لطفا منتظر باشید ...
Creating Action Buttons
Action buttons are button-shaped AutoShapes that you can easily insert on slides for use as graphical hyperlinks. Many of them have default actions preassigned to them for added convenience. For example, the one that looks like a right-pointing arrow has a preassigned hyperlink that goes to the next slide in the presentation.The action buttons that come with PowerPoint are shown in Table 17-2, along with their preset hyperlinks. As you can see, some of them are ready to go; others require you to specify where they jump. You can change the hyperlink on any of the preset buttons, if desired.Button | Name | Default Hyperlink |
|---|---|---|
None | Nothing, by default. You can add text or fills to the button to create custom buttons. | |
Home | First slide in the presentation. (Home is where you get started, and it's a picture of a house, get it?) | |
Help | Nothing, by default, but you can point it toward a slide containing Help or a Help file from an application (usually has a .HLP extension). | |
Information | Nothing, by default, but you can point it to a slide or document containing information. | |
Back or Previous | Previous slide in the presentation (not necessarily the last slide viewed; compare to Return). | |
Forward or Next | Next slide in the presentation. | |
Beginning | First slide in the presentation. | |
End | Last slide in the presentation. | |
Return | Last slide viewed, regardless of normal order. This is useful to place on a hidden slide that the audience will jump to with another link-it will help them return to the main presentation when they are finished. | |
Document | Nothing, by default, but you can set it to run a program that you specify. | |
Sound | Plays a sound you specify. If you don't choose a sound, it plays the first sound on PowerPoint's list of standard sounds (Applause). | |
Movie | Nothing by default, but you can set it to play a movie that you specify. |
| Tip | At first glance it may seem like there would be little reason to use action buttons that simply move to the next or previous slide. After all, isn't it just as easy to use the keyboard shortcuts? Well yes, but if you use Kiosk mode, described later in the chapter, you cannot move from slide to slide using any of the conventional keyboard or mouse methods. The only thing the mouse can do is click on action buttons and hyperlinks. |
Placing an Action Button on a Slide
You can either place an action button on an individual slide or place it on the Slide Master (see Chapter 3). Some action buttons are well-suited to the Slide Master, such as Next and Previous; others, such as Return, are more for special individual use.To place an action button, choose Slide Show⇨Action Buttons. A palette of buttons appears, corresponding to the buttons from Table 17-2.
| Tip | You can drag the Action Buttons palette off the Slide Show menu, making it into a floating toolbar. |
Click the button you want to place. Your mouse pointer turns into a crosshair. Then, do one of the following:
Drag on the slide where you want the button to create a specific size.
Click once on the slide to place a button of a default size.
| Tip | If you are going to place several buttons and you want them all to be the same size, place each at the default size to begin with. Then, later you can select them as a group and resize. That way they will all be the same. |
After you place the button, the Action Settings dialog box appears with the Mouse Click tab on top (see Figure 17-7). Confirm or change the hyperlink set up there as described in the following and then click OK to finish up the button.
Figure 17-7: Check the action setting for the button and make a change if needed.
If the action button should display a slide, file, or Web page, make the appropriate selection from the Hyperlink to drop-down list (see Table 17-3).
Setting | Result |
|---|---|
Previous SlideNext SlideFirst SlideLast SlideLast Slide Viewed | These choices all do just what their names say. These are the default actions assigned to certain buttons you learned about in Table 17-2. |
End Show | Sets the button to stop the show when clicked. |
Custom Show ... | Opens a Link to Custom Show dialog box, where you can choose a custom show to jump to when the button is clicked. |
Slide ... | Opens a Hyperlink to Slide dialog box, where you can choose any slide in the current presentation to jump to when the button is clicked. |
URL... | Opens the Hyperlink to URL dialog box, where you can enter a Web address to jump to when the button is clicked. |
Other PowerPoint Presentation ... | Opens a Hyperlink to Other PowerPoint Presentation dialog box, where you can choose another PowerPoint presentation to display when the button is clicked. |
Other File ... | Opens a Hyperlink to Other File dialog box, where you can choose any file to open when the button is clicked. If the file requires a certain application, that application will open. (If you want to run an application without opening a specific data file, use the Run Program option instead of Hyperlink to.) |
If the action button should run a program, choose Run Program and enter the program's name and path, or click Browse to locate it. For example, to run Internet Explorer, the file would be iexplore.exe.
If the action button should play a sound, click None in the Action On Click section and mark the Play Sound checkbox. Then choose the sound from its drop-down list or choose Other Sound to select from a dialog box.
| Tip | You can also run macros with action buttons. This is not all that common, however, because most of the macros you record in PowerPoint are for building a presentation, not showing one. For example, you might have a macro that formats text in a certain way (see Chapter 19). You would almost never need to format text while a presentation was being shown to an audience. |
Try out an action button in Slide Show view after its creation to make sure it works as intended. You can reopen the Action Settings dialog box at any time by right-clicking the button and choosing Action Settings.
Inserting Text in a Blank Action Button
Action buttons are basically the same as AutoShapes, so you can add text to them just like with an AutoShape. In fact, that's the main purpose of the blank action button-to provide a clean slate in which you can type your own button text.To type text into a blank button, right-click it and choose Add Text, or just select it and start typing. An insertion point appears in it. Type your text, and format it as you would any other text. When finished, click outside the button.
Formatting an Action Button
Action buttons can have all the same types of formatting as AutoShapes (see Chapter 7). You can resize them, change their color, rotate them, and all the usual stuff.Most of the time if there is more than one action button on a slide you will want them all to have the same formatting. Select them all before applying any formatting changes to make it apply to them all as a group. Or, format one the way you want it and then use Format Painter to copy its formatting to the others.
Creating Your Own Action Buttons
You can create an action button out of any object on your slide-an AutoShape, a piece of clip art, a photograph, a text box-anything. To do so, just right-click the object and choose Action Settings. Then set it to Hyperlink to, Run Program, or Play Sound, just as you do when you are checking/changing the settings for a preset action button.Make sure you clearly label the object that you are using as an action button so that users will know what they are getting when they click it. You can add text to the object directly (for example, with an AutoShape) or add a text box next to it that explains its function. If you add a regular hyperlink to an item, you can use a ScreenTip with it.
