Create invisible hyperlinks on your PowerPoint slides

Hyperlinks make it easy to jump from one place to another when you’re delivering a slide show. But as Figure A shows, PowerPoint formats link text differently from the rest of your slide text. If you find the difference distracting, most likely your audience will too.

Figure A

Eliminate that distraction as follows:

1. Enter the text you want to link.
2. Select the Rectangle button on the Drawing toolbar and create an AutoShape that covers just the text (Figure B). Don’t make it too large. (In PowerPoint 2007, choose a shape from the Illustrations group on the Insert tab.)

Figure B

1. Select the AutoShape and click the Insert Hyperlink button on the Standard toolbar. (In PowerPoint 2007, you’ll find Hyperlink in the Links group on the Insert menu.)
2. When PowerPoint opens the dialog box shown in Figure C, enter the hyperlink in the Address text box and then click OK.

Figure C

1. Right-click the AutoShape and choose Format AutoShape. Set the fill color to No Fill and the line color to No Line and click OK.

As you can see in Figure D, the invisible AutoShape is really the link and not the text.

Figure D