MasterView International Creating and Managing Effective PowerPoint Presentations for International Audiences ______________________________________________________________ MasterView International by IKONOS New Media April 15th, 2002 Issue #11 Executive Editor: Simone Luchini Editor-in-Chief: Luigi Canali De Rossi _______________________________________________________________ This issue's theme: HOW TO USE HYPERLINKS IN POWERPOINT PRESENTATIONS Table of Contents
============================================================== MasterView is sponsored by MOTO, The Expert Authority on How to Market your Training Institution Online. MOTO is a memorable, easy-to-use, step-by-step approach to successfully enter the online marketing arena for training institutions. At MOTO you can learn how to make your training institution more visible online and discover how to market and effectively promote your educational services on the Web. Visit MOTO at: http://www.marketing-of-training.com/ MOTO Beta Testing has started! If you want to join to the Beta Tester Team, send an e-mail to moto-beta#ikonosnewmedia.com ============================================================== Dear MasterView readers, This issue focuses on easily creating presentations that are not linear, meaning that do not have a precise order of slides. Instead they can have a structure much like a Web site: a starting slide (as a home page, with the index of all the other slides), navigation buttons and links to the other slides, which you can display in the sequence you like. Almost everyone is familiar with the use of a Web page. Most of us probably know how to click to activate a hyperlink and be directed to another Web page. This is why I like the "Web style" presentations. They are also easier to run for people who are not familiar with the technology of PowerPoint. They allow the presenter to have immediate access to all the slides at any time, without having to go back and forth. At any given moment, you can be presented with the information about where you are in the show and what navigation options are available. In short, Web style presentations can be more effective than standard linear presentations and can add facility to do things not previously accessible to a presenter or trainer. How-to dos, tutorials and tips on creating and managing your own Web style presentation is my bag of presents for you this month. Simone Luchini MasterView Executive Editor ============================================================== 1) *How to create links: "Hyperlinks" vs. "Action Settings"* ============================================================== Let's first take a look at how you can organize and outline your presentation in a circular way. Imagine that you are creating a presentation as your electronic resume and curriculum vitae. You will need an introductory slide to introduce yourself, your title, and a list of sections that cover your profile (academic studies, professional experiences, references etc). This will be a slide that will present the table of contents with all the navigation buttons to move toward the other slides. In the case of this electronic resume, you may have a navigation bar (vertical or horizontal) where you have all the links to the different sections of your presentation. In this case: Education, Professional Experiences, Languages, Personal Experiences, Community Service, Contacts etc. A good, little trick to apply right at the start of this process is to create a navigation bar for all the slides in the presentation by working in the Slide Master. If you insert the navigation bar in the Slide Master, and you link all the buttons to the single sections in your presentation while working on the Slide Master, you will end having all the slides of your presentation with the same exact navigation bar. This is done once, but works on all the slides. This will provide you (or those who may run the show) to move freely within the presentation and to jump to any desired slide at any time. What might be the convenience of having this type of navigation bar present on all our slides? Well, imagine if someone in the audience asks you about a topic you have already discussed or have yet to discuss. You have the ability to jump to that specific slide by using the navigation button that will link you to that slide. Above all, once you are on that desired slide, you can return to the previous slide (or any other slide) thanks to the presence of the same helpful navigation bar. With this type of presentation, you can easily run the show with a cordless mouse (which are nowadays quite economical) and have all the freedom you can dream of since you can direct the whole show just with your cordless mouse. Of course you may want to be well prepared in knowing what and which of your slides contain, but this can be easily accomplished by printing ahead of presentation time a thumbnail view of all your slides. To do this you can have a look at my previous article about printing in MasterView Issue #5, art. 3. Let me show you know how you can create this navigation bar on all the slides. Move first into the Slide Master ("View" >> "Master" >> "Slide Master") to create a navigation bar that will be displayed on all the slides in your presentation. Then, to visually create the navigation buttons needed, you can either use the Action buttons that PowerPoint provides you with, or you can create your own icons. In the first case, have a look at the Drawing Toolbar, just above the status bar. Click on "Autoshapes" >> "Action buttons" and find the one you are looking for. You can choose among: "Home", "Information", "Help", "Previous" or "Next", "Beginning" or "End", "Custom" or even some multimedia ones (sounds, video and so on). 1) Use the Autoshapes icons to create your navigation buttons which will link to specific slides in the presentation. Once you have inserted the buttons, you will be able to format them as normal drawing objects (modifying the color, the size, the shape, the border and so on). To add the right text on top of them, you can either type in directly after the object has been selected or add a text box on it. 2) If you want to nurture the artist in you and you want to draw your own icons for the buttons, you can use any other AutoShape and also take advantage of the 3-D effects to obtain a navigation button that you like. 3) In case you want something different, you can find thousands of great looking buttons on the Web that you can easily copy by right-clicking on them and choosing "Copy". You could then paste them into your slides (note that this feature may not work with all the browsers but for sure it works with Internet Explorer). You can use a good search engine such as Google (www.google.com) and use as keywords just "navigation buttons". The first one on the results' list will be www.freenavigationbuttons.com and others will follow. It is just a matter of choosing! To link your buttons, that is, to set an action to them, consider the following options: In PowerPoint 97, if you use the Action buttons under Autoshapes (see point 1) you will be first prompted to save your presentation (and in that case, I suggest you to do so). Then, the box for the "Action Settings" will automatically pop up. In PowerPoint 2000, you will not be prompted to save your file, but the "Action Settings" box will pop up as well. In case you decide to either draw your buttons (see solution 2) or to copy them from other ready-made buttons on the Web (see solution 3), you will have to manually insert an hyperlink or set an action. A - To insert a hyperlink: 1) Select the object first 2) Press either Ctrl + K (short cut) or click on "Insert" >> "Hyperlink" (in PowerPoint 2000 you will find the "Hyperlink" option also on your right-clicking on the object). 3) Then, in PowerPoint 2000, select where your icon should redirect you when clicked: - Existing files or Web pages - A different slide in the current document - A new document that you haven't created yet (and you can do it right at that time) - An e-mail address 4) Press "OK" and the hyperlink will be activated. While the "Hyperlink" feature of PowerPoint 97 provides you less features, you can: link to a file or a URL (using the "Browse" button to locate it) or link to an existing slide within your presentation. You always have the option to check the box that says: "Use relative path for hyperlink", so that you will create a link to that slide, which could be eventually moved, and not to the specific location of that file (in this case, if you move the file the link will be broken). Relative in fact means: relative to the slide title, not to the slide progressive number that can change if you move your slides. Later on, we will take a look at the differences, the pros and cons of applying a hyperlink instead of an action. B - To set an action: 1) Select the object first 2) Right-click on it and choose "Action settings..." or click on "Slide Show" in the Menu Bar and choose "Action Settings..." 3) From the drop-down list "Hyperlink to:" you can decide what action to assign to your object. 4) Click "OK" and it is done. **Take note that in both cases you can only check your hyperlink or action settings by switching to "Slide Show View" mode (full screen). In all other view modes the mouse will not turn into a hand (like on any Web page). Pros and Cons of each method: Hyperlink (I am referring to the PowerPoint 2000 version): * It is easier if you want to hyperlink to a Web page. It allows you use all the bookmarks you have in the Favorites' folder and all the recently browsed Web pages. * It is easier to hyperlinking an existing file, since you can select it among a list of recently opened files. * Finally, this option is great when you want to link an object to an e-mail address: You can select the address from a list of recently used ones. You are able to type the e-mail address in the space provided. In addition, you can insert the subject that will appear automatically in the e-mail message that will be sent. This feature may be particularly very useful and quite unique in a presentation you deliver on an Intranet, over the Internet, or send it to some colleagues or directly to your audience (kind of a presentation broadcast, see MasterView Issue #5, art. 2) ** TIP ** when using the Hyperlink feature, you can add your custom "Screen Tip". What is a "Screen Tip"? A "Screen Tip" is that small yellow label that appears any time you hover your mouse on top of any icon in any Windows-based application (also called "ToolTip": it is the same yellow label that shows you a description of the content of any hyperlink in a Web page or Web-style formatted document). You can customize this Screen Tip with your own text: for any hyperlink you decide to insert, you will be able to provide your custom yellow label, which will automatically display any time the mouse moves on top of a linked object. To do so, click at the top of the Hyperlink windows where it says: "Screen Tip" and type your test. To test it, remember to switch to "Slide Show View" mode (F5 with PowerPoint 2000). You will see that, as soon as you stop your mouse over the hyperlinked object, a Screen Tip will appear with the message you have previously typed. The pros of using "Action Settings" are: * You can decide whether to apply the action to the mouse click or to the mouse over. In this case, you will not need to click on the object, but as soon as your mouse will move on top of the linked object, the link will automatically redirect you to the specified slide. * You can easily decide to run any other program (a movie clip, a .wav file, a flash animation, an mp3 file or anything else). * You can play a sound browsing from Microsoft sounds (applause, breaking glass, camera, cash register) or choosing any other sound file you have saved in your hard disk. To do this, simply put the tick mark where it says: Play a sound and browse the drop down list to select the one you want. My personal opinion is, though, to be extremely cautious when dealing with sounds in a presentation. * Under the "Hyperlink to:" drop-down list, you can choose among actions that are not present among the options in the Hyperlink box. I am referring to: "Next Slide", "Previous Slide", "First Slide", "Last Slide", "Last Viewed Slide", "End Show", "Slide" (by using this one, you can select any of the other slides in the same presentation), "Custom Show". Using these settings, you have more options to create relative links (not absolute, but relative to any slide you choose). Finally, you can decide to "Highlight" your mouse click or your mouse over, so that the object will kind of flash changing color when you click on it. *Tip: if you decide to use the "Action Setting" box and still want to hyperlink an object to an e-mail address, do the following: 1) In the "Action Settings" box, click on "Hyperlink to:" 2) Choose "URL" 3) Type, without quotation marks and without spaces: "mailto:name@domain.com", where you will substitute this generic e-mail address with a real one. 4) Click "OK" and the hyperlink is ready. If you want to remove the hyperlinks, just follow these simple instructions: 1) You can right-click on a linked object, choose "Action Settings" and click on "None" in the relevant tab (either on the mouse click, or on the mouse over tab). 2) Then click "OK" and the hyperlink will disappear. or 1) Right-click on the object (if you have PowerPoint 2000) or click on "Insert" 2) Select "Hyperlink" 3) Choose "Remove hyperlink" Done! Don't forget to have a look also at my previous article dealing with hyperlinks: "Master how you can link any Web page, Word document or other application file to any slide in your presentation". You can find it at MasterView Issue #4, art. 4 Now that we know some pros and cons, and main differences, between the "Hyperlink" dialog box and the "Action Settings", let me show you in detail what you can do to improve your presentation. ============================================================== 2) *Differences between hyperlinking the text or the text box* ============================================================== I would like to give you some advice in case some of the settings don't work as you wish. What if the hyperlinked text appears to change color and to be underlined (as the appearance of most hyperlinks on the Web)? In this case, you applied the hyperlink to the text itself instead of the entire text box. To resolve the problem, you can: - select again the text (highlighting it by dragging the mouse on top of it, not by clicking on the borders of the text box) - right-click on it, - choose "Action Settings", - click "None" and choose "OK". Be sure to select the whole text box (by clicking on the border) and apply the action again. If you like the appearance of your new text, you can decide to leave it like it is. ============================================================== 3) *How to change the default color for hyperlinked text* ============================================================== What if the colors that PowerPoint chooses for your hyperlinks are not contrasting enough with your background color? How can you change the default color for the hyperlinked text? To change the default color for hyperlinks do the following: 1) Click on "Format" >> "Slide Color Scheme..." 2) Select the "Custom" tab. 3) Click on each of the colored boxes which say: "Accent and hyperlink" and "Accent and followed hyperlink". 4) Click on "Change color..." 5) Select a different color of your choice from the color palette. 6) Click "OK", then "Apply" and the color scheme will change accordingly to your choice. So, remember the difference: if you apply the hyperlink or the action to the selected text, it will change according to the "Slide Color Scheme" and it will be underlined. If you apply the same action to the entire text box around the text, you will not see any change in the text appearance. Have a look also at my previous article "Master how you can link any Web page, Word document or other application file to any slide in your presentation" you can find at MasterView Issue #4, art. 4 ============================================================== 4) *How to hyperlink part of your text without having it change color and format* ============================================================== How can I set a hyperlink to some words that are part of a text box (e.g. a bulleted list) without having the whole list change color? In this case, the trick is easy. If you want to apply a hyperlink to a specific word and you do not want this word to change and be underlined (and you cannot apply the link to the whole text box which may contain other words), do the following: 1) Draw a rectangle big enough to cover the word/s you want to hyperlink. 2) Place it on top of the desired text. 3) Remove the fill (No fill) and the line (No line). In practice, make the new rectagle invisible! 4) Right-click on it. 5) Choose "Action Setting" or "Hyperlink" and set the hyperlink you want the words under the rectangle to have. When you click on those words the hyperlink of the invisible rectangle placed on top will work just fine, as if only those certain words had been hyperlinked. The great plus is that the look of your text does not change at all by using this technique. ============================================================== 5) *Differences between text boxes and AutoShapes (e.g. rectangles)* ============================================================== What is the difference between using a normal text box and using a rectangle from which you have removed the fill color and the line color? Apparently, there's no difference, they both work well. If you draw a rectangle, and you start typing on it, the text will be automatically centered, and it will be more complicated to move it around. Also, by default, if the text is bigger or longer than the rectangle (or any other shape), it will go outside of the shape. To avoid this, you can: 1) Right-click on the rectangle. 2) Choose "Format Autoshape..." 3) In the "Text Box" tab, place a tick mark besides: "Word wrap text in AutoShape". The text box will be particularly useful in case you want to type something on top of a drawing you have created, and want to position this text elsewhere other than in the middle. In this case, my suggestion is to create the shape before, and when you want to type in it, use a text box and place it where you like, instead of typing inside the shape you have created. ============================================================== 6) *Reminders of previous articles of MasterView on the use of "invisible" rectangles* ============================================================== Do you need to have only one slide of your presentation displayed with a different orientation (e.g. portrait instead of the usual landscape)? Do you need to have a presentation where you have some slides which have horizontal orientation (landscape) and some other who have the vertical (portrait) one? Well, PowerPoint does not allow you to change a different slide orientation within the same presentation. I have revealed a valid technique that the workaround professional presenters use in my previous article "Learn how to link presentations that have different layouts (vertical and horizontal), by doing what the professionals do". You can read it at: MasterView Issue #4, art. 5 The basic trick is this: You can create any "invisible" object (no fill color, no line color) and place it anywhere on any slide, and then assign to it with any link to any other slide or action. I am sure you will find plenty of uses for this great trick. At the end of the same article, I was talking about another trick that can be used in order to allow the presenter to use only the mouse (which can be easily be "wireless") to move within the slides back and forward, with no need of touching the keyboard. In the case exposed in that article, the empty rectangle has to be created on the Slide Master, thus creating invisible hyperlinks to specific areas of the slides which would redirect you either forward or backward. ============================================================== 7) *How to create hidden hyperlinks in a PowerPoint presentation* ============================================================== Let me share with you how you can use the trick of the "invisible" rectangle to create some hidden links which may be very useful in some cases. Perhaps you have inserted a logo on the Slide Master, or have displayed the number of the slide or inserted some text with your company's contact information. On top of them, you can apply an invisible rectangle (see previous paragraph) and decide to hyperlink it to some other slide. I can give you some suggestions. a) You can create a link to a black slide. This way, you can decide to end your show at any time. b) You can create a link to the first introductory slide or link it to a summary slide that you can refer to only if you have time. c) You can decide to apply links to objects and/or text in specific slides to go to slides you may need: graphics, organizational charts and so on. What purpose does this serve? The advantage here is the one of creating this "invisible" buttons which can add to the professionalism, ease of navigate and overall "slickness" of your presentation. This set of hidden links can be used on all the slides (in this case, you need to place it on the Slide Master) or in a single slide only to serve this specific purpose and needs you may have for your own specific show or lesson. ============================================================== *Problems and questions from the readers* ============================================================== At this time, I would like to share two questions I got last week from two friends: Howard from Rome asked me how he could remove the animation effect that was hidden into the Microsoft template called "Ribbon.pot". Since that animation appears automatically on all the slides, it means that it has been applied directly on the Slide Master. I suggested Howard to display the Master Slide and select the object that had been animated (a small bullet). Thereafter, I had him click on "Slide Show", "Custom Animation" and just remove the animation from there. He had tried to remove the animation from the single slides before, but since this animation had been applied to the Slide Master, he could not remove it successfully. Elisabetta, also from Rome, wanted to know how to get rid of the Microsoft template she had applied to her presentation. She also wanted to know how to go back to a normal presentation without any template at all. I suggested her to use the following trick: 1) Start PowerPoint. 2) Open a New Presentation. 3) Before doing anything else, click on "File" >> "Save As..." 4) Under "File type" choose "Presentation template (.pot). 5) Call it "blank template" and click "Save". At this point, she could open her existing presentation, click again on "Apply Design" as if she was about to apply any of the Microsoft templates. At the moment of choosing the template, she would instead now choose the "blank template" she just created. By clicking "Apply", she would get her presentation in its original form, with no template at all. This trick is also useful for the future, since once you have saved this "blank" template, you can reuse it as many times as you need. One last suggestion: When you save any template and want to be sure to find them in the folder where you have all the other Microsoft template, save it exactly as shown below: C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Templates\Presentation Designs I invite you to send me questions regarding problems you may encounter while using PowerPoint. I will be happy to try to find a solution for you and discuss it in this newsletter. -------------------------------------------------------------- Send your presentation questions in: ask-masterview#yahoogroups.com -------------------------------------------------------------- MasterView is a free monthly newsletter focusing on designing and managing effective PowerPoint presentations for international audiences. Directed to communicators, managers, trainers, presenters and lecturers, it provides selected solutions, how-to techniques and resources on effective presentation-making. MasterView is an open discussion forum for many of you having specific questions about making presentations. These can be addressed to: ask-masterview#yahoogroups.com. I and everybody at IKONOS New Media will be happy to provide you with best advice, tools and resources. Who am I? I am the Executive Editor of this electronic publication, my name is Simone Luchini and I am a presentation specialist and trainer for IKONOS New Media (http://www.ikonosnewmedia.com) We specialize in empowering international organizations, grow and prosper online through the effective use of new media and ICT (Information & Communication Technologies). Founded in 1988, IKONOS New Media is an electronic publishing and distance learning company serving education, research and development organizations. If you would like to know something more about me, come and check out my page at: http://www.ikonosnewmedia.com/people/simone.htm Sincerely, Simone Luchini Executive Editor Presentation Specialist, Trainer IKONOS New Media Rome | Washington (Simone.Luchini#ikonosnewmedia.com) _______________________________________________________________ In the last 5 issues we have looked at: Issue 6 - Nov. 2001 "WHAT IS INFORMATION DESIGN - Part I" 1) Learn what Information Design really is and why it is useful when creating charts and diagrams 2) Learn five basic principles that can help you design more effective and readable tables 3) Understand the meaning and purpose of the most common chart types 4) Use the "Custom animation" feature to enhance the visual aspect of how you will display your charts 5) Learn the effectiveness and appropriateness of 2-D and 3-D charts 6) Discover the "Paste Special" option to keep your statistical charts linked to their original data http://masterview.ikonosnewmedia.com/masterview6.htm Issue 7 - Dec. 2001 "WHAT IS INFORMATION DESIGN - Part II" 1) Learn the "data-ink ratio", one of the basic principles of Information Design 2) See how to integrate legends into your statistical graphs 3) Discover how to move, format and position 3-D graphs 4) Learn how to save a custom chart template and reuse it 5) Step-by-step guide on how to add images to charts 6) Tips on the TAB key and chart color scheme http://masterview.ikonosnewmedia.com/masterview7.htm Issue 8 - Jan. 2002 "DESIGN AND READABILITY" 1) "Serif" and "Sans Serif" fonts: learn what differences there are between these two classes of typefaces 2) See how to properly use the shadow effect to improve readability 3) Discover how to take control of the bullet symbols 4) Step-by-step guide on how to change fonts in a presentation 5) Tips to improve text readability and effectiveness 6) The effective use of colors in presentations http://masterview.ikonosnewmedia.com/masterview8.htm Issue 9 - Feb. 2002 "REVIEW OF BEST POWERPOINT PRESENTATION RESOURCES ONLINE" 1) *Ellen Finkelstein's Web Site* 2) *R D P* 3) *PowerPoint Answers* 4) *Awesome PowerPoint Backgrounds* 5) *Indezine* 6) *Microsoft PowerPoint Newsgroup* http://masterview.ikonosnewmedia.com/masterview9.htm Issue 10 - Mar. 2002 "USEFUL DRAWING TIPS AND KEYBOARD SHOURTCUTS" 1) *The [Ctrl] key from A to Z - PowerPoint Shortcuts* 2) *The secrets of the [Shift] key - PowerPoint Secrets of the Shift Key* 3) *Two tricks about drawing tools* 4) *How to type on top of the pictures* 5) *Character Map* 6) *PowerPoint Viewer* http://masterview.ikonosnewmedia.com/masterview10.htm _____________________________________________________________ To read MasterView past issues, go to http://masterview.ikonosnewmedia.com ______________________________________________________________ * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Feedback Direct feedback: simone.luchini#ikonosnewmedia.com IKONOS New Media Via P. Giannone 10 - 00195 Rome, Italy .............................................................. MasterView Editorial Staff Luigi Canali De Rossi - Editor-in-Chief luigi.canali#ikonosnewmedia.com Simone Luchini - Executive Editor simone.luchini#ikonosnewmedia.com Mihai Alexandru Bocsaru - MasterView Webmaster mihai.bocsaru#ikonosnewmedia.com Jamie Kim - Online Editor jamie.kim#ikonosnewmedia.com .............................................................. Subscription Information To subscribe to request your free copy, simply go to the following URL: http://masterview.ikonosnewmedia.com, type your email in the box and click the "Subscribe" button .............................................................. (c) 2001-2002, Simone Luchini IKONOS New Media http://www.ikonosnewmedia.com Sponsored by: MasterMind Explorer Newsletter ______________________________________________________________ A new Robin Hood of new media technologies brings a free, 30- page plus monthly report to support communicators and trainers worldwide. He wants the common people like you to successfully leverage technology without succumbing to it. Find out first every month the alternative routes, tools and technologies that can help you collaborate, share and better communicate with new technologies. Read and subscribe to MasterMind Explorer - for communicators http://www.masternewmedia.org
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