Use Trigger Animations for Sound and Movie Media Actions in PowerPoint 2007 for Windows

Slides with interactivity work great in scenarios where the presentation in question is not linear in which slides advance one after the other at set timings. Also, the person or audience for whom these slides are intended must be aware that some interactivity has been placed on these slides so that they can go ahead and click on some slide objects to cause an action to happen. This is especially true for trigger animations in which you have to click one object to result in an action happening for another object. Taking the concept of trigger animations further, you can make a click on a PowerPoint shape (or even an Action Button) to cause the sound or video clip on the slide to play, pause, resume, or stop.

We assume that you have already added some actions to play, pause, or stop your media. Depending upon the type of media you are using, explore the following tutorials to learn how you can add actions to them:

Procedures explained in this tutorial are for a movie clip, but these techniques work the same way for sound clips as well:

Go to the slide that contains a sound or movie clip, and has Sound Actions or Video Actions added to the clip. Now go ahead and insert three shapes which will work as navigation buttons. For our tutorial example, we inserted three rectangle shapes and typed Play, Pause/Resume, and Stop respectively within them, as shown in Figure 1. Also note the movie clip on the slide.

Figure 1: Slide with a movie clip and shapes used as navigation buttons

Tip: You can also use Action Buttons instead of regular shapes.
Within the Custom Animation Task Pane, right-click any of the Movie Actions (or Sound Actions). From the resultant menu, chose the Timing option, as shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2: Timing option for the selected action
This brings up a dialog box with Timing options for the selected Action (Play Movie, as shown in Figure 3). To add a trigger to cause this Action, click the Triggers button that you can see highlighted in red in Figure 3.

Figure 3: Triggers button within the Timing tab of the Play Movie dialog box
Within the options that come up, select the Start effect on click of radio button (highlighted in red in Figure 4). Thereafter, click the down-arrow (highlighted in blue in Figure 4) to bring up a list containing names of objects on the same slide (see Figure 4).

Figure 4: List of slide objects displayed for the Start effect on click of option

Within this list, you will find the name of the object through which you want to trigger the selected Action. In this case, we have chosen the shape with Play written on it.

Tip: The word Play written in this case is merely the text contained within your shape. Similarly, any text you type in the shape will show up in the Start effect on click of: drop-down list.
Click the OK button to apply the effect and get back to the slide.
Now play your slide in slide show mode, and click the Play button. You will find that this now causes the movie clip to play.
You can similarly add a Pause action to the next shape (the shape that contains the Pause / Resume text, shown in Figure 1). When done, play your slide. You will find that:

Clicking the Play button plays your movie clip.

Clicking the Pause / Resume button pauses your movie clip.

Clicking the Pause / Resume button again resumes your movie clip from the point where you paused it.

Clicking the Stop button does nothing as of now, since you still need to add it as a trigger for the Stop Action -- we do that next.
Add a Stop action to the final shape (the shape that contains the Stop text, as shown in Figure 1). When done, play your slide to ascertain that the Stop action now works.
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