Animating a *big* flowchart: 2 (newbie) questions.

D

DionB

I'm working on a sort of 'animated flowchart' in
Powerpoint.
[Q1] But my problem is this: the flowchart is pretty big,
so it doesn't easilly fit on a single screen. I'd like to
have PPT scroll horizontally and vertically (or something
like that) through the flowchart. I tried changing the
slide size, but in 'slideshow-mode' PPT just fitted the
slide to the screen instead of zooming to 100% and
scrolling.
[Q2] And related to this (when the above issue is
solved): I'd like the presentation to move back to the
previous "decision point" in the flowchart, when a side-
branch is at a dead end. Howto?

Anybody got any ideas to these questions?
Thanks!
 
B

Brian Reilly, MS MVP

Now that's a design challenge. No native way in PPT to do that.

Without knowing your "design logic of the flowchart" let me take a
wild suggestion at an approach I might think about using.

At the top level of discussion break each major decision point into a
different color. Then break to a new slide for each "decision point"
and hold the color scheme from its Parent. Hopefully, each
sub-division point might follow a similar logic in layout and you
could then just mimic each sub-point and change the colors to match
the Parent and change the text. Of course you'd want to hide some of
the sub-points as necessary.

If this concept makes sense, best practice would be to create the most
complex page and dupe it for each needed page and delete objects
rather than try to draw the whole thing time after time.

Brian Reilly, PowerPoint MVP
 
B

B

As far as the scrolling goes, you can give PowerPoint the appearance of
doing this by:
On the right side of the screen place a hyperlink to the slide that
continues the flowchart off in this direction. Then on that slide, use the
fly in from right transition.

Repeat these hyperlinks for each side of your flow chart, changing the
referenced slide in each case to the one that continues that branch. And
change the transition direction to follow the direction the chart is moving.

You would do well to plan this all out on paper, or you will loss you mind
keeping the slides and links straight.

Also add a link at each dead end that takes you back to the beginning slide.

Good luck, it sounds like a huge project,
B
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J

John Langhans [MSFT]

Hello Dion,

Regarding Q1: PowerPoint does not have the option to easily scroll up/down
or zoom in/out on demand during slide show (though, with a lot of work,
it's possible with triggers in PowerPoint 2002 and PowerPoint 2003).

However, if it's important to you (or anyone else reading this messge) for
PowerPoint to provide more options on how to display/manipulate objects in
slide show which are larger than the slide show area (without having to
resort to comples animation settings, VBA or add-ins), don't forget to send
your feedback to Microsoft at:

http://register.microsoft.com/mswish/suggestion.asp

As with all product suggestions, it's important that you not just state
your wish but also why it is important to you that your product suggestion
be implemented by Microsoft. Microsoft receives thousands of product
suggestions every day and we read each one but, in any given product
development cycle, there are only sufficient resources to address the ones
that are most important to our customers so take the extra time to state
your case as clearly and completely as possible.

IMPORTANT: Each submission should be a single suggestion (not a list of
suggestions).

John Langhans

Supportability Program Manager
Microsoft Office PowerPoint for Windows
Microsoft Office Picture Manager for Windows

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

Use of any included script samples are subject to the terms specified at
http://www.microsoft.com/info/cpyright.htm
 

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