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I recently consulted with a friend who was preparing for an upcoming Zoom conference. Her client had asked for a rotating display of ads that would play while guests were settling in for the virtual meeting. She wanted an opening that would, with a single click, allow her to start the rest of her PowerPoint presentation – all without leaving Presentation mode. I thought, “Hey, everybody is going to want that!”
 

I immediately opened PowerPoint to start building the repeating ad loop and encountered some issues that caused the application to crash. So, I put on my investigator’s hat.
 
I work in PowerPoint all the time, so for me, the advantages of staying in PowerPoint to create the ad rotation were clear. Animation is relatively simple, and it’s easy to add transition effects between slides and make the slides repeat. Employing the “Rotate Slides” command along with adding transitions between slides may even make animation unnecessary.
 
Though PowerPoint allows you to rotate slides using the “Slide Show → Set Up Slide Show” command, it won’t let you transition to the rest of your (non-rotating) presentation. After several failed attempts, I discovered how to make it work: The secret is to combine the two presentations! It turned out to be easy, and I was excited that I could make it work on both Windows and Mac with slight variations.
 
Let’s break down how to add a rotating ad display to your presentation. I’m using PowerPoint 365 in the examples below.
 
ON MAC:

  1. Create a separate Ad Deck with only the ad slides.
  2. Add transitions and any animation effects.
  3. Choose “Slide Show → Slide Show Setup.”
  4. Check “Loop continuously until ESC.”
  5. Save the PowerPoint file.
  6. Place both PPT files in the same folder.
  7. Create a link on the first slide of the Presentation Deck. Right-click on a picture, object, or button that you’ve added to this slide. Select “Edit Hyperlink,” then choose “Web Page or File.” Choose “Select,” then navigate to the rotating Ad Deck file. Be sure not to break the link.
  8. To start the presentation, enter Presenter mode and click the link you created. The slides from the Ad Deck will continue to rotate until you hit ESC. Be sure to hit ESC only once to stay in Presenter mode. Now you can advance to the remaining presentation.

Windows offers more options for linking and embedding files. Windows PowerPoint allows you to drag and drop an existing PPT file into another slide in an open PPT file – the added PPT comes over as a smaller rectangle that you fit to size. Troy from TLC Creative taught me this trick. It was my favorite Windows solution.
 
ON WINDOWS: 

  1. Create a separate Ad Deck with only the ad slides.
  2. Add transitions and any animation effects.
  3. Choose “Slide Show → Slide Show Setup.”
  4. Check “Loop continuously until ESC.”
  5. Save the PowerPoint file.
  6. On your Presentation Deck (without the ads), add a blank slide at the beginning.
  7. With the Presentation Deck open, go to the file icon at the bottom of your desktop. Open your file view window, locate the Ad Deck file, then drag the file icon onto the blank slide you just added. This embeds the Ad Deck in your presentation. Alternatively, you can hyperlink the Ad Deck as shown in the Mac instructions above.
  8. To start your presentation, enter Presenter view and click the first slide. The slides from the Ad Deck will continue to rotate until you hit ESC. Be sure to hit ESC only once to stay in Presenter mode. Now you can advance to the remaining presentation.

Special thanks to the following PowerPoint gurus! Troy Chollar and Lori Chollar of TLC Creative and Camille Holden of Nuts and Bolts Speed Training.

Dazzle your clients with rotating ads in your next presentation!

Contact me to create engaging slides for your next virtual event.

Cindy Kalman | ONPoint Presentation

Cindy [at] ONPointPresentation [dot] com | www.onpointpresentation.com

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