Custom Show Extras
One of my favorite time savers in the Powerpoint world is the ability to create a Custom Show. This feature allows you to take a single file of slides and present its slides in your chosen order (instead of the order they exist in the PPT file). This is only one of the nice features of Custom Shows. This article is going to provide you with a couple of more.
(Don't know how to set up a Custom Show? Check out Multiple Shows from One file? No Problem!)
Repeating Slides
In my work as a trainer, I frequently have an agenda slide that shows what is going to happen during the course of the day. This slide is built with links to each sub-set of the PowerPoint file, to allow me to go from one section to another at a click in case I need to skip around. Generally, I run through the slides in order, with breaks at the end of logical sections.
Now, there are two ways you can set up the agenda. You can add a copy of the agenda slide at the beginning of each chapter which shows where you are and what you have seen. Or, you can use a custom show to repeat the agenda slide without having multiple copies of it. I choose the second - its easier to keep track of!
Let's walk through an example of how to set it up. I have a presentation that discusses why one would want to visit Texas. It has three sections,
- Activities
- Images
- Employment
Each section starts with a series of images about what Texas has to offer in that area. The remainder of the section goes into detail on the ideas caused by the images. So, my agenda slide looks like this:
Rather than create file bloat by adding the agenda slide at the beginning of each section, I am going to use the Custom Show feature to use the same slide in three places.
Start by creating a new custom show called Full class. Select all the slides and move them to the show. When you have done this, your Custom Show window should look like this:
Now comes the time saver. Click on the very first slide in the left side list. (You may need to scroll back to the top of the list to find it.) Next, click the Add>> button two times. This will add two new slides to the end of the Slides in custom show: list. Go to the bottom of that list and click on the first of the two copies. The left hand list will be deselected, your slide name will be selected, and the arrows will become active:
Use the up arrow to move this slide to just before the Images slide. Repeat the process with the second copy, only place it just before the Employment slide. When you are done, click OK and return to the editing interface. You have now set up the custom show and are ready to use it.
When you do use this custom show, each copy of the slide is treated as a separate slide. Because of this, I don't normally animate my agenda slides. I would rather have them know what we have seen and what we haven't in the full scheme of the presentation. If you have set up entrance animations for the bullets on the show, they will enter from the beginning each time the slide is shown. Be ready for this and do the extra clicks as you need to.
Linking from the agenda to shows
Another really nice feature of custom shows is the ability to link to them as a group. This prevents you from accidentally going to a slide you don't want the audience to see yet as you run through your presentation. To show how this works, let's set up that agenda slide so that instead of being in the custom show slide list multiple times, it links to multiple slides.
The first step is to set up three custom shows:
- Activities
- Images
- Employment
Next, we need to link each line of text on our agenda slide to the correct show. We can do this by either using Hyperlinks or Action Settings. Hyperlinks can go directly on the text. Action Settings generally go on shapes (like buttons), but they can go on text as well. If you set up the link on the text, when you visit and return from the show, the linked text will have changed to the visited color from your color scheme. If you link to a shape instead of the text, its color will not change.
Hyperlinks
The process for setting up a hyperlink to a custom show is:
- Select the text or graphic you want to link from.
- Right Click and select Hyperlink, which brings up the Insert Hyperlink window
- In the left column, select Place in this Document
- In the right column, a list of your slides and your custom shows will appear. Click the show you want to link to.
- When you click a show, a check box will become active which says, Show and Return. Click the check box. At this point, the Insert Hyperlink window will look like this:
- Click OK and you will return to the slide.
Repeat this for each of the three sections and you have your navigation system all setup. When you click through the Activities show, each slide will come up and animate as you have chosen. When you reach the last slide in the show, you will return to the agenda slide and be ready to go through either another section or take a break.
Action Settings
To set up your links using action settings instead of hyperlinks, you start the same way, but different screens come up. The process is:
- Select the text or graphic you want to link from.
- Right Click and select Action Settings, which brings up the Action Settings window.
- Decide whether you want your link to activate on a click or on a mouse over. Click the appropriate tab.
- Click the radio button for Hyperlink to...
- From the drop down list, select Custom Show
- From the link list, select your custom show and check the Show and return check box. At this point, the Link to Custom Show window will look like this:
Click Ok buttons until you return to your presentation. Repeat this for each of the three sections and you have your navigation system all setup. When you click through the Activities show, each slide will come up and animate as you have chosen. When you reach the last slide in the show, you will return to the agenda slide and be ready to go through either another section or take a break.
Want to see the presentation?
Click here to download it. The file you will be downloading is just the shell of the presentation, none of the graphics are included. It is 56K in size.
