PowertPoint was designed primarily by Foretought under the name Presenter. Efforts to build a good reputation from the development of this presentation software were unsuccessful, causing potential investors to change their intentions.
Eventually the company decided to sell Presenter and it was bought by Bill Gates and Microsoft, being released in 1987 as PowerPoint.
Novel Office Tools
Like all the other programs that make up the Office suite, over the years and with each update, PowerPoint has included newer tools to give personalization touches and greater creativity to presentations.
The action buttons in PowerPoint
On this occasion, you will be able to learn a little about action buttons and how to apply them to texts and images in your presentations .
Action buttons are a way to generate hyperlinks to another slide or object. The application of this tool is extremely useful when making self-executable presentations, that is, when the user slides the pointer or clicks on the button, a certain action will be performed.
How to insert action buttons
Inserting action buttons to a slide is an extremely simple procedure, but one that probably not everyone is familiar with. To start adding, you just have to follow these simple steps:
- Click on the ” Insert ” tab on the ribbon at the top of your screen.
- Click on the shapes section.
- An extensive menu will be displayed, where, at the end, you will find a list with the action buttons available to add to the slide .
Types of action buttons
Some of the buttons that you can see within the menu that has been discussed in the previous section, you can find the necessary ones to:
- Go back to the previous slide.
- Go to the next slide.
- Move to the last slide.
- Go back to the first slide.
- Information button.
- Video playback .
- Among others.
So, you will have several options to be able to add the buttons that you think are necessary and that suit the circumstances and conditions of your presentation.
Application process
The action buttons are also customizable , so you can create your own button based on an image or icon that you have seen on the internet and that you would like to use.
Once you have decided which button you need to use on your slide, just select it to start positioning it in the area of your preference. You can hold down the left click and drag the pointer to draw it and make it the size you want.
Determines the behavior of the button
After locating the action button, PowerPoint proceeds to present you with a configuration table, through which you can determine what action to execute and when to execute it .
In this sense, you have two tabs to determine the behavior of the button , that is, if you want to carry out an action when clicking or when hovering over the button.
Type of action
When you’ve established the button’s behavior, it’s time to determine the type of action you want to take. At this point you can:
- Take no action, in case you only want to keep the figure of the button.
- Establish a hyperlink, you can go to the end of the presentation, to a specific slide, to a URL, a file or another presentation.
- Run a program.
- Run a macro.
- Object action.
- Sound reproduction.
Use image as action button
If you are not convinced enough to use some of the action buttons that PowerPoint offers, don’t worry, as you could also use images .
- Insert the image you want , either from your gallery or from the online image tool.
- Select the image and go to the insert tab again.
- Click on the action button right next to the hyperlink button .
- In this way, the box explained above will appear again to determine the behavior of the button, as well as the action to be carried out.
