Newbie to Powerpoint question

[Phil66]

Ello all,
I am new to Powerpoint and basically diving in there and having a mess around. Though most of it appears pretty intuitive, there are a couple of things I would like to know. When I open a new slide there are two text boxes, the second one has the "play" symbol, (a triangle) which can be deleted, what is the purpose of this.

The other thing is, I have put text into the second text box, sometimes it is quite long, the slide goes on to the next slide as soon as the last letter appears. How can I control this? I have change the time in the little box where it says "Advance slide automatically after.." but that doesn't stop it advancing as soon as the text is complete.

Finally (for now lol) how do I save my presentation so I can give it to people and when they click on it, it will just play? At the moment, when I click on it I get the full editing interface.

Using Powerpoint 2003

Thanks so much for you help.

Cheers

Phil

[Kimberly]

I suspect you are in an existing file that has some non-default settings.
I suspect the "play symbol" is an arrow-shaped bullet for a bulleted list.
Regarding "as soon as the last letter appears", PowerPoint doesn't work that way. By default, a slide appears and then exits as the following slide appears. I believe you are working with a file or template that already has some animations and customizations set, or maybe you set them by accident.

Try clicking the New button and making a new file from scratch. I also recommend looking at any of the many free tutorials on the web.

Save the file as a PowerPoint Show (pps) to have it open into SlideShow view when the file is double-clicked.

[Phil66]

The file is a brand new one created by me using all defaults. I just clicked on "new". I have one slide that is a picture of an information board, that takes about a minute to read so I set that slide to advance after a minute and that works fine. What I can't seem to do is make text only slides to do the same. It pauses for a while after displaying the item in the first text box then displays the second text box with selected animation but disappears as soon as the animation has finished.

Any ideas?

Phil

[Kimberly]

It is the animation that you have selected or the settings for the animations.

[Phil66]

hmmm, could you give me a little bit of advice please?
I have just been looking and have come up with a work around. I noticed that if I use Eclipse Motion for the animation it only applies this to the Title text box and not the second text box, the second text box it just faded in, line by line. Other animations like Dissolve In are applied to both text boxes. Anyway, what I did was added three lines of dashes below the last text line to give people a bit more time to read it.

I have a lot to learn I guess. The reason I am starting to use Powerpoint is that I visit a lot of Stately homes here in England and I like to show the pictures to my mom as she doesn't get about too well. I thought rather than use the "view as a slideshow" option in the picture folder I could make a Powerpoint presentation so I could give some information on the batches of pictures, and individual pictures if they have some particular interest like "Henry VIII slept in this bed" or "Queen Victoria sat at this desk".

Cheers

Phil

[Kimberly]

Dissolve In is an animation scheme, which is a collection of animations for a slide. Animation schemes are always the whole slide.

Compare it to the Dissolve custom animation, which affects whatever object you have selected.

The reason your eclipse motion is affecting the Title is apparently it is what you had selected when you applied the effect.

You can edit the animation properties in the Custom Animation task pane.

[Phil66]

It's very strange. All I do is go to the animation list and click an animation, when I play the slide some have the animation on all the text and some only on the title text.

I don't get it.

Are there any good books out there? Maybe a "Powerpoint For Dummies"

Phil

[Kimberly]

Originally Posted by Phil66

It's very strange. All I do is go to the animation list and click an animation

You sort of lost me. Clicking on an existing animation doesn't do anything.

Originally Posted by Phil66

when I play the slide some have the animation on all the text and some only on the title text.

I don't get it.

You applied Dissolve In like this:
Slide Show > Animation Schemes > Dissolve In.
It is a set of effects, each of which shows up in the Playlist.

I also wonder if you are expecting it to animate the text in your graphic. It cannot do that.

Originally Posted by Phil66

Are there any good books out there? Maybe a "Powerpoint For Dummies"

yes, there are many good PowerPoint books, including a Dummies book.

[Phil66]

Originally Posted by Kimberly

You sort of lost me. Clicking on an existing animation doesn't do anything.

If I just select ones in the list, some apply the animation to all the text and some only to the title text. For example, Dissolve, dissolves all of the text whereas Eclipse motion only applies the animation to the text in the title box.

Originally Posted by Kimberly

You applied Dissolve In like this:
Slide Show > Animation Schemes > Dissolve In.
It is a set of effects, each of which shows up in the Playlist.

I also wonder if you are expecting it to animate the text in your graphic. It cannot do that.

It is applying the animation to the text in the slide.

Originally Posted by Kimberly

yes, there are many good PowerPoint books, including a Dummies book.

maybe I need that then

Cheers

Phil

[vivek]

hi all,

check this link http://vimageworld.blogspot.com/

regards,
vivek