End Show action setting is not ending show

[Christina Crane]

Hello

I have created a presentation in PPT2003 that is fairly complex, and I have
a "home page" that has all my links to all the presentations. On that
slide, I have a button with an action setting that is supposed to end the
show (ie get out of the presentation). When someone has gone through a
couple of the linked presentations, that button is not ending the show, it
is going to the slide previously viewed. Why isn't this working?

Is there a better way to have an "End Show" button?

Other notes about the presentation: it is on an autorun CD created with
"Package for CD"and it seems to work on a computer with PPT2003 on it, but
not on computers with PPT2000. All the other buttons in the presentation
work though, including other end show buttons (in the linked presentation,
that bring you back to the presentation you were in before you went to the
linked presentation).

Please help! The client wants to see this tomorrow morning!!!!

thank you!!
Christina

 

[PPTMagician]

Hi Christina,

A possible, quick work-around (without trying to figure
out why this is happening):

Create a final slide (all black)at the end of the
presentation. Set the transition for this slide to
advance after 0 seconds. Set the link to go to this last
slide.

HTH,
Glenna

 

[Kathryn Jacobs]

Christina,
End show will only end the active presentations. If the other presentations
were left open when you were done viewing them, End show will end the
current presentation and give any other open presentation focus. Are you
sure that the other presentations were closed before you returned to the
"home page" presentation?

--
Kathryn Jacobs, Microsoft PPT MVP
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I believe life is meant to be lived. But:
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[Christina Crane]

No, they weren't, and I've implemented Glenna's solution, which works
beautifully. But now when the show ends, the other linked presentations are
still open.

I have a button on each page in the linked presentations that goes to this
"home page" - that link is an action setting to that slide, but what I need
to do is for that action setting to "end show and go to presentation, slide
X" (ie. I need two action settings for one button - is that possible?

At the end of the linked presentations, there is an end show button, but it
is just if people don't want to read the whole presentation, they have an
option of going back to the home page. The thing is, that their start page
before the linked presentation wasn't necessarily that home page, so I can't
just make that button be an end show button (this set of presentations has a
myriad of links from one to another).

Does that make sense? Is it possible for an action setting to end the show
and go to a specific slide in a presentation in one go?

Thanks!
Christina

 

[Christina Crane]

Or is there a way that an action setting can "end all open shows"? That
would solve the problem!!

thanks
Christina

 

[Kathryn Jacobs]

Christina,
If you know that the presentation is ALWAYS going to be run on a computer
that has the full version of PPT installed, this can be done by linking the
action button to a macro instead of just an end show command. However, if
the presentation is ever going to be run using the Viewer, this won't work
because the Viewer doesn't support macros.

I think it is time to sit down and map out the paths through the
presentations and see if there is a simpler way to figure out where the
people using the presentations need to go. I am concerned with a couple of
different things:
1) The people using the presentations are expecting you to always know where
they came from and where they want to go when they end a specific show. This
is possible if you use VBA code to track the slides they go through, but it
doesn't sound like you want to get that complicated.
2) I am concerned that with this many links within a single file, you are
going to run out of link storage space. PPT only stores so many links before
it gets confused. See this PPT FAQ entry for more information:
Lost hyperlinks, hyperlinks link to wrong place, hyperlinks stop working
http://www.rdpslides.com/pptfaq/FAQ00401.htm

3) If each of your linked files are small enough, you won't run into the
link space problem. However, if you have lots of small files all linked
together the chance of getting lost grows with each file.

I would look at changing your presentation structure to a series of nested
menus. Then, you will have a better idea of where the user came from and
closing the current file won't get them lost as quickly.

Just my two cents.

--
Kathryn Jacobs, Microsoft PPT MVP
If this helped you, please take the time to rate the value of this post:
http://rate.affero.net/jacobskl/
Get PowerPoint answers at http://www.powerpointanswers.com
Cook anything outdoors with http://www.outdoorcook.com
Kathy is a trainer, writer, Girl Scout, and whatever else there is time for
I believe life is meant to be lived. But:
if we live without making a difference, it makes no difference that we lived

 

[Christina Crane]

Hi Kathryn

I have been running this presentation for two months (as I work on the draft
copies) and haven't had a link storage problem yet, and all the links go to
and from the right places when I've tested it, so I think it's OK. The
presentation will almost always run on an old version of PowerPoint, so it
sounds like I'm just going to have to suffer with this because it's probably
too much for me to learn before tomorrow morning, when I'm sending the final
version over to the client. (I should have thought about this problem
earlier...)

But I am about to start another, similarly complicated presentation, and
would like to begin it the best way possible... ie. nested menus. But I
don't know what they are. Is there somewhere that I can read about them?

thanks!
Christina

 

[Kathryn Jacobs]

Christina,
I hate to ask this, but how much older of a version will the presentation be
run on? The hyperlink problem is more likely to occur (in my experience) on
a computer running PPT 97 or PPT 2000 than on one running PPT 2003.

As to what a nested menu is, it is just a set of menus that work the person
watching the presentation can work through to get to exactly what they want
to know. For example:
Menu A has four items:
1
2
3
4
Each of those items is linked to a presentation with a slide that contains
the next level of menus (1..1, 1.2, 1.3, 1.4, 2.1, 2.2, etc.). Each of these
points to a presentation with another menu or the topic you wanted to read.
Continue this down until there is reasonably unique information on the
content slides.
This way, when you finish viewing a topic, the presentation closes and you
get back to the menu you started on. You can get to content from more than
one place in the menu list, but you always have a unique place to go to when
the topic presentation is done.

I don't know that I am explaining this right. Let us know if you need more
help.

--
Kathryn Jacobs, Microsoft PPT MVP
If this helped you, please take the time to rate the value of this post:
http://rate.affero.net/jacobskl/
Get PowerPoint answers at http://www.powerpointanswers.com
Cook anything outdoors with http://www.outdoorcook.com
Kathy is a trainer, writer, Girl Scout, and whatever else there is time for
I believe life is meant to be lived. But:
if we live without making a difference, it makes no difference that we lived

 

[Steve Rindsberg]

No, they weren't, and I've implemented Glenna's solution, which works
beautifully. But now when the show ends, the other linked presentations are
still open.

I have a button on each page in the linked presentations that goes to this
"home page" - that link is an action setting to that slide,

That's the problem ... that'll leave the linked presentation open.
If you make that an end show button ( psst -- CALL it "HOME", just don't tell
the users. We won't rat on you. <g>) you'll be ok, I think.



but what I need

 

[Steve Rindsberg]

Since you're running in PPT instead of the viewer, if macro security isn't an
issue, a macro might work ...

Try linking this to an action button:

Sub ShutEmDown()
Dim X as Long
For X = Presentations.Count to 1 Step -1
Presentations(X).Close
Next X
Application.Quit
End Sub

 

[PPTMagician]

Hi Christina,

You might want to refer to the tutorial on interactive
menus at this site:
http://www.awesomebackgrounds.com/powerpointtutorials.htm

HTH,
Glenna

 

[John Langhans [MSFT]]

[CRITICAL UPDATE - Anyone using Office 2003 should install the critical
update as soon as possible. From PowerPoint, choose "Help -> Check for
Updates".]

Hello,

PowerPoint doesn't provide the functionality ("end all shows except <home>
show and then go to slide <X> of the <home> show" action setting) that you
are looking for without resorting to VBA or add-ins.

If you (or anyone else reading this message) think that it's important that
PowerPoint provide this kind of functionality (without having to resort to
VBA or add-ins), don't forget to send your feedback (in YOUR OWN WORDS,
please) 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
Microsoft Corporation
Supportability Program Manager
Microsoft Office PowerPoint for Windows
Microsoft Office Picture Manager for Windows

For FAQ's, highlights and top issues, visit the Microsoft PowerPoint
support center at: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?pr=ppt
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