return to previosu slide/emergency slide

[Peter Crem]

I have in the last two years done only two presentations for an awards
ceremony for my school (I say behind the screen running the powerpoint
presentation). The first time I made some terrible horrible mistakes (at
least to me).

1. I didn't have a 'pause' plan - eg. when I put a slide up showing a
picture for a particular person who was talking, they then moved on to talk
about other things, then people were asked on stage, and it went on and on
like this whilst the now irrelevant picture just sat there! I could click to
get rid of it because the next slide was for the next major section of the
presentation...

Solutions (?): This time around I have thought carefully about each slide
and whether it is likely a 'pause' like the above could occur. If I think it
might, I prepare an 'inbetween' slide that is generic enough to sit there
for the period of the pause, or is black. This does mean I have to click
twice if I need to get to the next slide. But its a better option than an
out dated slide.

2. I made a 'clapper'. OMG, why did I ever think of that. I decided to put
some cool looking animated clapping hands on the screen whenever the
audience would also be clapping say after a performance by the musical band.
OMG OMG. It worked well the first few times, but I didn't realise I was
teaching the audience a prescribed response! I was listening to the band
play, and then it all went silent. Someone started to clap, so quickly I
acted 'click'. Up came the clapping hands right on queue and the crowd began
clapping furiously....and the band kept on playing....

O M G. I quickly taped left to get rid of the dumb hands, and people quickly
relised band still playing. I was having a small fit behind the screen.

A bit shaken by that experience I was contemplating shutting the projector
down whilst I delete all the clapping hands and then resuming the display
(this would be ok, as i am an accompanyment and not an essential part of the
presentation. I didnt do that though, and the next time the hands came into
play, they were followed by a bloody NO. 1!! Pause pause pause, with stupid
bloody hands clapping away....

Solution: PLS dont ever make clapping hands for your own sake..lol

3. 1 and 2 made me think about emergency actions in powerpoint presentations
when you cant show at all that something has gone wrong....how can you get
away with it?

Solution: I thought of a few things. Press B to black the screen, but this
seemed too sudden to have the slide just vanish on screen or have nothing
displayed during the 'pause'

Having a slide at the very end and noting the number of the slide on a
piece of paper. If something goes wrong, or a No.1 pause arrived, use
powerpoints 'type in the number to go to a slide and press enter' feature to
skip to the last slide. Make that slide something generic.
Now, this is great for pauses, not so great for real emergencies when the
powerpoint presentation needs to be edited...which is disasterous but it
does the trick
On that last slide I put my generic display : something like 'Academic
awards ceremony HURRAH!' or something. But I make an invisible button
somewhere on the slide that has the hyperlink setting 'Return to last slide
viewed'

Which reminds me..did everyone know there *is* a return to last slide viewed
function, so you can jump to anywhere in the powerpoint and then return to
where you branched. I think it only works for one slide deep though. But
anyway, I just gather my wits whilst the emergency slide does its stuff..and
when I feel relaxed again, I just click the return button and proceed
furiously tapping through slides to catch up...heheh...oh ok, maybe I just
type in the number of the slide I want to return to. (better idea )

I am only beginning to use powerpoint and discover its features, so there
might be better solutions, but just though I'd share.

 

[TAJ Simmons]

Peter,

I prepare an 'inbetween' slide that is generic enough to sit there for the period of the pause

This is the way to go. The generic spacer slide. Probably best to keep it safe and just have the details of the event.

Another option is to have a "master" presentation. that calls up (links) to other presentations.

If you have the spacer slide as the first and last slide of any presentation that is called up, you then have a very
powerful way of skipping a whole presentation, or cutting to the end, when the presenter, realizing they have ran out of
time, decides not to talk about the last 10 slides. The solution...just press the 'End' key on the keyboard. Powerpoint
then shows the last slide in the linked presentation.... The result.... a seamless return to the spacer slide. Then on
with the next presenter.

See
http://www.powerpointbackgrounds.com/powerpointlinking.htm

Which reminds me..did everyone know there *is* a return to last slide viewed function, so you can jump to anywhere in
the powerpoint and then return to where you branched.

If you look up the "action settings" there is an "option to hyperlink to "last slide viewed"

Also using the linking method above, that also returns to the last slide viewed.


Powerpoint operator tip:

During a mad panic attack..... think to yourself... is it worse to keep that slide on the screen or worse to go to the
next slide. If in doub't drink more coffee.

Some Projectors have a "pause" button that freezes the image on the projected screen. This can be utilized to freeze the
projected image, while you manically change to the correct slide. Then un-pause/freeze the projector. The audience will
never know!

Cheers
TAJ Simmons
microsoft powerpoint mvp

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

 

[Adam Crowley]

Thank you for your entertaining post, Peter.
My first response would be don't panic...the audience isn't half as
sensitive to these things as you are. And if you're stressed you're more
likely to make mistakes.
My other responses are in-line below:

1. I didn't have a 'pause' plan - eg. when I put a slide up showing a
picture for a particular person who was talking, they then moved on to talk
about other things, then people were asked on stage, and it went on and on
like this whilst the now irrelevant picture just sat there! I could click to
get rid of it because the next slide was for the next major section of the
presentation...

Solutions (?): This time around I have thought carefully about each slide
and whether it is likely a 'pause' like the above could occur. If I think it
might, I prepare an 'inbetween' slide that is generic enough to sit there
for the period of the pause, or is black. This does mean I have to click
twice if I need to get to the next slide. But its a better option than an
out dated slide.

I do awards ceremonies regularly and find they tend to follow a pattern.
I would have a holding slide for the event which I'd put as a divider
between sections even if there's not likely to be much of a pause. As you
say it's better to quickly skip over a generic slide than to have an
irrelevant one on the screen.
More usefully, though, could you not persuade the presenters to have a
little rehearsal? That way you could learn more about how they're likely to
run the show.

2. I made a 'clapper'. OMG, why did I ever think of that. I decided to put
some cool looking animated clapping hands on the screen whenever the
audience would also be clapping say after a performance by the musical band.
OMG OMG. It worked well the first few times, but I didn't realise I was
teaching the audience a prescribed response! I was listening to the band
play, and then it all went silent. Someone started to clap, so quickly I
acted 'click'. Up came the clapping hands right on queue and the crowd began
clapping furiously....and the band kept on playing....

O M G. I quickly taped left to get rid of the dumb hands, and people quickly
relised band still playing. I was having a small fit behind the screen.

A bit shaken by that experience I was contemplating shutting the projector
down whilst I delete all the clapping hands and then resuming the display
(this would be ok, as i am an accompanyment and not an essential part of the
presentation. I didnt do that though, and the next time the hands came into
play, they were followed by a bloody NO. 1!! Pause pause pause, with stupid
bloody hands clapping away....

Solution: PLS dont ever make clapping hands for your own sake..lol

This one made me giggle. Never try to upstage the presenter/performer.
Accept that your slides are supporting material and never more important
than what's happening on stage.
Oh, and never shut down a projector in the middle of a show - if there's a
freeze button use that, otherwise just cover the lens with a piece of card.
If you switch off you need to let the bulb cool down before switching back
on again and by that time your audience is probably in the bar.

3. 1 and 2 made me think about emergency actions in powerpoint presentations
when you cant show at all that something has gone wrong....how can you get
away with it?

Solution: I thought of a few things. Press B to black the screen, but this
seemed too sudden to have the slide just vanish on screen or have nothing
displayed during the 'pause'

Having a slide at the very end and noting the number of the slide on a
piece of paper. If something goes wrong, or a No.1 pause arrived, use
powerpoints 'type in the number to go to a slide and press enter' feature to
skip to the last slide. Make that slide something generic.
Now, this is great for pauses, not so great for real emergencies when the
powerpoint presentation needs to be edited...which is disasterous but it
does the trick
On that last slide I put my generic display : something like 'Academic
awards ceremony HURRAH!' or something. But I make an invisible button
somewhere on the slide that has the hyperlink setting 'Return to last slide
viewed'

Pressing the END key takes you to the end so you don't need to know the
slide number.

If you have a dual display set up a handy thing to do is set your desktop
wallpaper to your holding slide. That way, if you're set to display the
show on Monitor 2, when you escape the show the projector shows the extended
desktop (holding slide) while you make changes on Monitor 1.

 

[Steve Rindsberg]

Solutions (?): This time around I have thought carefully about each slide

and whether it is likely a 'pause' like the above could occur. If I think it
might, I prepare an 'inbetween' slide that is generic enough to sit there
for the period of the pause, or is black. This does mean I have to click
twice if I need to get to the next slide. But its a better option than an
out dated slide.

A couple other possibilities to add to Adam's suggestion:

1) Press B to go to black instantly (or W if you like White better). Press
again to return to the slide you were on.

2) Put a generic slide at the end of the presentation and memorize its slide
number. At need, press its number then ENTER and PPT takes you there. Press
the number of the slide you came from and ENTER to return. Or better yet:

3) On the master slide(s) make a shape with a link to the last slide in the
presentation. On the last slide, make a shape with an action setting to
"Previously viewed slide". Click the Last Slide link to go to the generic
slide, click the link there to go back to wherever you were before. No need to
memorize any numbers that way.