Advanced Request

[Guest]

Hi
I'm a teacher and was wondering if the following was possible using PPT

I want to create a random name selector, so that when I ask a question I can
randomly select a child. The children will feel like they are in a quiz show
and hopefully it will be cool to have. Is this possible?
An idea I had was to have all the children's pictures on a slide and then
give an object a motion path to a picture...only problem is that I'd have to
pre select children...
Any ideas?
Thanks

 

[TAJ Simmons]

Raz,

To use any kind of 'random' thing in powerpoint - requires the use of
something called VBA (a programming language)

Or you could 'fake it' by having all the slides ready made, then by entering
a slide number on the keyboard, and pressing the ENTER ley, you could jump
to any particular childs name slide.

cheers
TAJ Simmons

awesome - powerpoint backgrounds,
http://www.awesomebackgrounds.com
free powerpoint templates, tutorials, hints, tips and more...

 

[Bill Dilworth]

As Taj suggested, this is a job for VBA (to be done truly randomly)

What I would do, if it was me, would be to have all the students pictures
on the screen. When you press a button (to activate a macro), they would
get an outline around a random picture for about .2 seconds, in random
order and for a random number of times. This would keep the selection
fairly quick (between 2 and 5 seconds) and still make it completely random.
You could also make it so you could force the spin to end on a student, but
that wouldn't be very fair.

Are you familiar with VBA? What version of PowerPoint are you using? Is
VBA enabled on your machine? Do you have admin rights?


--
Bill Dilworth
A proud member of the Microsoft PPT MVP Team
Users helping fellow users.
http://billdilworth.mvps.org
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vestprog2@ Please read the PowerPoint FAQ pages.
yahoo. They answer most of our questions.
com www.pptfaq.com
..

 

[Guest]

As the others said vba will give random actions. However you can simulate
randomness without vba. I've uploaded a simple demo of this here
http://www.PPTAlchemy.co.uk/testing.html. Click anywhere (except restart) to
get a 'random' selection

You might also like to go to:
http://www.pptalchemy.co.uk/powerpoint_hints_and_tips_tutorials.html
and scroll down to Randomness hints tips and Tutorials
--
Amazing PPT Hints, Tips and Tutorials

http://www.PPTAlchemy.co.uk
http://www.technologytrish.co.uk
email john AT technologytrish.co.uk

 

[Guest]

Thanks for your response!
I managed to create something similar yesterday and you're random spinner is
perfect!
Thanks again

 

[Guest]

Thanks for the response!
I've currently got a spinner working but I may look into VBA if I want
something more advanced!
Thanks again

 

[Guest]

Hi Bill
That sounds like a great Idea! I've currently got a spinner working (which
on click stops randomly) But I may look into what you've suggested.
I'm, running PPT 2003 and have VBA enabled on my machine although I haven't
got much knowlede of VBA. I'll do a bit of research on it and have a go!
Thanks again
Raz