Create Links Only Slideshows

0:02
In this video, we’re going to look at how we can create a self guided presentation in Keynote on the Mac. Let’s go to my Mac. So I’m done with my presentation here. Now the next thing that I want to do with this presentation is create a self guided presentation. In other words, I want the person that is viewing that presentation to step through the presentation themselves, I can do this by adding buttons to the presentation, and then that person, all they have to do is just click on that button, tap on that button, and it’ll go to the next slide or the previous slide, or even a specific slide. So the first thing that I need to do is I need to add those buttons. Any object can be a button, but usually what I will recommend is just some kind of a shape, just a basic shape.

0:47
So now what I do is I go up to my shapes here. And then I go and add a rounded corner rectangle. So I select this, I just bring it down into the bottom right corner as an example, we’re going to make this a little bit longer or a little wider. And I add in here next. Now usually what you may want to do is make this a little bit more prominent. Let’s go ahead and change the color on, I’m going to click on it. So we have it selected, I go up to Format. And then let’s go with red, just so it’s a little more prominent. So now I have my button there, but it’s not going to do anything yet, all it’s going to do is just show, what I want to do now is I wanted to do something I needed to link to the next slide, or maybe the previous slide or the beginning of the presentation. Basically, I need to create a link.

1:40
The way that I do that is I Ctrl, click on a hold down the control key and I click and then you’re going to see add link. From here, I select what I wanted to do, I’m going to have it linked to the slide to a slide selected. And now we can set how we want it to connect to the slide do I want it to go to the next slide the previous slide the first slide, the last slide, the last slide that was viewed, we’re going to keep this pretty basic. So I’m just going to go with the next slide. And now all I need to do is just click outside and we have my button here, you can see that it is a link. So if I were to go into presentation mode, this button would show on this slide. And when someone clicks on it, it’s going to go to the next slide. Let’s go and add a previous one. So I’m just going to duplicate this, just copy it and paste it. I put it on the other side here.

2:34
I click in here and I change it to previous. And now I want this to link to the previous slide. So I Ctrl Click on it hold down the Ctrl key, I edit the link, because it already has a link on it. And now I just say the previous slide. So now I have my two slides here. Let’s go and copy these and put them on a couple of other slides. The key to making it work when you’re using a self guided presentation is each slide has to have a button on it. Otherwise, when that person gets to that slide, if there is no button, it’s not going to do anything. So you need to make sure that you have buttons on each side. Otherwise, the presentation could stall.

3:16
So what I’m going to do is just copy these, and we’re going to put them on a couple of other slides here. I just paste and paste so we can see we have them on my slides here. So now let’s go and present this, you’re going to see a couple of problems with it. We’re not done yet. But I just want to show you how this all works. So I’m going to go up to play here. So now I’m looking at my presentation, we can see we have my buttons there. Let’s go over to previous we’re first going to look at this problem. I click on previous. And now how do I get to the next slide. It doesn’t do anything, it’s not going anywhere, and I don’t have a button. So again, we want to make sure that we have buttons on each slide.

3:57
Now I’m going to hit the spacebar so it’ll go to the next slide. That’s one way of getting around this. But if you really create a self guided presentation, someone might not know that’s how you can get to the next slide. So I’m going to tap on the spacebar, it goes to the next slide. So that’s one problem. Again, we need to have buttons on every slide. Now I’m going to go to my next slide here. I click on it, this particular slide has built but how do we bring those builds in. What I have to do is I have to tap on the spacebar again, the person watching this doesn’t necessarily know that if I tap on the spacebar, we can see that those builds come in. But what the person might do is click on next. And when I click on Next, it’s not going to bring the next build in what is going to do is go to the next slide. And again here we are stuck again. What I need to do is tap on the spacebar to bring those builds and again, the attendee, the person viewing this presentation might not know that. So what we need to do With any slides I have built, is have them come in automatically.

5:05
We cannot have them be released on a link. So how do we do that? Well, we have to go to our Build Order, I have a separate video on this. But basically what I do is I select the object, I’m selecting this text, we go up to animate here, and we go down to build order, we can see that this is set to come in on click, that’s not what we want. We want it to come in after the previous build or after a transition. So now what it’s going to do is it’s going to come in automatically. Let’s go and do that to the next slide as well. This table here, if we look at the Build Order, we can see that it will start on click, we don’t want it to do that, again, we want it to come in after the previous built. So now, when I go back over to my first slide here, and I click on play.

5:55
When I click on next, watch what happens. The builds are coming in. Because they are automatic, they’re not waiting for a click. Now I can click on next again. And there’s that build, it’s coming in automatically. So if you’re using a self guided presentation, we want to make sure that you have buttons on each slide. And you want to make sure that builds come in automatically. Now what we have to do, since I have my build set properly, I have my buttons on the slides. Now what we need to do is we need to set up the presentation to where it will go into a links only presentation. To do that, what we do is we go up to document here. And then we make sure that we’re looking at our document settings.

6:45
From here, what we do is we go over to our slideshow settings. Being that it’s a self guided presentation, what you may want to do is make sure that it starts playing when you open up this document. So I’m gonna select this. Now when that document is opened, it’s going to go into self guided presentation mode. I’m also going to want to loop it. So then when it gets done, it’s going to start over again. And with soft guide presentations, you may want to use the restart show if idle option. When I select this, what it’s going to do if nothing happens on my computer for 15 minutes, it’s going to restart that presentation. So if someone is going through the presentation, and then they walk away, it’s in the middle of the presentation they walk away after 15 minutes. What Keynote will do is it will restart that presentation for the next person.

7:36
Now what we need to do is we need to tell the presentation type that it is a lynx only this is a self guided presentation links only, the only way you’re going to get around it is through the links. So now I select this. And now if I were to quit out of Keynote and start this back up, what it would do is it would automatically go into presentation mode. And the only way I can get around this through the buttons. Again, I would be stuck. Because I do not have these buttons here. On the first slide, you’re going to see that my first slide doesn’t have them so immediately wouldn’t work, it’d be broken. Now what you may want to do is add those buttons to the slide layout.

8:16
If you’re familiar with slide layouts, every slide is based off of a slide layout. So when I go, let’s go down to my pictures here. We have these tulips here. This is based off of a specific slide layout. This image here, this slide here is off of the same slide layout, we have this image here, this slide here, this is also based off of the same slide layout. So if I make a change to that one slide layout, all of these slides here are going to have those buttons on it. So let’s go ahead and do that. In order to find out what slide layout it is you just go over to format. And then you’re going to see that this is based off of the photo slide layout. So I need to edit my slide layouts and go to the photo slide layout. So let’s go ahead and do that. If you want to learn more about slide layouts, I recommend it’s very powerful. I have a separate video on that. But we’re going to go to Edit slide layouts. And now what I do is I go to my photo slide layout, I need to add those buttons while they’re still in my pasteboard or my clipboard, so I’m gonna paste.

9:20
And let’s go and change the color, I’m actually going to change them to green, so they stand out just a little bit more. Now, we’re still not done. These are on that slide layout. But when I go and click on Done, watch what happens you’re not going to see the buttons. So I’m going to click on done here. And we can see that the buttons are not there. Well, I added them to the slide layout, but again, they’re not showing. That’s because we have to layer them so I’m going to go back into slide layouts. You can see this is a little bit tricky, but it’s not too bad. I go under view, we go back over to our edit slide layouts, and then what I need to do select the slide my slides And we need to allow layering.

10:03
When I select that, now what I’m able to do is placed these buttons on top, because I’m allowing layering. So now we have everything all set, you’re going to see that those buttons are on all of the slides that have that slide layout. So now when I click on play here, watch what happens. I’m able to click on Next, click on next, I can go to the previous brings me back, brings me back. I’m going to hit the Escape key to get out of this. So that’s how we create self guided slideshows, and Keynote on Mac. As you can see, it’s a little bit more tricky, it’s not too tough, but it is a little bit more tricky. Basically, what we need to do is we need to add buttons to each slide those slides, what we can do is we can link them to other slides.

11:00
If you add them to a slide layout, make sure that you enable layering on that slide layout, so then they come to the front. Otherwise, they may be hidden behind an object. When you do add them to a slide layout. Any slide that is based off of that slide layout will have those buttons. And again, we want to make sure that each slide has buttons. You also want to make sure that builds come in automatically, otherwise the slideshow will stop it’ll get stuck because it’s waiting for someone to click on something not a button, but it’s waiting for someone to click on something before that build comes in. So we want all builds to be automatic. Once you do that, you go over to your document settings and then you can have that slideshow that presentation start automatically when the document is opened. You can have it loop. So when that presentation is done, it’s going to go back to the beginning. And then you can have it also go back to the beginning. If it is idle for a specified period of time, such as 15 minutes. You’ll then want to set the presentation type to links only. Once you do that, when you give that presentation, the person watching that presentation is going to be able to guide themselves through that presentation based on links based on the buttons that you add to your slides. So that’s how we create self guided presentations with buttons and Keynote on the Mac.