Reusing Slides without Copying unwanted info

Mar 29, 2011

Adrian Gates
By Adrian Gates

Hi,

So I have a content developer who is reusing some slides from an earlier Articulate module we created. But when these slides come into the new presentation, they come with all the old sync  animation information and slide properties. Sometimes that works to our benefit, but sometimes not so well.

For instance, we copied one slide that had a set of animations already from the first time we used the graphic. We then added some new graphics and text and animated those. There seems to be a problem syncing the animations now using the sync animations feature - It looks fine while syncing, but won't play back the new sync data.. If we switch to the audio editor, we can see that the animation sync markers are out of order (4,5,1,2,3,), mixed in with the sync markers from the previous PPT. Everything looks good in PPT - animations playing in the correct order, but it's very hard to work with. We have to manually move markers around in audio editor before we can sync with the visual application, as is our preference.

So is there a way to copy slides from one presentation to another without moving the sync and slide properties information with the PPT graphics and animations? And if not, is there a way to refresh the information so the sync behaves normally with new animations?

Thanks!

4 Replies
Manny Pitta
almost 13 years ago04/27/11 at 11:30 pm (UTC)

I've been seeing this problem on the last couple of projects. I was OK with untangling the out-of-order markers using the audio editor on a couple of slides to get the sync animation tool to work. I also found that, on reused slides where the tools had been used to sync the animations, the tool would not change the animations. I again had to go into the audio editor and move the markers which then allowed the sync animation tool to work.

I thought that my problem was solved when I read about the "clear button". However, the "clear button" does not exist! I go into the sync animation tool and search high and low - no clear button for animations.

On my latest project, nothing seems to work on the reused slides to allow the sync animation tool to work. I did resort to going back to power point, removing the animations, then rebuilding the animations on each reused slide. The sync animation tool was then able to work. These solutions are tedious and add a lot of work to just being able to easily "clear" previous animation sync data to be able to reuse animated slides. Any way to do this? Where does the sync data reside? Is there a way to manually clear or reset this data?

Manny

Adrian Gates
almost 13 years ago04/28/11 at 3:34 am (UTC)

I was on with support about this not too long after my OP.

We identified a bug with reusing slides from previously "Articulated" slides: When we copy and paste the existing slide from an existing PPT into your new PPT, PPT also copies the articulate sync animation data, slide properties (like the slide name, display setting and level on the TOC) and hyperlinks. Then as the content developer adds additional animations and make changes in general, PPT and Articulate don’t quite know how to sequence the new data and old data, which leads to syncing problems - Not the least of which is the sync animations interface seems to no longer work - It still runs fine and gives the appearance of being normal, but no changes are recorded using it.

 

To avoid these problems, instead of copy/cut and paste to bring in the old slide, bring in your existing slides using the “Reuse Slide” option in PPT. Follow the instructions on the following website: http://www.articulate.com/support/presenter09/kb/?p=503 This method worked fine in all my tests. It still copies in all that information, but Articulate can work with it better and the sync interface becomes effective again.

 

Also, support referred me to this article as well concerning my issues with the Sync Animations GUI:

http://www.articulate.com/support/presenter09/kb/?p=3485

Also, Phil's suggestion about copying elements works quite well, so it's a matter of what information you need to copy and which work-around is best for your overall workflow.

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