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I got this question from someone who works in a institution that has students with disabilities: How can I set up PowerPoints so that when the mouse is held down, the slides do not trip through whole presentation. I work with students with disabilities who sometimes find this difficult.

The answer is to change the mode in which PowerPoint plays the presentation. You can access the settings to make these changes through the Set Up Slide Show dialog box, accessed differently depending upon the version of PowerPoint you use:

• PowerPoint 2007 and later users can select the Slide Show tab of the Ribbon, and click the Set Up Slide Show button.
• PowerPoint 2003 and previous versions' users can choose the Slide Show | Set Up Show option.

Either way, you end up bringing up the Set Up Show dialog box that you can see in Figure 1, below.


Figure 1: Set Up Show

At the top right of this dialog, you'll need to select the Browsed by an individual (window) option -- and you can also decide whether you want the Show scrollbar option checked. Click OK when done, and save your presentation.

Here are some thoughts, caveats, and observations to be aware of:

1. Choosing this option means you don't get to play your PowerPoints in absolute full screen show mode -- there will be a title bar visible.
2. You can still use the keyboard to navigate to the next and previous slides. In fact, all keyboard commands will work.
3. The settings to enable this play mode, as explained above work only with the active presentation, and is saved within the presentation. You'll have to enable these settings for each presentation you want to not advance with mouse-clicks.

Labels: basics, edit, powerpoint, show

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A friend sent me this question: I want to make one slide .PPS file. On click, or on pressing any key the .PPS file should exit or close. Can this be done?

Yes, it can -- it's easier to do this on click rather than by pressing any key. Follow these steps:

1. With your one slide presentation ready, open it in PowerPoint.
   
   
2. PowerPoint 2007 users can then select the rectangle shape from the Home tab | Drawing | Shapes gallery. Users of earlier versions will find the rectangle shape option in the Drawing toolbar located below the PowerPoint interface.
   
   
3. Draw a rectangle that covers the entire slide. You'll have to drag the corners of the rectangle to resize.
   
   
4. With the rectangle selected, PowerPoint 2007 users can choose the Insert tab | Links | Action to bring up the Action Settings dialog box that you see in Figure 1. Users of earlier PowerPoint versions can access the same dialog box by right-clicking the rectangle, and choosing Action Settings from the resultant menu.
   
   
   Figure 1: Action Settings
   
   
5. Click the Hyperlink to radio button, and from the text dropdown box, choose the End Show option (see Figure 1 above) . Click OK to exit the dialog box.
   
   
6. PowerPoint 2007 users can now select the rectangle, so that the Drawing Tools Format tab is visible in the Ribbon -- activate this tab, and then select the Shape Fill option to reveal a flyout menu. Choose the More Fill Colors option to bring up the Colors dialog box -- change the Transparency to 99%, and click OK. With the rectangle still selected, choose the Drawing Tools Format tab | Shape Styles | Shape Outline | No Outline option.
   
   Users of previous PowerPoint versions can double click the rectangle to summon the Format AutoShape dialog box. In this multi-tabbed dialog box, select the Colors and Lines tab, then under the Color dropdown list, drag the Transparency slider to 99%. In the Line Color dropdown list, choose the No Line option. Click OK to get back to the slide.
   
   
7. Now when you play this presentation, just click anywhere to end the show!
   

Labels: end, powerpoint, show

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Question: The problem I am having is that the Arial font size that I save as 32 for visibility, changes to 24 the next time I pull the presentation up. I have looked at the save options and nothing has helped. Do you have any suggestions?

Answer: This might help:

1. Choose Tools | AutoCorrect Options -- this brings up the AutoCorrect dialog box that you can see in Figure 1. Select the AutoFormat As You Type tab.
   
   
   Figure 1: Tweak AutoCorrect options
   
   
2. Uncheck these options:
   
   - AutoFit title text to placeholder
   - AutoFit body text to placeholder
   - Automatic layout for inserted objects
   
   
3. Click OK.
   

Labels: options, powerpoint

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This article is not about creating your own macros or scripts to automate PowerPoint. However, if you just want to run any macros or scripts that a friend shares, or you just got it from a book or newsgroup, then you are on the right page.

Follow these steps to get started:

1. Make sure you have a script ready -- you can download some scripts here...
   
   
2. Open an existing presentation, or create a new one in PowerPoint. Then press Alt+F11 to access the Microsoft Visual Basic interface that you can see in Figure 1.
   
   
   Figure 1: The Visual Basic interface
   
   
3. Choose Insert | Module, as shown in Figure 2.
   
   
   Figure 2: Insert a module
   
   
4. This open a new module window on the right side of the interface, copy your script here, and paste it (see Figure 3).
   
   
   Figure 3: The pasted script
   
   
5. Now you need to run this script as a macro from within PowerPoint. To do that, first exit the Visual Basic interface by choosing File | Close and Return to PowerPoint.
   
   
6. Now the steps you take differ depending upon which version of PowerPoint you are using.
   
   PowerPoint 2007 users will need to enable the Developer tab on the Ribbon if it is not already visible. To do that, choose Office Button | PowerPoint Options, and select the Popular tab on the left. Then check the option that says Show Developer tab in the Ribbon.
   
   Once you have done that, select the Developer tab of the Ribbon, and click Macro to bring up the Macro dialog box that you can see in Figure 4. Select the script you want to run, and click the Run button.
   
   
   Figure 4: The Macro dialog box
   
   Versions before PowerPoint 2007: Choose Tools | Macros | Macro to bring up the same dialog box that you saw in Figure 4. Then select the script you want to run, and click the Run button.

Remember, some scripts may do nothing at all unless you have something selected on the slide before you run them!

Tip from Steve Rindsberg: You can store many, many macros/scripts/routines in a single PowerPoint file and as long as you have it open along with any other files, you can access the macros as described.

See Also: Create an Add-in with toolbars that run macros (PPT FAQ by Steve Rindsberg)

Labels: macro, powerpoint, programming, vba

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Sometimes, it can be frustrating trying to do the simple things in PowerPoint such as duplicating an object right above the original. PowerPoint insists on placing the duplicated (or copy/pasted) object at an offset and there's no way to fine tune that setting. Maybe there's a registry tweak or something that I'm not aware of?

So why would anyone want to place a duplicated object right above the original? There are many scenarios that require such a placement:

• You want to animate one object after the the other.
• You want to rotate objects.
• You want to make some changes to the duplicated object and then do a trigger animation.
• You might want to do something else!
  

Meanwhile, here are some ideas and observations on how you can work around this limitation:

• If you copy and paste a slide object on the same slide, it is placed at an offset. Sometimes, you can press the up arrow key twice, and then press the left arrow key twice to place the copied/duplicated object right above the slide, but even that does not work all the time. That setting only works if the Snap to Grid option is turned on.
  
• If you copy a slide object (anything on a slide) and paste it on another empty slide, it is placed in the exact location as the original.
• If some part of the original slide object exceeds the area off the edge of the slide, then the duplicated/pasted object will be pasted within the slide area as far as possible. Of course that only works if the object is not larger than the slide area.
• The quickest way to place a duplicated object right above its original is to use a third-party add-in called Toolbox from Shyam Pillai. This includes a menu option called Toolbox | Shapes | Clone Shape(s).
• Another way you can place pasted/duplicated objects right on top of the original is to use the Align tools. This works best if you have several duplicated objects. Select them all, and choose Align | Align Left, and Align | Align Top.

If you have found new ways to work around these issues, do add your comments to this post.

Labels: duplicate, edit, powerpoint

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Echo Swinford, PowerPoint MVP resolves the mystery of the algorithm behind the changing cases in PowerPoint!

Do you use Shift+F3 to toggle through the change case options on selected text in PowerPoint, and wonder why sometimes only the first word gets a capital letter, but at other times all the words get capitalized?

Here's a more detailed example -- suppose I double-click to select all the words in a text box on the slide: fetal and neonatal disease. I hit Shift+F3. I expected to get Fetal And Neonatal Disease and then, if I hit Shift+F3 again, FETAL AND NEONATAL DISEASE.

Instead, the first time I hit Shift+F3, I get Fetal and neonatal disease. The second time, I get all caps, and the third time I'm back to all lower case as expected. But how do I know when to expect sentence case (e.g., Fetal and neonatal disease) and when to expect title case* (e.g., Fetal And Neonatal Disease)?

*And yes, I know it's not a true title case -- in fact, you'll notice that in 2007 this is now called "Capitalize Every Word," not "Title Case."

I think this has to do with punctuation, or, rather, an invisible paragraph marker at the end of text.

Here's what Beth Melton, Word MVP (thanks, Beth!) and I figured out:

If you select text in a Title Placeholder and Shift+F3, you'll get title case.

If you select text in a manual textbox, which you get depends on what you've selected and also HOW you've selected it. In the case of selecting all text in a textbox, for example, "fetal and neonatal studies"...

• If you triple-click the text to select all text in the textbox, Shift+F3 gives you sentence case. (Fetal will begin with a capital letter.)
  
  
• If you select all the text by dragging the mouse over the text from left to right, Shift+F3 gives you sentence case. (Fetal will begin with a capital letter.)
  
  
• If you select all the text by dragging them mouse over the text from *right* to *left*, Shift+F3 gives you title case. (All Words Begin With A Capital Letter.)
  
  
• It's as though triple-clicking or selecting from left to right also selects an invisible marker*, which indicates the text should be a "sentence."
  
  
• Selecting from right to left does not select that last invisible marker, which indicates the text should act as a title.
  
  
• If you're selecting just part of the text in a text box, e.g., selecting only "and neonatal," then it doesn't seem to matter if you use left-right or right-left -- you get title case with all words capped. Of course, if the last word of the "paragraph" is included in that partial selection, e.g., "and neonatal disease," you'll need to use a right-to-left selection to avoid that final invisible marker.
  

Personally, this all seems overly complicated to me. Sure wish we could see the non-printing characters; I probably would have figured this out years ago....

*I'm assuming an invisible paragraph marker because if you try the three ways to select text and then paste the text into a new empty textbox, the first two ways give you an empty "paragraph" below, while the third way (right-to-left) doesn't.

Echo Swinford runs EchosVoice, a site containing many PowerPoint tips. She is also author of Fixing PowerPoint Annoyances and PowerPoint 2007 Complete Makeover Kit.

Labels: case, language, powerpoint, powerpoint_2007

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Quite often, you might have received a PowerPoint presentation with a PPS or PPSX extension rather than the normal PPT or PPTX extension - here's more info.

First, let me tell you a little about the extensions:

• PPT is the default file extension for saving presentations in PowerPoint 2003 and earlier versions.
• PPTX is the default file extension for saving presentations in PowerPoint 2007 and later versions.
• PPS is the the show mode extension in PowerPoint 2003 and earlier -- these files run in "play-presentation" mode when double-clicked.
• PPSX does the same thing in PowerPoint 2007 and later -- it runs in "play-presentation" mode when double-clicked.
  

Here's some more details that might help you clear the gobbledygook:

• Technically there is no difference between PPT (or PPTX) and PPS (or PPSX) files.
• With PPT and PPS files, you can actually rename the extensions whenever you want and the presentation file will remain the same.
• With PPTX and PPSX files, you cannot rename at will -- but trust me, they are the same!
  

The difference lies in how PowerPoint treats them:

• By default, PPT and PPTX files open in edit mode within PowerPoint allowing you to use all the menus and commands.
• By default, PPS and PPSX files open in slideshow (play-presentation) mode, and you see no PowerPoint interface. When the presentation finishes or you manually exit using tthe ESC key, PowerPoint also quits.
  

Having said that, you can play all PowerPoint file formats (PPT, PPS, PPTX, PPSX) directly from within Windows Explorer -- right-click the file and the choose the Play option in the context menu.

You can also edit a PPS or PPSX file without changing the extension using either of these options:

• Just drag and drop the PPS or PPSX file from Windows Explorer into an empty PowerPoint window.
• Launch PowerPoint and open a PPS or PPSX using the File/Office Button | Open option to edit a presentation.

Labels: basics, file_formats, powerpoint

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