Action button settings in PowerPoint

The screen cam above uses iShowU with commentary recorded directly using the built in microphone on the iBook. I use the 640 by 480 screen setting and set the iShowU preferences to scale the video to 50%. Sound was recorded in default 44.1KHz sampling. The resulting QuickTime movie is around 6Mb in size. I’m just waiting for YouTube to complete processing the video to see if the ‘lag’ between sound and images is still there as it was last time I used the iBook to produce a QuickTime from a Keynote presentation. It isn’t, so I shall stick to iShowU for future screen casts.


The script was a series of actions…

  1. Start PowerPoint with a blank slide
  2. Add a basic shape and add a text label to the shape
  3. Copy the shape, then click on the slide to unselect the shape, and then paste the button and reposition. Alter the label on the second button.
  4. Add an information slide about sheep
  5. Copy and paste the slide and alter the text to suit the goats
  6. Switch back to first slide and right click over button. Select Action Settings and make link to slide 2
  7. Repeat operation on the Goats button for slide 3, pointing out that it is the Action Settings and not the Hyperlink menu item, although we are hyperlinking slides…
  8. Switch to the second Sheep slide and add an Action Button to provide a link home. Note how action buttons bring up the Action Settings menu automatically. Accept the default of ‘link to first slide’
  9. Copy the Home button to the second information slide (Goats)
  10. Recap: now we have links to and back from two information slides
  11. Add a fourth slide for a glossary: Add some text to the slide. Add a ‘Back’ action button, and set the Action Setting to ‘last viewed slide’
  12. Switch to the second slide, and highlight a piece of text. Right click over the text and select Action Settings when the menu appears. Select Hyperlink To… and slide 4
  13. Repeat for the third slide
  14. Save changes
  15. Switch off mouse and spacebar by selecting Set Up Show from the Slide Show menu and select Kiosk as the format of the show
  16. Right Click over a blank section of a slide and select Transition Settings. Untick the ‘On Mouse Click’ and Apply to All
  17. Save changes and test out the links in presentation mode

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