The problem: If you create a timed presentation that automatically advanced after a certain number of seconds — usually done in a kiosk situation where viewers view the presentation on their own — and include hyperlinks to allow viewers to review the presentation, after they click a hyperlink to go backwards, the presentation stops advancing. Or animation doesn’t work/a sound doesn’t play the second time a slide is displayed.
Apparently, PowerPoint was designed so that if you hyperlink backwards to a slide that you’ve already viewed, automatic timing stops and animation/sounds don’t play.
The workaround: Create duplicates of each slide. Then set the timing for the first copy of each slide to 00:00. Because it’s an exact duplicate of the following slide, you don’t notice the duplication at all. (You might think that you wouldn’t see any slide set for 00:00 timing, but you actually see it for a split second, so if the slide is not an exact duplicate of the next slide, you’ll notice it.) Then hyperlink to the first slide of each pair of duplicates.
I found that the easiest way to do this is the following:
- Complete the presentation, including the timings.
- Click each slide (in the outline pane on the Slides tab or in slide sorter view). Press Ctrl+C to copy it, and immediately press Ctrl+V to paste it. You get a copy right after the original slide.
- Select the first copy of each slide, choose Slide Show>Slide Transition, and change the timing to 00:00.
- If you have added sound to any slide, remove the sound icon from the first copy of each slide (the 00:00 ones). You wouldn’t want the sound to start to play twice.
- Create the hyperlinks. You can copy and paste them throughout the presentation. What’s important is that the hyperlinks link to the first copy of each slide, the one set for 00:00. Because it has no timing, PowerPoint won’t stop the timing when you hyperlink back to it.
- If you use Action Buttons, set them for hyperlinks. Instead of setting them to Previous Slide or Next Slide, in the Hyperlink To drop-down list of the Action Settings dialog box, scroll down to Slide. Then choose the first copy of the previous or next slide.
If you later change a slide, be sure to delete its copy, copy and paste again to duplicate it, and change the first one’s timing.
If you use the Slide Numbering feature to number the slides, the numbers won’t be correct; instead you need to manually add text to indicate the slide numbers.
Thank you so much for publishing this helpful article. I’ve been going crazy trying to figure out how to get a video to play automatically more than once in a kiosk mode and this fixed it! You are a life saver, our tradeshow is in two weeks and I can check this off of my list!
Hello Ellen, I’m trying to create a kiosk pp that will continuously loop through 12 slides (each showing a “Product Of the Month”). If the viewer wants further details on a particular month’s product they would click on the slide for that month and be linked to another pp, or to a custom slide show in the same pp. When the detailed pp or slide show ends they will be linked automatically (without clicking or hovering) back to their original spot (one of the first 12 slides). So, the pp will loop through Jan-Dec and repeat this until a month… Read more »
Frank,
Custom shows let you go back to the place where you started, although I haven’t tried it with automatic timing.
See if this helps:http://www.ellenfinkelstein.com/pptblog/add-flexibility-with-custom-shows/
You are a life saver, just as you have said, many thanks.
Hello Ellen. I am putting together a PowerPoint 2013 for training handicapped children. Each slide has a wav file that describes the current slide. The hyperlink function works well to play the wav file again when navigating back to the slide but requires clicking on an object to function properly. Is there any way to make a wav file play automatically every time a slide is shown if the back arrow is used to navigate to the slide without clicking on an object. I have limited experience with VBA for excel but zero knowledge of VBA for PowerPoint. I have… Read more »
This is the usual solution to that problem: http://www.ellenfinkelstein.com/pptblog/create-hyperlinks-in-a-timed-presentation/
You can also try attaching the WAV file to the transition instead of inserting it on the slide. When you add a transition, you can choose a sound.
Hello Ellen,
Thank you for your quick response. I appreciate your suggestions and I had tried both of those solutions. Each works as long as I am navigating forward in the Slide Show. The problem occurs if the arrow keys are used to navigate backward through the show. It was suggested to associate playing the file with a page turn so I’m trying to track down how to do that.
Thanks Again,
Tim
Tim,
That page turn is a transition. So I don’t se why you couldn’t ddo it with any transition. I just tried it with 3 slides and the Fall Over transition (in 2013) and the wind sound. It works when I use the left arrow to go back. I hear that annoying sound every time.
Dear Sir,
How hyperlink will works slideshow in powerpoint presentation with out clicking the link (it will automatically should run ) what is the steps ?
urgent requirement
Question … When I run the slide show to record/set timing, and preview it, the audio playback is just how I want. When I export to video, the audio is overlapping on one slide ie/ I set it to finish after 3 slides but it is running for 4.
I figure this has to be something that happens when I generate the video that is not present in the playback or preview.
Any thoughts on what that setting might be?
Thanks for your consideration.
I haven’t seen this myself. What happens if you set it to finish after 3 slides?
There are settings when you export to video and you can play around with those.
Did you clip the audio in PowerPoint? If so, I’d try clipping it outside PowerPoint (I use Audacity) and importing it again at just the length you want. I have heard of problems with clipped videos.
Thanks! I think your advice to use Audacity is spot on. Looks like I’ll have better editing options for the audio.
Appreciated!