Place holders with effects in powerpoint

[Michelle]

Okay, here's my scenario.

I have a powerpoint that I created last year for our school's 5th Grade
Recognition. I spent a TON of time arranging the photos, adding color
frames, shadow effects, etc. What I'd like to do is to go into the previous
powerpoint and simply edit to update for this year. I'd like to delete all
of the photos, but replace them with a placeholder that can retain the
effects (frames, shadow effects, etc.). Then, when I have the new photos
for this year's students, simply paste them in where a place holder is.
That way, there's no risk of accidentally leaving in an old photo from last
year.

Can you delete a photo without deleting all of the effects--such as
replacing the photo with a blank place holder of some sort?

I'm not sure if this makes sense. Basically, I'd like to recycle most of my
work from last year, but I want to delete all of the photos first (only the
photos, not the effects) so that I don't miss deleting/replacing any of the
ones from last year as I add in the ones from this year.

 

[David M. Marcovitz]

A couple of thoughts come to mind.

(1) You could create rectangles on each slide and then format the shape,
select fill effects, and insert a picture as the background of the shape.
This seems like a lot of work, but once you do this, I think (you should
test it before doing the work) any effects you set up for the shape
should remain even if you select a different picture.

(2) You could save the PowerPoint as a Web Page. This will remove all the
pictures into a separate folder. You could then replace those pictures
with other pictures (make sure the pictures are the same size as the
originals and have the same names). Then you can open the Web page back
in PowerPoint, and it should work. This should be pretty easy to do if
all your pictures are one size, but it will be a major hassle if they are
not.

(3) I'm sure there is a VBA solution to this, but someone would have to
write it for you. In theory, VBA could find a picture in your
presentation, find the size of the picture, delete the picture, and get a
new picture and resize it. However, this coding would take an expert a
bit of time to get just right.

--David

--
David M. Marcovitz
Microsoft PowerPoint MVP
Director of Graduate Programs in Educational Technology
Loyola College in Maryland
Author of _Powerful PowerPoint for Educators_
http://www.PowerfulPowerPoint.com/

 

[Michelle]

Thanks for your thoughts. #2 probably won't work for me, because the
pictures are not the same size--and definitely wouldn't have the same names.
I'll try to play around with thought #1 when I have a chance to see if this
will work. Thanks for the ideas.

 

[Jim Gordon MVP]

Hi Michelle,

Yet another way is to link to the picture files instead of embedding them,
which is the default.

If you insert a picture from a file one of the options is to link. If the
new pictures have the same file names and locations as the old ones then the
new ones will automatically be displayed when the presentation is run.

-Jim Gordon
Mac MVP

Okay, here's my scenario.

I have a powerpoint that I created last year for our school's 5th Grade
Recognition. I spent a TON of time arranging the photos, adding color
frames, shadow effects, etc. What I'd like to do is to go into the previous
powerpoint and simply edit to update for this year. I'd like to delete all
of the photos, but replace them with a placeholder that can retain the
effects (frames, shadow effects, etc.). Then, when I have the new photos
for this year's students, simply paste them in where a place holder is.
That way, there's no risk of accidentally leaving in an old photo from last
year.

Can you delete a photo without deleting all of the effects--such as
replacing the photo with a blank place holder of some sort?

I'm not sure if this makes sense. Basically, I'd like to recycle most of my
work from last year, but I want to delete all of the photos first (only the
photos, not the effects) so that I don't miss deleting/replacing any of the
ones from last year as I add in the ones from this year.

--
Jim Gordon
Mac MVP

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