Control the amount of time the seekbar shows?

Thanks Brian.  Additional question, though.  My presentation doesn't have any audio, so I give my animations either "with previous" or "after previous".   Is there any way to still have that precise control over animations without audio on a slide?

Hi Kristi,

Yes, you just need to change your animations to "on click" & sync them using the Sync Animations tool.

Cool!  I didn't realize that you could sync them without having audio.  Since we have some audio limitations I've never really used that functionality, but I will be now.  Thanks so much!

Bare with me:

So what is totally weird (besides the word weird not following grammar rules) is that I just created a test course.

I have the slide time for slides without audio or animation set to 5 seconds. That's all hunky dory and works as stated. Slide with no anim/audio is 5 seconds long.

I now add a second slide with a motion path animation. that animation is set to play for exactly 5 seconds. Upon publishing, it now has been extended by 3 seconds. There by adjusting my animation timing. This seems to be exponential, in that the longer I make my animation on the time line, the more time is added during publishing to achieve the end result.

Why is not the time i enter the animation to play, the time it plays after publishing? Is this a known anomaly?

Another issue i am seeing in testing, is that if i have an animation that is less than the time set for slides without anim/audio, the value will ACTUALLY play out to the time set in that field.

So if i have a 2 second animation and 5 seconds in Time for slide without anim/audio, the slide will play the animation correctly, but the extra 3 seconds is added to pad the slide to 5.

Example: Slide animation settings for blue rectangle shape, no shape effects:

After publish, slide should be: 1 second (rounded from what i can tell). But it says: 5.

this would indicate that the slide time for slides without anim/audio is actually being added to each and every slide at time of publish. Only noticeable if you have animations less than the time in that field.

Setting the field back to 1, will re-time the slide to the correct length, and end the animation and the slide at the same time. I have only seen the "padding" Brian mentions on the Motion Path type animations.

By default, my Time for slides...has always been set to 1 second. Don't use 0 (zero) that will only cause the last value entered to return.

If anyone sees anything else i missed or am missing in why this happens, please, enlighten me! I would love to figure this out or see why it happens.

Grazi

Hi Grazi,

Unless you actually sync your animations, the slide will last at least 5 seconds.  I just tested your fly in animation on my machine & the slide only lasted 2 seconds after I actually synced the animations.  This is the expected result.

For more precise timing, you'll need to sync your animations.

Sorry Brian, but I do not agree. If I set my Time for slides without audio/anim to 5, yes, they will all last at least 5 seconds. However if i set it to 1 (the smallest you can set it) my slides will always timeout using the Advanced Timeline as they should, no matter how long/short my animations or audio files are.

I am curious as to why the time is added from the settings in Articulate even when there is audio/animation on a slide? Maybe the name of the item should be "Minimum time for all slides to display," which would be more accurate, as it does appear this time is added no matter the length of the animation, and should not be based on whether I use the Sych Animation item or not.

What i am using works for me at any rate, so I'll just keep using it that way.

Cheers

I have inherited a presentation that I am using as a template for another presentation.  The original had annotations on every slide.  I have erased them, but the slide now displays for 17 seconds instead of for 3 (there are no animations or audio on the slides).  How do I get the slides duration set back to 3 seconds?

Hi Curtis,

Have you actually published the presentation or are you just previewing it?  

No, I have not published it yet.  I noticed the annotations on a previous publish and then deleted them.  But, I have not published since deleting.

Hi Curtis,

Please publish the file and let me know if that resolves the issue.

I published it a few moments ago.  It is still set at 17 seconds per slide. 

Hi Curtis,

I would suggest you submit a case by following the steps below.

Please create an Articulate Presenter package, then upload the zip file to our server. You can review how to do this here: 

Send to Articulate Presenter Package – Articulate Presenter ’09 Help

Upload the resulting zip file from your computer to our server using this upload form: 

Articulate Support - Upload Your Files for Review 

Please be sure to include a description of your issue, your version of PowerPoint, version of Windows and version of Presenter '09 which you can find in Help and Support -> About Articulate Presenter. Please also include the URL for this thread so we can follow up with you in the forums.

Hi Brian,

I have tried to change the slide timing through presentation.xml but didn't work. Any idea?

Hi Nitesh. What specifically are you trying to do? Does your slide contain any animation or did it have previously imported audio? You can manually tweak the slide timing by following the steps here:

Thanks Justin, I understand it now. But I have already published my course. Can I edit it through presentation.xml. I have tried to edit it from 5 seconds to 3 seconds but in course, it shows only 5 seconds.

You really need to update your presentation and republish.

ok, I understand. Thanks for suggestion. I will republish.

I think I am missing something in the exchange, can you clarify it for me please.

I have a series of slides where I want the User to be able to advance the slides immediately. In audio editor I took out all the blank time space, I adjusted the Presentation Options Publish to 1 second.... still the slides have timing that will not let them advance of an assortment of time (12 to 20 seconds)....

How do I get the timing out of these?

Hey Doug,

You can't use the audio editor to modify the slide duration if the slide has no audio. The duration is embedded in the slide itself. I think Justin's screencast above may be the solution you're looking for. Give it a watch and let us know if you have any further questions. Good luck!

No Justin talks about using Audacity which I do not have. I am looking for the setting in Audio editor or set up that will change the timing. There has to be a simple setting ...

Audacity is freeware and super simple to use. If you didn't want to do that, you would probably want to copy the elements of each slide to a brand new slide. The deal is that the duration is embedded into the slides themselves. The Audacity method is probably the quickest way to change the duration of all o your slides.

I got Audacity and it worked fine... still seems like there has to be a way to delete imbedded timing... a future solution perhaps. Thanks

Glad to hear you got it working, Doug. You can make formal feature suggestions here:

http://www.articulate.com/support/contact/feature/

Thanks for the input!

I'm running into a similar problem where the seekbar continues to play in the published file after the audio ends.  The audio files have been edited so there is not dead air in the audio files themselves.  These are just audios, not animations.   Is there some other default setting for slide lengths that I'm missing?