Working with Slide Properties

Adding slide properties to each slide in your library helps you find the slides you need more easily. As long as you are diligent about keeping the slide properties up to date, you will find that they are an easy way to sort, organize, and find just the slides you need.

Setting Properties for Multiple Slides at Once

As you learned earlier in the chapter, you can create a new column and add it to a view to store additional information about the slides. You can easily populate the new column with values by using Datasheet view, as in the following steps:

CROSS-REF 

You learned how to add a column in the section called "The Settings Button."

1. From the Action menu, click Edit in Datasheet. The Datasheet view appears as shown in Figure 23.20. This sheet lets you change properties for each slide by working down the column for the property you want to change.

   
   Figure 23.20: Anderson Slide Library datasheet view.

   Caution 

   Notice the 1 in the Item Type for Room Configurations? It means that Room Configurations is a folder, not a slide. You can't change properties for a folder, only for slides in that folder.

2. Click in the Slide Type column for the first slide and select a slide type using the drop- down list at its right. This sets the property for the first slide.

3. Click in the Slide Type cell for the first slide in a group and select a slide type. In Figure 23-20, that is Sycamore Knoll Outdoors.pptx. So, from the drop-down list at its right, you would select Picture or photograph.

4. Click and drag in the Slide Type field to select the field for the slide that you just set and for the other slides in the group.

5. Right-click the selected cells and select Fill Fill Down to fill that value into the cells below it.

Setting Properties for a Single Slide

In addition to setting the properties of slides in bulk through Datasheet view, you can work with the properties of individual slides. To do so, hover over the slide name, so that an arrow appears, and then click the arrow to open a menu. Then choose Edit Properties. The properties for that slide appear, as shown in Figure 23.21. Make any changes as desired, and click OK to save them.

Figure 23.21: Change slide properties on a single slide, and then click OK.