1. In the finished slide, each item launches a new PowerPoint presentation and when each is finished it automatically comes back to this slide
2. Create a blank slide in PowerPoint by going to File – new-then click create slide
3. Delete the text boxes (just easier to see what is going on)
4. You can insert the background anytime, but you may wish to do it at the beginning so you can see how everything looks together
5. The title comes next. You can put in word art here or use the smart object later.
6. Choose one of the smart objects to insert and use. In this case I am using one of the ones with pictures (although this does require you to make 2 links for every presentation.
7. Depending on how many speakers there will be, you may need to increase the number of boxes shown by pressing enter to get additional entries and/or by duplicating the object.
8. IMPORTANT: duplicate the object before making any further changes
9. Once you have the right number of objects, go back to the first object and enter the data you want there, including pictures
10. Note that these boxes will auto resize the text to get it to fit. So be aware that in some cases it may not be readable. You will either need to fix the box size or the title
11. To make the links and have them work correctly, you will need to ungroup each object twice. The first ungrouping, ungroups them so they are no longer smart objects, the second one separates them from each other. You may wish to regroup at least the picture with the text AFTER you have completed the hyperlinking.
12. To create a hyperlink, right click on an ungrouped object, and choose Hyperlink. To link to another presentation you should put the presentation in the same directory as the “launch” slide and then in the dialog box choose it as an “Existing file or Webpage” then click Okay.
13. To make this show a panel discussion I am going to delete the bottom three pictures and the bottom 2 objects in group three. I will then resize the object I didn’t delete so it aligns with the bottom of the other groups.
14. I have several objects that won’t be linked. I will change the coloring of those to make it more obvious. Also the top four going across will not actually give talks – they are session leaders and are there only to introduce the others. Therefore I will change the colors on those as well and separate them to make it more obvious.
15. Finally I will change the master slide (go to view – slide master) to include our logos. You could also include the background here.
16. I’ll move the objects a little to accommodate the logos