From: Dewey on
OKAY! I finally came to a resolution. Ute's idea of positioning the motion
paths as before, but positioning the text boxes themselves so they reside on
the slide such that they don't overlap (in edit mode) WORKED.

They all move following the same path, and end up at the same place on the
slide, but in edit mode they are not overlapping.

I didn't have to keep 100% of each text box from overlapping all the others,
just the portion in the lower corner that contained the button with the
image-link. So I have, in edit mode, a stack of boxes that resemble a deck
of cards that has been spread slightly. Fortunately, my link image is in the
lower right corner, so each link is visible in edit mode.

I'm not sure why PowerPoint (this is 2003 - forgot to mention) has a problem
with links when overlapped, but it does. Fortunately, this is a solution
that retains the functionality I was hoping for.

Thank you to everyone who suggested solutions! I learned a lot more about
PowerPoint in the process. Hopefully this helps someone else down the road.

-Dewey





"Dewey" wrote:

> Hi
>
> I have a unique animation challenge. I have 10 action buttons in a row on
> the left of a slide that bring up text boxes on the right of the slide. The
> right starts empty, and with each action button clicked, a text box appears,
> grows, and "flies" in from the area near its corresponding action button to
> the right side of the slide using a combination of effects. I do this by:
>
> Upon the slide loading, using the disappear effect on all 10, as well as
> shrinking them all to 25% size.
> When the corresponding action button for each text box is clicked, the text
> box appears, follows a motion path to the right of the slide, and grows by
> 400% (this makes it normal size after being shrunk to 25% earlier). At the
> same time ("with previous"), I apply the disappear property to the 9 other
> text boxes to make sure the one flying in has a blank spot to fly into. When
> in edit mode, all text boxes are stacked on top of each other (at their final
> spot on the slide).
>
> Everything I've described so far works beautifully. The problem is that
> each text box includes a hyperlink to slides further in the presentation.
> When I first made the slide, all of them worked fine. However, when I began
> editing the text boxes and I think I may have changed their order, I noticed
> all the links stopped working except whichever one was on the text box that
> was on the top of the pile in edit mode. I've tried copying and pasting the
> boxes that work and using the "bring to front" command to re-order the boxes,
> and I can't seem to get any of the links to work except the one on the top
> or, occasionally, the top most one and the two bottom-most ones (I have no
> idea why this would be).
>
> It appears the boxes that are made to disappear are still there, not totally
> gone, and hence the links on the boxes on the bottom of the pile are covered
> by the ones above, and PowerPoint somehow can't make the links work when a
> text box is covered by another, even when that other box has been made to
> disappear. Note that the links are all in the same place on each text box.
> The links are in the form of a hyperlinked image.
>
> The only thing I can think is to somehow force the "bring to front" order
> command each time a text box is shown. I have heard that PowerPoint doesn't
> have an auto-run macro for VBA, and doesn't offer the "bring to front"
> command in custom animation options. Is there anything I can do?
>
> Thanks for any help
> -Josh