Creating a (spotlight/mask) overlay in your PowerPoint slides automatically
When giving presentations you might want to keep the listener focused on certain points on the slide. For this, you can use spotlights like this:
The below video shows how to use an Add-In that does this for you automatically. The add-in also has an update function, this allows you to update the newly created slides (with the spotlight). The Add-In can be found here.
Please note, autosave needs to be disabled for the add-in to work!
This video shows how to use and modify the VBA code:
The code for the overlay function can be found here.
Code walkthrough
In this paragraph, I will highlight a few parts of the code that are worth noting.
The CopyShapesAndIterat e subroutine is responsible for adding a transparent rectangle shape to the current slide and merging it with a selected shape.
Line 12: Get the currently selected shape by accessing the first shape in the `ShapeRange` of the `Selection` object of the active window.
Lines 15–18: Create a duplicate of the selected shape by using the `Duplicate` method of the `Shape` object. The duplicate shape is positioned at the same location as the original shape. This is not the case automatically when pasting on top of the same shape.
Lines 32–33: Add the duplicate shape and the rectangle to the selection by using the `Range` property of the `Shapes` collection. The selected shapes are passed as an array of shape names. This prepares for the ‘MergeShapes’ action.
Line 36: Merge the selected shapes (duplicate shape and rectangle) using the `MergeShapes` method of the `Shapes` collection.
CopyShapesAndIterate
A few notes on the update function:
16–19. Line 16–19: Copying shapes from the selected slide:
— The “selectedShapes” collection is set by assigning all shapes on the selected slide.
— A loop iterates over each shape in “selectedShapes” and adds it to the “copiedShapes” collection.
27–37. Line 27–37: Iterating over the specified number of slides:
— A loop runs from the next slide after the selected slide (selectedSlide.slidenumber + 1) to the next slide after the specified number of slides to iterate (selectedSlide.slidenumber + numSlidesToIterate).
— Inside the loop, the “selectedSlide” is updated by calling the “getslide” function and passing the loop counter “i” as the argument.
— A nested loop iterates over each shape on the current slide and prints its name using the Debug.Print statement.
— Following that, all shapes on the current slide, except the top 2 shapes, are deleted using a loop. The top 2 shapes are the overlay and the assumed shaped with the explanation!
— The top 2 shapes are then brought to the front using the ZOrder method.
— Again, all shapes on the current slide, except the top 2 shapes, are deleted using a loop. It removes the shapes twice because of scenarios where placeholders are used in templates.— Finally, the copied shapes are pasted onto the current slide using a loop and brought to the front using the ZOrder method.
Line 42–57: Definition of the “getslide” function. This is created to iterated slides by slide number, and not by index.
— The “getslide” function takes an integer argument “slidenumber” representing the slide number to retrieve.
— The function loops through each slide in the ActivePresentation.Slides collection.
— If a slide’s slidenumber matches the input “slidenumber,” it is assigned to the “result” slide object, and the loop is exited.
— The function returns the “result” slide object.
Additionally
When creating the adding I used the icons, using the below link.
Finally
This article hopefully shows how easy it is to customize/enhance PowerPoint to increase your productivity.
Do you like it? Don’t hesitate to leave claps (can go up to 50..). Thanks!
