Last week, I asked you to troubleshoot a looping introduction that fails to stop when expected. Specifically, I referred you to Add a looping introduction to a PowerPoint presentation. In a nutshell, this technique cycles through a subset of slides before the presentation actually begins. A quick click on a hidden action button is the gateway into the actual presentation. But, after applying this technique, one of your users complains that the introductory slides continue to loop-it just isn’t working as expected.
I came up with three possible looping pitfalls:
- When linking the action button to the first slide in the presentation, the user chose the first slide in the introduction by mistake.
- The user forgot where the hidden action button is and is clicking the wrong spot.
- The user doesn’t understand how to use the hidden action button and doesn’t realize she must actually click on the hidden button-she thinks a simple click anywhere will get the job done.
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Jkalhorn suggested selecting the first slide in the presentation and pressing [F5]. First, you’d have to press [Esc] to break the loop and proceed, but it doesn’t fix the problem. Dcsloan128 suggested that the user set the action button to choose the next slide. In this case, PowerPoint would proceed to the next slide in the looping introduction. It’s an honest mistake and a valid troubleshooting response. (I wish I’d thought of it!)
Thanks Jkalhorn and Dcsloan128 for playing along!
