Hiding callouts when developing a custom animation

[Tom Jones]

This is proably a dumb question, but I am attempting to create a custom flow
animation where each new flow will have an explanatory callout (with the
previous disappering). However, I discovered that during design phase they
are cluttering up the screen and making it impossible to point them to the
proper spot.

Is there some way to manage this (i.e., making them "invisible" during
design, etc.)

 

[Rick Altman]

Tom, I can relate -- screen clutter is a pain in the mouse finger.

Therefore, what I do is create stages of the animation and at regular
intervals, switch to a new slide. The new slide appears with an invisible
transition -- i.e. it starts out looking exactly like the previous slide at
its finish. Now I can continue my animating without all of the junk that has
already left the game.

I could whip up an example for you if you needed...






--
Rick Altman

Author
Why Most PowerPoint Presentations Suck...and how you can make them better
www.betterppt.com

Host
The PowerPoint Live User Conference
Oct 28-31 | The French Quarter of New Orleans
www.powerpointlive.com

 

[Tom Jones]

That sounds like a good approach.

What I would think would be a cool idea is if they provided an ability to
layer objects and an ability to make a layer invisible/visble at design
time... and an ability to move objects between layers. That way the callouts
could be dropped into the invisible layer when completed, but appear as
expected when running the animation.

 

[Rick Altman]

I think that would be a fantastic idea. Many of us have been asking for true
layering support for years...




Rick A.

 

[Bill Dilworth]

Ummm? ... Rick, it's been on the last few conference CDs.

The PPTools Starter set Plus allows for layer control including setting a
layer to invisible. So, no, it isn't part of PowerPoint out-of-the-box, but
it is available via a third party add-in.

http://www.pptools.com/downloads.htm => Starter Set Plus (last link near the
bottom)


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

 

[Glen Millar]

Hi,

In addition to Bill's advice, this is now native to PowerPoint 2007. Format
tab, Selection Pane button.

Although, Steve thought of it first! <vbg>. The irony is I asked Steve to
build layer manager for PowerPoint Live, I think 2004! He did an awesome job
and I think it is also available in 2 of his applications.

--

Regards,
Glen Millar
Microsoft PPT MVP

Tutorials and PowerPoint animations at
the original www.pptworkbench.com
glen at pptworkbench dot com
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Please tell us your:
PowerPoint version
Windows version
Are you using VBA?
Anything else relevant?

 

[Rick Altman]

Sorry, should have been more specific -- we have been asking for *native
support* for years. And while V2007 is a step in the right direction, it
falls below what I would define as true layering support. Just my opinion...