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Institut Pendidikan Guru

Kampus Bahasa Antarabangsa,
Lembah Pantai, Kuala Lumpur

The Art of Powerpointing

Jabatan Teknologi Pendidikan

JTP/ IPG KBA/9/29/2010

I.

Creating Invisible Buttons

This module explains how to create a magical effect using invisible navigations within your
PowerPoint presentation.
Invisible buttons, also known as hotspots, make it easy to navigate to specific slides within your
PowerPoint presentation. These invisible buttons are great to use in classroom teaching situations
to add a little something special to a lesson.
Invisible buttons are AutoShapes with no fill and no line that have a hyperlink attached to them.
You use them for two purposes:
If you're navigating through the presentation, you may want your navigation to seem
invisible to create a magical effect. The button may be small or may cover the entire slide.
If viewers are navigating themselves, you may want them to be able to click anywhere on a
slide to execute the hyperlink.

To make a show using invisible buttons, first find a good

picture that has elements that you want to feature in your
PowerPoint show. For this exercise, the picture as shown will
be used.

Question: How Do I Make An Invisible Button in

PowerPoint?
Source: http://www.heirloompuzzlesforchildren.com/images/farmAnimals_2_3yr.jpg

You may create invisible buttons using action buttons. You can also make your invisible button as a
circle or other shape by using AutoShapes.
1.

Launch PowerPoint and start with a blank slide.

Insert the picture you plan to use and resize it. At
this time, you should have in mind the layout of your
slides and the number of slides you want these
invisible buttons to point to. Then, add enough
slides for the show. The picture above has twelve
animals, so you need to add twelve slides. You may
also need to add a slide each for an exercise, a quiz
and a summary.

The Layout of the slide

JTP/ IPG KBA/9/29/2010

2. To insert slides, click below the title slide on the slide panel. A blinking line will appear. Press
the Enter key and a slide is added. Adjust the layout for the title and content textbox
according to the picture above.
3. Next, click the slide. Then press and hold the Ctrl key while you tap the D key to copy and paste
the slide in one step. Create a total of 16 slides including the title slide.
4. Type the title for the first slide. Then, one at a time, type the name of each animal in the title
area of each slide to identify the content of the slide. For the picture above you may use animal
names. Dont forget to add in the slide for the exercise, quiz and summary. You will need these
titles to link your action buttons to the slides. When you have finished, go back to slide two and
identify where you want the first invisible button to be located. Well start off with the cat.
Method 1 - Creating Invisible Buttons
Using Action Buttons
1.

2.

3.

4.

5.
6.

Click the Insert Tab - In the

Illustrations area of the Insert tab you
will find a button named Shapes. Click
on the button to see a large list of
shapes. Action Buttons is at the
bottom row.
Select the blank button. the last one on
the row of action buttons. After selecting the button, your mouse cursor turns into a cross hair
shape.
Move the cursor about the top left part of the cat
picture. Click, keep the mouse button depressed, and
then drag down and to the right to drag the shape
over the entire animal. The button you have drawn will
cover the object, but it will not be invisible.
As soon as you let go of your mouse button an Action
Settings window pops up. None is the default
selection for a blank button. You must click in the
white circle to the left of Hyperlink to: then click in
the block where you see Next Slide.
Scroll down to Slide ...
Click on Slide ... a window pops up to allow you to
select the slide that you want to hyperlink to. That is
the reason that we added animal names in the title
area of the slides.

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Warning! The animal will be covered and you may not see any part of the animal. You must remember
what animal you selected to cover.
7. Choose the slide titled cat. Click OK
8. Next, click the Drawing Tools Tab. Click
Shape Outline. Choose No Outline.

9. Click Shape Fill next and click on Gradient, choose More

Gradients to get to the Format Shape as shown below.
Note: You may also get to the Format Shape via Shape Fill

Texture
More Textures.
10. Slide the Transparency slider to the right until the %
changes to 100%.
11. The action button is now transparent but it is linked to the slide titled cat.
12. Start your show by pressing the F5 key or the slide show button. Click on the cat to see if it is
linked to the cat slide.

JTP/ IPG KBA/9/29/2010

Method 2 - Use a Different Shape as Your Invisible Button

This method requires an extra few steps, because you need to first apply the Action Settings and
then change the color of the AutoShape to invisible.
1.

Click the Insert Tab - In the Illustrations area of the Insert tab you will find a button
named Shapes. Click on the button to see a large list of shapes. Choose circle in the Basic
Shapes category.

2.

Drag your mouse over the object you wish to link, in this case, well drag the circle over the
head of the horse.
3.
Repeat step 8 to 10.
4.
To apply Action Settings to the shape, click the Insert tab.
Then click on the Action button
. An Action Settings window pops up for you to
hyperlink to the slide titled horse. Repeat step 4 to 7 to create the hyperlink.
6. Start your show by pressing the F5 key or the slide show button. Click on the head of the
horse to see if it is linked to the slide titled horse.
7. Save your file as animal_farm.ppt
5.

Task: Create the invisible buttons for each of the parts of the other animals in the
picture that you will be using to link to in the slide show.

Can you create the textbox for the exercise, quiz and summary as shown on page one and
link to the respective slide?
Navigating through the presentation using invisible buttons.
To enable you to click anywhere on a slide to execute the hyperlink, you need to copy the farm
picture together with all the invisible buttons to the other
slides.
1.
2.

3.
4.
5.
6.

On the Home tab, click the Select button.

Move the cursor about the top left part of the picture.
Click, keep the mouse button depressed, and then drag down and to the right to drag the
shape over the entire picture and the three textbox below (Refer to the layout on page 1)
Next, click Copy on the Home tab.
On the slide panel, click on the slide where the farm picture and the textboxes are to be
pasted and click paste.
Continue this process until the farm picture and other textboxes have been pasted on all
the slides.
Start your show by pressing the F5 key or the slide show button. Click on the spot where
the invisible buttons have been placed (the cursor changes to the shape of a hand to
indicate the presence of a link) to see if it is linked to the respective slide.

JTP/ IPG KBA/9/29/2010

II.

Creating Type-On slides

This module explains how to prepare a PowerPoint show to accept information

typed /written onto the slide during the slide presentation.
A.

Using the PowerPoint pen

A pen tool is available for drawing on the screen with the mouse during the slide show.
1. Open PowerPoint: Animals. Go to slide 2.
2. Press CTRL+P. The pointer will change to a pen which allows you to draw/write freehand on the
screen using the mouse. (Or right-click the mouse button. A popup window will appear. Choose
pen to draw or highlighter to highlight a point)
3. Press the E key to erase all pen strokes.
4. Press CTRL+A to revert back to the pointer.
5. If you need a blank screen to work on during a presentation,
press the B or W keys. Press B or W again to return to the
presentation.
6. Press the A key to hide the pointer.
Task 1: Name the parts of a cat.
1. Open powerpoint : Animals. Go to slide 2.
2. Hold down the Ctrl key and press the P key and your arrow
pointer turns into a pen for drawing.
3. Draw an arrow to the cats eye and write out the name.
4. Underline the title: Parts of a cat with the highlighter.

B.
1.

Using the Control Toolbox

Click on the Office button and slide down to the bottom right of the window that opens and
then click on PowerPoint Options.

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2. When the PowerPoint Options window opens, click the Show Developer tab in the Ribbon and
then click on the OK button in the bottom right part of the window.

A new tab, Developer, is now on your ribbon. Click on the Developer tab to see the options available
there.

Many of these options require knowledge of Visual Basic for Applications (VBA), which we will NOT
be covering in this lesson. The following options, however, can be used without any knowledge of
VBA: Check Box, Text Box, and Option Button.
The Properties button allows you to edit your ActiveX objects. We
will use this option extensively. The View Code button will take you
to the VBA code screen. We will not be using this option.
If you accidentally end up on this screen, simply click on the
PowerPoint icon in the upper left to return to your regular
PowerPoint slide. (see screenshot)Click on the Categorized tab.
This will list options by Appearance, Behavior, Data, Font, Miscellaneous, and Scrolling.

JTP/ IPG KBA/9/29/2010

1. To change the background color of the text box, click on the BackColor
line in the Appearance section. An arrow will appear to the right. Click on
the arrow. A list will open showing various pre-set colors for Windows
system features. For more color options, click on the Palette tab.
2. Click on the BorderColor line to select your border color.
3. Click on ForeColor and select your desired font color.
4. In the Behavior section, find MultiLine. Click on this line and select True if
you want your text to "wrap" to the next line.
5. Click on TextAlign and select your desired alignment: 1=left, 2=centered,
3=right.
6. To adjust your font, click on Font. Instead of an arrow, three dots will
appear to the right. Click on these dots to open the font window. Select
your desired font, style, and size.
7. In the Misc section, you can adjust the height and width of the text box
object. This option is useful if you need more than one box to be the same
size. Create one that is the size you like (by dragging on the corners), and
then make note of its height and width numbers. Type in those numbers to
create subsequent text box objects that are the same size.
8. Press F5 to run this slide. You will be able to type in the text box object
you just created. When you exit the show, you will see the text you typed
on the editing slide.
9. In order to edit a text box object in editing mode, click on Edit: TextBox
Object: Edit. You will need to do this EACH time you wish to edit a text
box object in editing mode (as opposed to view mode).

JTP/ IPG KBA/9/29/2010

Task 2: Creating editable textbox Objects.

1. Open Powerpoint : Animals. Go to slide 2.
2. Click on the Text Box (ActiveX Control) button. The mouse cursor turns into
a crosshair, which is a drawing tool. Click and drag diagonally to draw a text
box large enough to type into.
3, For this drawing, four text boxes will be needed. Click the Home tab. Click
copy and then click paste 3 times or press and hold the Ctrl key while you
tap the D key three times. That action is like Copy and Paste in one step.
4. After you have the number of boxes you need,
click and drag them to the place where you want
them on the slide. Draw the arrows to indicate
the parts to be named.
5. Double click on the control button and in the
textbox properties box, click Categorized to
change the properties. Experiment with each
properties until you find one suited to your
class and the size of your text boxes.

6. Start your show by pressing the F5 key. Call students to the keyboard to label the cat , or
whatever assignment you have created using Type-On slides. If you post the slide show on your
school website and then open the show in a browser, the type-on capability is still there.

JTP/ IPG KBA/9/29/2010

III. Creating Animation Triggers

This module explains how to prepare an interctive quiz using animation triggers.
Triggers work in a similar way to hyperlinks. When the object (the trigger) -- whether text or
graphic on the page -- is clicked, an effect will happen, such as a sound being played or a new text
box appears.
Triggers can work well in a classroom setting. The teacher can create an interactive quiz so that
when the correct answer to a question is chosen, applause will sound or a congratulatory text box
will appear.
A. Create the question
1.

From the Insert tab, click on the textbox

icon.

2. Draw a textbox. Type in the number 1.

3. Click on the textbox border. Then press and
hold the Ctrl key while you tap the D key to
copy and paste the textbox in one step.
Replace the number 1 with Cats
eat____________.
4. Repeat step 3 to create another textbox and replace the text with A. grass.
5. In the same way, create another five textboxes : replace text in the first textbox with B. fish,
the second one with C. vegetables, the third with Good and the fourth and fifth with Try
Again. Arrange them as shown in the picture.

When the wrong answer is clicked : textbox A. grass and C. vegetables; a chime is heard and the
message Try again will appear. However, on clicking the correct answer B. fish, an applause sound is
heard and the message Well done will pop out.

B. Create the triggers

1.

Click the top Try again textbox. Then click the

Animation tab and choose custom animation.

2. When the custom animation box pops out on the

left panel of the slide, click Add Effect
Entrance and choose Blinds. You may also choose any
effect you fancy.

JTP/ IPG KBA/9/29/2010

3. The custom animation box will then appear.

Click on the down arrow and choose Timing.
4.

You will see the triggers at the bottom of

box. Click the button Start effect on click
of:

5. Open the down arrow and choose Textbox 5: A. grass.

Change the speed to 5 seconds (Very slow)

6. Next, click the EffectTab. Change the sound to

Chime and the after Animation to Hide After
Animation.

Now click on Slide Show and click on A. grass

to test out the animation effect.

7. To create the animation triggers for the answer

C. vegetables, click the second Try again
textbox and repeat step 2 to 6 except choose
Textbox C: vegetables at step 5.
8. To create the animation triggers for the correct answer B. fish, first click the Well done

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textbox. Repeat step 2 to 4. Refer to the diagram below for the rest of the steps.

9. Finally, click on Slide Show and test out the animation effect for question 1.

Task :
Create another question of your own with the appropriate animation triggers.

POWERPOINT TIPS AND TRICKS

Controlling slides in slide show
F5

Start Powerpoint Show

number+ENTER

Go to slide number

Toggle between black and unblack screen.

Toggle between white and unwhite screen.

CTRL+P

Change pointer to a pen.

Erase screen annotations.

ESC

Change pen back to pointer.

Other Useful Shortcuts

SHIFT+F3

Change the case of selected characters.

CTRL+Shift+G

Group objects.

CTRL+Shift+H

Ungroup objects.

CTRL+D

Copy and Paste objects in one go

CTRL+[

Decrease font size

CTRL+]

Increase font size

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