across every event.

Advanced OCR re-reads slides that are unclear: 15 a month on Free, 400 on Plus and 1,600 on Premium. Free starts with 100 slides and a sample event, no card needed. Text is kept on every plan.

Ask answers a question only from your own slides and notes, and shows the event, talk, date and slide it came from. Answers can be wrong, so open the slide to check. See plans and the FAQ.

Keep the photos you need, text for the rest

You do not have to keep every photo forever. A practical rule: keep the photo when the picture matters, such as a chart, a diagram or a slide you may need to cite. For a slide that is only words, the text and your note are usually enough.

A short checklist for each event:

• Asked or checked the rules before photographing.
• Kept only the slides that carry an idea.
• Sorted photos by event and talk the same day.
• Added one line of your own per talk.
• Made the text searchable, and checked anything you will quote.

Next, read how to take notes at a conference and how to remember what you learned.