There is an awesome feature in PPT 2010 that lets you hide certain objects when working with shapes. This feature is not available in 2003 but there are many other features not available in 2010 that I use in 2003. So my question is this.



Could we possibly recreate the hide feature with a macro. I was thinking that after the user has selected all objects the macro could record the size and position on the slide and then it could shrink them down and pull them off of the slide temporarily. Once the user is done editing the macro would be able to take the hidden objects back to the original recorded size and then to the original position on the slide.

I really dont know enough about VBA to make this work and it would most likely require 2 macros 1 to record the size, position, and move them off the slide. And another to put them back with the original size and position.

Any ideas?

There's no need to resize. Just set the visible property to false (or True to show again)

eg

ActivePresentation.Slides(1).Shapes(3).Visible=Fal se

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Microsoft PowerPoint MVP 2007-2023
Free Advanced PowerPoint Tips and Tutorials

Thanks
This is pretty awesome since I had no idea it would be this easy. Only problem is it is just working with 1 auto shape. I tried changing the code to selection and it still only lets me hide 1 shape at a time. Any thoughts?

Got it. I just needed a little help from good ol John Wilson.

Here is what works. Incredible Ive never been so happy to have these tools available

Sub hide()
ActiveWindow.Selection.ShapeRange.Visible = False

End Sub

Sub unhide()
ActiveWindow.Selection.ShapeRange.Visible = true

End Sub

We are actually working on a "Selection Pane" AddIn for 2003 at the moment. It will create a list of all shapes on the slide and allow you to hide / show instantly by checking a check box and rename them. If you would like to be a tester drop me a line (go to PPTAlchemy and use the contact page.)

Should be out for testing in a couple of weeks.

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what code would I use to unhide all of the shapes that I hid. I tried

ActiveWindow.Selection.SlideRange.Shapes.SelectAll
ActiveWindow.Selection.ShapeRange.visible=true

but it keeps on hating the select all command.

Dim osld As Slide
Set osld = ActivePresentation.Slides(1)'or whatever
osld.Shapes.Range.Visible = False

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Thanks again John,

How do I get this code to work for the current slide?

Nevermind I got it to work. Much more simple than I thought

Sub unhide()
ActiveWindow.Selection.SlideRange.Shapes.SelectAll
With ActiveWindow.Selection.ShapeRange
.Visible = msoTrue
End With
ActiveWindow.Selection.Unselect
End Sub

Thanks again John

Glad you got it working.

I always try to avoid selection

Sub show_all()
Dim osld As Slide
For Each osld In ActivePresentation.Slides
osld.Shapes.Range.Visible = True
Next
End Sub

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Microsoft PowerPoint MVP 2007-2023
Free Advanced PowerPoint Tips and Tutorials