How to Evaluate Button Selection in Powerpoint

Evaluate PowerPoint button clicks to create interactive documents.

Adding buttons to PowerPoint allows you to provide interactive controls for your viewers. Evaluating the button selection involves modifying the action settings to reflect subsequent actions such as going to the next slide, previous slide or another slide in your presentation. You can also run programs, macros or play sounds. Assigning an action to occur depending on whether someone clicks their mouse or mouses over the button is a relatively easy that enhances your presentation's navigation.

Things You'll Need

• PowerPoint 2007

Instructions

1. Open your PowerPoint file. Add a button by clicking the "Shapes" button in the "Illustrations" group of the "Insert" tab. Under the "Actions Buttons" section click the button you want to add. Click on the slide and drag your mouse to draw the button.

2. Evaluate the button selection by selecting either the "Mouse Click" tab or the "Mouse Over" tab of the "Action Settings" dialog box. To specify a hyperlink, click the "Hyperlink to" toggle button and then type the destination, such as the "Next Slide" option. You can also select the "URL" option and enter a website address or select the "Other File..." option and select a file. To run a program, click the "Run program" toggle button and choose a program to run. If your presentation contains a macro (set of actions completed to perform a task, recorded in the Visual Basic for Applications Programming Language,) you can click the "Run macro" toggle button and choose the macro. To play a sound, click the "Play sound" check box and select the sound you want to play. Click the "OK" button.

3. To test your slide, from the "Start Slide Show" group on the "Slide Show" tab, click the "From Beginning" button. Ensure that the button evaluation performs the correct action.

4. Save your file by clicking the "Microsoft Office" button and then choosing the "Save" option. Choose the "PowerPoint Show" option to ensure that each time the file is opened, it opens in slide show mode so that users can interact with the button and button evaluation leads users to the correct location.

References

• Microsoft: Assign an action to a built-in button or picture