Placing links in the Master slide

Mar 20, 2011

I have a presentation where I've turned off the seekbar and the forward/back/puase controls. I've placed alternate navigation in the Master slide. When I publish these controls do not work. Do hyperlinks not work when placed on Master slide when published in Articulate? The links work fine when viewed as a standard PPT slide show. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

I'm using Windows XP

PPT 2007

Articulate 09

Jesse Kramer

12 Replies
David Anderson

Hi Jesse - 

Hyperlinks should work fine in your Slide Masters. Are you placing the links on text? Shapes? Smart Art?

Smart Art can cause problems with hyperlinks. To troubleshoot, you could try placing your links over simple shapes to see if that makes a difference.

If you'd like to post your file to the forums, we'll be happy to look at it to see what's going on.

Jesse Kramer

thanks for the reply. Especially on a Sunday. I might have been using Smart art but after reading your post I tried converting them to png files and then just to a simple text box. The png seemed to work ok except that I got these wierd grey boxes when I published. The simple text boxes don't seem to work either. I'm obviously missing something pretty basic here. I've attached the PPT file for you to peruse. Thanks again.

Jesse

Jesse Kramer

Ok, I think I've got the hyper links working but now when I publish I get these grey boxes in the middle of my slide. What gives?

I've attached my ppt file and here is a link to the published course to see what happens after a publish.

http://jkmind0.tripod.com/eTMF/navigation/player.html

Jesse

David Anderson

HI Jesse,

Okay, I think I see what's going on. First, good idea to use .png files instead of smart art. SmartArt makes it tough for PowerPoint/Presenter to interpret the hyperlinks. This is mostly due to the many shapes (hidden) that are used to create Smart Art graphics.

The next issue to look at is text placed over hyperlinked shapes. While the png image is a good idea, having text over a hyperlinked object can also cause problems. One thing you could do is place a transparent shape over the text and buttons and add the hyperlink to that shape. 

I just tried it with your presentation and re-published. Everything seems to be working now with the links. I added a screenshot of how I applied the shapes over your text boxes. For testing purposes, I only use about 50% transparency. Once the links are working, I'd go back and add full transparency.

David Anderson

Yeah, that's strange. I was able to get rid of the box by converting your bottom rectangle to a .png file. 

Your shape objects will look fine if you convert them to .png files. You'll also notice a significant improvement in publish times when you work with images. It's a good idea to keep the source files available in a separate PowerPoint file.

One other thing you should consider is how you name your presentations. I would avoid special characters like (+) if possible. They won't always give you problems, but it's always best to play it safe with file names

Jesse Kramer

ok, so the links work fine but I'm still getting the grey boxes. I've placed the png files in the Master slides. No links should exist in the master slides. I've placed transparent boxes over the text for the navigation buttons. I've replaced the Topics menu with a png background, text box and transparent boxes with the links over all of this. Again, I've uploaded the PPT deck to this reply.

Jesse

Justin Wilcox

I'm not sure why but a box you create using this particular PowerPoint file has a default grey background you can't get rid of. If you create a generic box with no fill, there's a grey background. I'm pretty sure that's where the grey is coming from but not sure how to get rid of it beyond creating a new, blank presentation and copying the content from your project to the new project and making sure you don't make the default shape format those blue boxes.

Jesse Kramer

Just wanted to let everyone know this course was successfully launched and works great. All my problems were solved when I only used png graphics on the Masterslide. Nothing can be grouped, otherwise links won't work. I have no grey boxes and this was a great first project for experimenting with alternative navigation.

Thank you David and Justin for your help. Especially on a weekend.

Jesse

Curtis Kynerd

I am having a similar problem.  I have created a motion path on a master slide.  It works when viewed in PPT, but not when published.  The motion path is of a group of objects.  Could this grouping be what is causing it not to work properly when published?  Converting it to an image file is not my best choice, because it is text and is pretty small to begin with.  Converting to an image file renders the text to be slightly blurry.   Is there another factor happening here that I'm not considering?

Brian Batt

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.

This discussion is closed. You can start a new discussion or contact Articulate Support.