Lesson 3: How to Create Links, Transitions and Print
Links to Word and Excel Files
Here’s the situation. You’re in a company meeting giving a nice presentation regarding sales figures when an audience member asks for proof of your calculations. They would like to see the calculations you have stored in an Excel file. Another audience member wants a quick glance at the sales figures report you have worked so diligently on all quarter.
To prove that you have these additional materials you could let them know you will show them later or email the files to them. However, you can impress them by providing these items right on the spot. You can create several links in your presentation and use some, all or none of them. Links can be present, but do not always have to be used.
Another situation you encounter is that you are a schoolteacher and you would like to create a portfolio of essays written by your students. Your principal would like to see what you have been working on all semester. Rather than emailing the essays to your principal, you can create a quick PowerPoint presentation filled with links to each student’s work. You may also find this useful for parents’ night or any oral presentations by the students.
In both cases, you need to create links within your presentation to external Microsoft Word and Microsoft Excel files. You can create links to other types of files, but we will focus on the basics of Word and Excel.
Open a slide that contains a text box. Click once on the text box to make it active. You must have the text box active or the “Hyperlink” option will not be available. (It will be grayed out.)
To insert a link to a Word file do the following steps:
1.) Open the “Insert” menu and select “Hyperlink”.
2.) The “Insert Hyperlink” window will appear. We will be working with this window for the rest of this lesson. It contains several link features.
3.) On the left hand side, verify that the option “Choose Existing File or Web page” icon is pressed down. Many times it will automatically be selected.
4.) On the right hand side you will see “Browse for:”. Hit the “File” button below it.
5.) Browse your computer for the name of the word file you would like to link to. Click “OK”.
6.) The name of your word file will appear in the “Type the file or web page name” text box.
7.) At the top there is a “Text to display” textbox. By default your filename will appear in this text box. However, this is the text that will actually display in your presentation so you’ll probably want to change it to “Sales Figures Report” or text that pertains to the slide in which it resides.
8.) You also have a “Screen Tip” button. Click on this button and it prompts you for a line of text. This text will appear when you hover the mouse over your link for a few moments. It is additional text that you may or may not need.
9.) Click “OK” and the Insert Hyperlink window will close.
Test your hyperlink:
The link should now be displayed on your slide with a line under it. To test to see if the link works correctly, you must first save your presentation. Then you can right click on the link and select “Open”. Your word file should open up in a separate window. We’ll talk about how to open it during the actual slide show in a later lesson.
Edit your hyperlink:
You can always edit your hyperlink. Right click on the link and select “Hyperlink”. Then select “Edit Hyperlink”. The Edit Hyperlink window (same as the Insert Hyperlink) window will open and you can modify your hyperlink. Click “OK” to view the changes.
To insert a link to an Excel file do the following steps:
Follow the same steps as you did for the Word file. Except when you browse for the file, browse for your Excel file.
Links to Internet Websites and Email
With the extensive use of Internet websites today, you will most likely refer to websites during your presentation. Perhaps you have a list of resources and a bibliography which contain a website(s). Instead of just providing the website address, you can actually create a direct link to the website. This is useful not only during a presentation, but when a user is perusing through your presentation on their own.
Along the same lines you might want to provide contact information in your presentation such as an email address. Instead of just displaying the email address you can create an Email link. This link will open up in the user’s email software program with the specified email address in the “To:” field.
It takes just a few simple steps to create links to Internet Websites and email addresses. Open a slide that contains a text box. Make the text box active. Remember a text box must be active in order to use the “hyperlink” option.
How to create a link to an Internet Website
1.) Open the “Insert” menu and select “Hyperlink”. The Insert Hyperlink window will appear.
2.) Verify that the “Existing File or Web Page” option is pressed down on the left hand side.
3.) In the middle there is a text box under “Type the File or Web Page Name”. If you already know the website address you wish to use, you can type it directly into this box. For example, if you want your link to go to the Suite101.com website, you would type in http://www.suite101.com
However, maybe you want to link to a specific page within the Suite101.com website, but you can’t remember the website address. You can browse for the website by clicking on the “Web Page” button under “Browse for:” This will open up your Internet browser (IE Explorer, Netscape, etc..) The website address of whatever website you browse to will automatically appear in the “Type the File or Web Page Name” text box.
Note: It can take a few moments for this text box to update when you are browsing for your website address.
4.) The website address you choose will automatically appear in the “Text to Display” text box. Once again, this text shows exactly what will be displayed in the presentation. You can change this to anything you like. For example, if your link was to http://www.amazon.com, you could change the display text to just say “Amazon”.
5.) Click “OK” and your link will appear. You can test the link by saving your presentation. Then right click on the link and select “Open”. It should open up your web browser and go to the specified web address.
How to create an Email link
1.) Open the “Insert” menu and select “Hyperlink”.
2.) The Insert Hyperlink window will appear. On the left hand side, click on the “E-mail address” icon. This will change the appearance of the Insert Hyperlink window.
3.) Under e-mail address, type in the desired e-mail address. You can even specify a “Subject” line or leave it blank. When a user clicks on this e-mail link it will automatically be addressed to the specified e-mail address and subject line.
4.) You can change the “Text to Display” in the same manner as the other links.
Note:When you type in the email address it will automatically be preceded by mailto:. This is how the computer determines that it is an email link.
