Section 13.3. Customizing the Way Your Slideshows Run


13.3. Customizing the Way Your Slideshows Run

While most of PowerPoint's customization options focus on the PowerPoint development environment, several affect the way your slideshows run. This section shows you how to control the way you interact with your slideshows while you're running them.

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Tell Us Your Name and Nobody Gets Hurt

PowerPoint uses the name you gave it during installation every time you add review comments (page 435) to a presentation. If you need to change the name you gave PowerPoint when you installed itif, for instance, you inherited your predecessor's copy of PowerPoint when you were hired on at your company and are tired of seeing his name attached to your commentschoose Office button PowerPoint Options Popular and type a new name in the "User name box.



Note: The options described in this section affect how PowerPoint presentations run on your computer. If what you want is to control how presentations run on someone else's computerbecause you're distributing them by email, CD/DVD, or on the Web, for examplecheck out Chapter 7. (If you need to test those presentations on your own computer, though, you'll still find this section useful.)

13.3.1. Show (or Hide) "Ghosted" Navigational Controls

Out of the box, PowerPoint assumes you want to display the semi-transparent navigational controls (Figure 13-25) at the bottom-left of every slide. These navigational controls give you the ability to advance slides, back up, "draw" electronically on the slides, and display a menu showing additional options (the same menu you see when you right-click a slide while it's running, as described on page 412). If you've added your own navigational controlsthe action buttons described in Chapter 12, for exampleyou may not want to display these standard buttons .

Figure 13-25. If you're creating an extremely structured, action-button-controlled slideshow, test it on your computer first without these standard navigational controls.


  • To hide the standard navigational controls. Choose Office button PowerPoint Options Advanced. Advanced editing and slideshow options appear in the PowerPoint Options dialog box (Figure 13-26). Head to the Slide Show section, turn off the "Show popup toolbar checkbox, and then click OK.

  • To show the standard navigational controls. Select Office button PowerPoint Options Advanced, turn on the "Show popup toolbar checkbox, and click OK.

Figure 13-26. The Slide Show section of the Advanced options page lets you control what you see when your slideshow runs, as well as how you can interact with your slideshow. Turning off all these settings doesn't hamstring you, though; you can still use keystrokes to navigate the slideshow.


13.3.2. Show (or Hide) the Right-Click Menu

Normally, when you run a slideshow, right-clicking anywhere on a slide pops up the menu shown in Figure 13-27. The right-click menu can be a boon to inexperienced presenters, because it lets them choose options without having to remember keyboard shortcuts. But flashing a menu can seriously break the rhythm of the presentation, especially if you do it too often. And if there's a chance it's going to tempt a presenter to chew up a lot of the audience's time searching for the perfect electronic pen nib and color , or if there's a chance inappropriately titled slides may appear in the "Go to Slide" list, it's best to hide the menu altogether.

Figure 13-27. The right-click menu lets presenters hop directly to a specific slide, display a list of navigation keystrokes, and more.


  • To hide the right-click menu. When you hide the right-click menu, right-clicking a running program displays the previous (not necessarily the last- viewed ) slide instead of the right-click menu. Choose Office button PowerPoint Options Advanced. Then head to the Slide Show section and turn off the "Show menu on right mouse click checkbox. When you finish, click OK.

  • To show the right-click menu. Choose Office button PowerPoint Options Advanced, turn on the "Show menu on right mouse click checkbox, and then click OK.

13.3.3. Give Yourself the Option to Keep Ink Annotations

PowerPoint lets you "draw" on your slides electronically (Figure 13-28). Unless you tell it otherwise , the program assumes you don't want to keep your scribbles, but instead want to discard them when you end the slideshow so that the next time you present the slideshow, you start fresh with clean, unmarked slides.

Figure 13-28. Most of the time, you (or whoever's presenting your slideshow) will discard your extemporaneous scribbles (ink annotations). But in some casesfor example, if you're jotting down valuable audience feedback you don't want to loseyou'll want the option of adding those scribbles to your slides permanently.


  • To tell PowerPoint to give you the option to keep your ink annotations. Choose Office button PowerPoint Options Advanced. Turn on the "Prompt to keep ink annotations when exiting checkbox, and then click OK.

    The next time you run your slideshow, draw on your slide, and then exit your slideshow, PowerPoint kicks up the message you see in Figure 13-29.

  • To keep PowerPoint from giving you the option of keeping your electronic scribbles. Choose Office button PowerPoint Options Advanced. Turn off the "Prompt to keep ink annotations when exiting checkbox, and then click OK.

Figure 13-29. Telling PowerPoint to show you this message lets you choose, on a presentation-by-presentation basis, whether you want to add ink annotations to your slides permanently or discard them.


13.3.4. Tell PowerPoint to End Slideshows with a Black Slide (or Not)

Ending your slideshow with a black slide gives you a dramatic buffer zonea quiet moment with nothing on the screen to distract your audience so that you can finish your presentation with one final appeal , joke, bow, or whatever you think is appropriate.

PowerPoint assumes you want to end your slideshows with a black slide, but if you'd rather, you can hop from your last slide straight back to PowerPoint (or whatever else is running on the computer). Choose Office button PowerPoint Options Advanced. Turn off the "End with black slide checkbox, and then click OK.


Note: If you don't see the final black screen and want to, go to Office button PowerPoint Options Advanced and turn this checkbox back on.


PowerPoint 2007
PowerPoint 2007
ISBN: 1555583148
EAN: N/A
Year: 2006
Pages: 129

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