A handout is one of several formats of printed slides in PowerPoint. A handout page typically shows such as the example below. The purpose of the handout is to allow people listening to the presentation to have a copy of the slides on which to take notes on a slide-by-slide basis. The handout is very efficient for distributing slides. A 24-slide presentation printed in two-sided four slide handout form takes up just three sheets of paper. Handouts are in disfavor in manypanies as a waste of paper and just one more printed item that gets discarded or thrown on the floor. It may be preferable to offer listeners a to downloadable file in PPT or PDF.