Marking Slides for Easy Removal in PowerPoint
February 29, 2024 8:25 AM Subscribe
I am combining several PowerPoint presentations together into one. These presentations cover one machine with several different combinations of widgets. Some machines have A widget and others have B widget, some have both, some have none. I will not be giving these presentations. Is there any way to mark the slides about these widgets in the slides pane so the presenter will know that these slides can be removed if they're not in that particular configuration? Add a border, shading, something? I'd prefer not to add anything to the actual slides.
You can create multiple custom slide shows from the same deck in PowerPoint. Build all the slides, then go to Slide Show and select Custom Slide show. Create a new one, name it appropriately, and select which slides should be included in that version. Create as many slide shows as there are versions, and you should be all set.
The caveat being that your presenters have to actually run the deck as a slide show (not just sharing the PowerPoint editing screen) and cannot run the deck using the "From Beginning" option. They have to go to Custom Slide Show and select the version to present.
posted by misskaz at 8:39 AM on February 29 [8 favorites]
The caveat being that your presenters have to actually run the deck as a slide show (not just sharing the PowerPoint editing screen) and cannot run the deck using the "From Beginning" option. They have to go to Custom Slide Show and select the version to present.
posted by misskaz at 8:39 AM on February 29 [8 favorites]
Best answer: If you don't want to add anything to the slides then I'd just add a comment that calls out the decision they need to make on the slides in question. As the presenters scroll through the slides in prep it will pop out and they determine whether they need to keep or delete.
That said, what I've most often seen to add a big coloured box to the slides with a "Delete if not A widget" because people will actually pay attention to that.
posted by machine at 8:41 AM on February 29 [4 favorites]
That said, what I've most often seen to add a big coloured box to the slides with a "Delete if not A widget" because people will actually pay attention to that.
posted by machine at 8:41 AM on February 29 [4 favorites]
You can use sections to organize your slides. You can put notes in the section title.
posted by shock muppet at 11:42 AM on February 29 [2 favorites]
posted by shock muppet at 11:42 AM on February 29 [2 favorites]
The simplest way would be to just have different slide decks depending on what widget/s is/are fitted, but it seems that's where you're starting from so maybe not.
Otherwise, hiding all the optional slides and giving instructions on how to show the ones needed would work best. Putting instructions in the speaker notes would be less effective, as people are likely to just run the slide show as is and skip over the ones they don't want or just get confused about why they're there. Forcing them to actually select the correct slides seems less problematic, although I still think separate decks for each option would be best (obviously, any change means you have to make the change in multiple files).
My experience with this sort of thing is that whatever is the path of least effort will be followed, so expecting people to modify the slide deck in any way (lots of people are scared of PowerPoint) may not get the results you seek.
posted by dg at 10:22 PM on March 3
Otherwise, hiding all the optional slides and giving instructions on how to show the ones needed would work best. Putting instructions in the speaker notes would be less effective, as people are likely to just run the slide show as is and skip over the ones they don't want or just get confused about why they're there. Forcing them to actually select the correct slides seems less problematic, although I still think separate decks for each option would be best (obviously, any change means you have to make the change in multiple files).
My experience with this sort of thing is that whatever is the path of least effort will be followed, so expecting people to modify the slide deck in any way (lots of people are scared of PowerPoint) may not get the results you seek.
posted by dg at 10:22 PM on March 3
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posted by equipoise at 8:39 AM on February 29 [1 favorite]