Navigational Control Basics


All navigational controls that you create on slides are, at their core, hyperlinks. You're probably familiar with these already from using the Web; they're underlined bits of text or specially enabled graphics that take you to a different site or page that you clicked. In the case of your PowerPoint presentation, the hyperlinks take users to the next or previous slide, a hidden slide, a custom slide show, or perhaps some external source such as a Web site or data file.

Types of Navigational Controls

Even though they are all hyperlinks (so they all work the same underneath), the various types of navigational controls can look very different on the surface. You can have "bare" hyperlinks where the actual address appears, hyperlinks where the text is different from the address, action button graphics, or graphics you create or import yourself. In addition, a navigational control can have pop-up helper text in a ScreenTip. Figure 21.1 shows several types of navigational controls on a sample slide.

image from book
Figure 21.1: A sampler of the various navigational control types available in PowerPoint.

Note 

Most people associate the word hyperlink with the Internet. However, a hyperlink is simply a link to somewhere else; it does not necessarily refer to an Internet location. You can hyperlink to another slide in the same presentation, for example, or to a different presentation, or even to some unrelated data file in another application like Word or Excel.

Notice the directions at the bottom of Figure 21.1. This is necessary because it's not obvious that the graphic is a hyperlink, and users would not normally think to try clicking on it. Notice also the ScreenTip associated with the second text hyperlink. This is useful because the text itself does not provide the address, and the user may want to know the address before clicking the hyperlink. For example, if the PC does not have Internet access, the user would not want to click a hyperlink that points to a Web page.

The action buttons in the bottom-right corner in Figure 21.1 are typical of the action buttons that PowerPoint creates. They are just AutoShapes with pre-assigned action settings for On Click. You can create your own, but the preset ones are awfully handy.

Evaluating Your Audience's Needs

Before you dive into building an interactive presentation, you must decide how the audience will navigate from slide to slide. There is no one best way; the right decision depends on the audience's comfort level with computers and hyperlinks.

Consider these points:

  • Is the audience technically savvy enough to know that they should press a key or click the mouse to advance the slide, or do you need to provide that instruction?

  • Does your audience understand that the arrow action buttons mean Forward and Back, or do you need to explain that?

  • Does your audience understand hyperlinks and Web addresses? If they see underlined text, will they know that they can click it to jump elsewhere?

  • Is it enough to include some instructions on a slide at the beginning of the show, or do you need to repeat the instructions on every slide?

Think about your audience's needs and come up with a plan. Here are some sample plans:

  • For a beginner level audience: Begin the presentation with an instructional slide explaining how to navigate. Place action buttons in the same place on each slide (using the Slide Master) to help them move backward and forward and include a Help button that they can click to get more detailed instructions.

  • For an intermediate level audience: Place action buttons on the same place on each slide, along with a brief note on the first slide explaining their presence.

  • For an advanced audience: Include other action buttons on the slide that allow the user to jump around freely in the presentation - go to the beginning, to the end, to a certain section, and so on. Advanced users understand and can take advantage of a more sophisticated navigation system.

In the next few sections, I show you how to create all of the types of navigational controls shown in Figure 21.1.




Microsoft PowerPoint 2007 Bible
Microsoft Powerpoint 2007 Bible
ISBN: 0470144939
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2007
Pages: 268
Authors: Faithe Wempen

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