Tips for Custom Shows in PowerPoint 2010 for Windows

You might have created many Custom Shows and played them. If you have heard about it, and want to learn more about this amazing PowerPoint feature, these tips will help you get more from your Custom Shows in PowerPoint 2010:

Use the Same Slide More Than Once

Many people do not realize that the same slides can be used more than once in a Custom Show. This is great if you want the same slide to show more than once in your show. Quick, which is the slide that can be repeated often in a presentation? Yes, the Agenda slide! Maybe you want your Agenda slide to show once after each topic on the agenda is covered. You can also use this repeated slide feature for slides other than the Agenda slide, maybe you want the same slide at the beginning and the end of the show?

So how do you add the same slide more than once? This is easy - just follow these steps:

Access the Define Custom Show dialog box as explained in our Creating Custom Slide Shows in PowerPoint 2010 tutorial. Select the slide that you want to repeat again within the list of slides on the left (Slides in presentation) of the Define Custom Show dialog box. As you can see in Figure 1, below, we have selected the Agenda slide in the list on the left.

Figure 1: Add the same slide more than once!
Then click the Add button more than once to add the selected slide repeatedly to the list of slides in the right (Slides in custom show), as shown in Figure 1, above.

Note: Once you add the selected slide to the list of slides in the right (Slides in custom show), you will find that the Add button will be greyed out, to add the same slide again, select it again and click the Add button. Repeat this process to add selected slide more than once.
You will end up with many copies of the same slide. Reorder them so that they are in the sequence you want using the Up and Down arrow keys on the right - again, learn more in our Creating Custom Slide Shows in PowerPoint 2010 tutorial.
Now when you want to change your Agenda slide, you only do it once, and all instances of this slide will get updated in your Custom Show.

Make Your Custom Show the Default Show

Did you create a Custom Show? And now whenever you want to play your Custom Show, you have to play it via the Custom Slide Show button in the Slide Show tab of the Ribbon? You may forget that part and just play your presentation as usual by pressing the F5 Function key, and then you end up playing all slides!

To solve this problem, you can make your Custom Show the default show. So you just play your slides using PowerPoint's buttons and keyboard shortcuts for playing slides, and your Custom Show plays! To learn how to set your Custom Show as your default show, refer to the second half of our Playing Custom Shows in PowerPoint 2010 tutorial.

And remember to change the default back from the Custom Show to All (within the Set Up Show dialog box, explained within our Playing Custom Shows in PowerPoint 2010 tutorial) - otherwise you may open a deck a month or two later and wonder why only 5 of your 20 slides play!