Search functionality in PowerPoint 2003 PPS

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Guest

I'd like to give my viewers the option to search for a word, document, title,
etc. from the main page instead of having to have them go to the table of
contents, or through the entire presentation. (Background - the
presentation is a "living" manual for a design group).
Is there a search functionality that can be used in a PowerPoint Show? I'm
thinking something along the lines of what you'd see in an access data base
to "search" the file. Will a VBA functionality be needed to make this work?
Thanks for any help you can provide.
 
KUKArmichon said:
I'd like to give my viewers the option to search for a word, document, title,
etc. from the main page instead of having to have them go to the table of
contents, or through the entire presentation. (Background - the
presentation is a "living" manual for a design group).
Is there a search functionality that can be used in a PowerPoint Show? I'm
thinking something along the lines of what you'd see in an access data base
to "search" the file. Will a VBA functionality be needed to make this work?
Thanks for any help you can provide.
Click to expand...

Let's start with this: Does your intended audience have Powerpoint or do some
use the free Viewer? If PPT, are they likely to trust you enough to lower their
security settings so your VBA code can run? If the answer to either is "no"
then VBA won't be the answer.
 
Steve,
The majority have both PPT and the viewer. However, I can't ensure that all
of our future sources will have both. The security setting for macros is
not an issue internally (provided they know how to set their securities.) I
cannot guarantee that this is the case with outside sources, especially since
we are dealing in a global market. Is there another way to get around this?
Will something other than VBA work? I already have a table of contents which
is linked to the various slide titles and subjects within the manual. Is
this the best I am going to be able to do through ppt?
Again, thank you for your help!
 
Steve,
The majority have both PPT and the viewer. However, I can't ensure that all
of our future sources will have both. The security setting for macros is
not an issue internally (provided they know how to set their securities.) I
cannot guarantee that this is the case with outside sources, especially since
we are dealing in a global market. Is there another way to get around this?
Will something other than VBA work? I already have a table of contents which
is linked to the various slide titles and subjects within the manual. Is
this the best I am going to be able to do through ppt?
Again, thank you for your help!
Click to expand...

It sounds as though macros/vba won't work for at least some of your audience.
One other possibility is an index page that you could link to from any slide in your
presentation; it could contain lists of terms and links to the pages that contain
them. VERY labor intensive to produce, though. I don't know of any way of
automating it.
 
Thanks for the input Steve. I'm guessing that for now we will have to live
with hyperlinks and the table of contents pages.
 
Thanks for the input Steve. I'm guessing that for now we will have to live
with hyperlinks and the table of contents pages.
Click to expand...

I suspect so; even if the effort of generating and maintaining an index were workable,
it might push you past the number of links PPT can maintain w/o breaking down.
 
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