PowerPoint tips: How to Create a tabs interaction

In this tutorial we'll show you how to create interactive tabs in PowerPoint and then use it for your e-learning courses. Download a free template here: http://community.articulate.com/blogs...

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Closed Caption:

so I had somebody ask about how to build
this interaction in PowerPoint and when
we look at it this is actually built in
storyline and what you get with
storyline that you don't get with
powerpoint is the more advanced
interactivity so when you think of
interactions you generally have a cliq
interaction a mouse-over interaction or
dragging interactions and in this case
you can see there's some mouseover
interactivity and when I click on this
you can see how these tabs change and
there's kind of like a selected state on
these so we don't necessarily have the
logic in PowerPoint to build the exact
same thing but i can show you how we can
build this in PowerPoint and then i'll
also make the template of available for
free so let's go ahead and open up
PowerPoint which I have here so if we
look at the interaction let's go back
let's look at the interaction
it's really pretty basic right so what
do we have up here we have a shape with
some text in it
these are just kind of some design
embellishments but these are just shapes
with with text and and different you
know color schemes and all that to it
it's like a gradient background here
come across lights radial or spotlight
background and then these are really
just you take away the pictures these
are just rectangles and this is a
rectangle and this is a rounded
rectangle I'm turns us coloring it's
kind of like an off-white and then kind
of lighter gray you've got a little
quotations and this is gray with a light
gray in there as well so what we'll do
is we'll create the structure for you'll
see how to do that in PowerPoint the one
thing is I know in this case i have four
tabs so i'm going to create four slides
or actually create five sites because i
have a starting place and then from the
starting place i can click on each tab
because i believe if we look at the
interaction here if we refresh this you
can see it's actually kind of gotta
start place and then I can click on a
tab and then I've got this so we will
create it start slide and they will also
create
that for tab slides so what we're going
to do is let's build the structure first
and then we'll build out the graphics so
i'm going to go ahead i know i'm going
to have five slides I'm going to outline
just because it's going to be easier for
me
so first thing I want to do is I'll just
this will be our start
don't worry about the text over here so
this will be our start and then what
we're going to do is we have tab1 tab to
tab 3 + tab for now I create these
because i actually want to work on the
master slides i want to create my blank
slides first I want to title those so
just doing that from outline view helps
and then that gives me the blank slides
and then I can begin to put all of the
structure and the hyper linking and all
that to that
so what we want to do now is let's go
into the master view so I'm going to
hear my slides first thing I want to do
is change my layouts and so I have the
tabs labeled but I don't want to use the
tab titles in this particular case I'm
just going to move them off screen or
actually what we can do is we can just
keep the tab titles will just you will
incorporate the title into the actual
tab structure so it's going to keep this
the way it is let's let's go to slide
you have a shortcut up here so we're
going to slide slide master and i want
to build out my tab so i'm going to use
this one
get rid of the blank stuff so i'm just
going to use this title only and so the
first thing we know is we've got the
tabs we've got that little bar up on top
so let's go ahead just accommodate the
bar there so we can we can work with our
title so I'm going to just insert a
shape and we'll just take that across
the screen it's a little smaller we
don't want to hog up all of our space to
send this to the back and what I'm going
to do is just move this up here and i'm
going to make the font smaller
and I'll make it white and what I'm also
going to do is move it over here and
make it right justified and then you can
change the fonts and color scheme and
all this now i like to use the color
scheming because then I can customize my
colors which you'll see when we're done
with this so i'm going to change my
outline so no outline and i just got my
solid color here and then the other
thing i want to do is start creating my
tabs so this case I've got four tabs so
I'm just going to create four tabs and
then I've also got my thing that goes on
top which is going to be my content
screen so right we've got a tab got our
content screen and we could leave some
space for this out I'll just build out
the tabs are actually if you want to add
this you can do that yourself so let's
go ahead and come back here let me let
me delete this will will start from
scratch here so let's let some add a
little title thing here i'm just going
to add one so then you can you can do
what you want to with it and i'm going
to edit the points and I'll do something
like that so now you've got kind of a
title area i will will fill that with
black here and get rid of the outline
all right so you can do what you want to
with that so now let's go ahead and
create our tabs we have four tabs here
making a little longer so I'm just going
to duplicate those so I've got my four
tabs you want to make sure they're lined
up select them all go to a range a line
and then do a vertical distribution that
will make sure they're all kind of
equally spaced they've got my tabs i
think in this case they were all kind of
off-white so we'll we'll do that when we
get to it now i'm going to create my
shape and the shape that's sitting on
top of the tab kind of look like this
right and this right here is a little
off white as well and if you notice it's
also got
this strong shadow so we're going to go
ahead and build that so let's go ahead
and just fill this with a little will
just fill it with white we're going to
do
no outline on it and then we're going to
put it really draw strong shadows we're
going to shadow effects and we'll do
that i can i can play with the shadow
effects if you right-click choose the
format shapes you can see all your
properties we're going to shadow and
we're going to make this can play around
the transparency here and we can make
the size of the shadow a little larger
maybe a little bit more blur to and then
we can make a little bit more
transparent we wanted subtle but not too
strong now this right here the tabs
themselves are all going to be white
right so let's go ahead and make those
white now we don't see them yet because
of the background so let's get rid of
the outlines now let's go ahead and
change the format the background on a
right-click choose format background
that opens up this i can choose a
gradient background which we're going to
do I'm going to work off of the same
blue so you can see it already kind of
created a background will go with radial
and then i'll actually just keep this if
you want to change it you can do that
you can see you've got your steps here
you just change the color and you can
select one of these colors here but
we're going to go ahead and go with
we're going to work from these blues
that are in here and the reason we're
going to do that if i go ahead and hit
close on this if i change my design
scheme here let me let me get out of
this if i change my design scheme you'll
notice that it's going to change the
colors so when I choose different colors
you can see how the colors and just so
that's why we're going to stick with
that blue so you can always create your
custom color scheming in there so now
what we need to do is just create are
hyper linking and i'm going to go back
to slide mass
sir we know this one right here needs to
hyperlink to tab1 this hyperlink to tab
to to those slides so I'm just going to
select my box if I right click i can
choose hyperlink and then I just want to
go to a place in this document in this
case
tab1 now what I can also do is select
the object hit ctrl k and that opens up
the box that goes to tab to control k
that goes to tab 3 control k that goes
to tab for and now we've got are
hyperlinked tabs then you can put stuff
on here so if you want to put pictures
and whatnot on here i'll just put a
shape on here let's say you wanted these
to be filled with pictures you know you
can you can create a little red square
put it in here put your picture in there
the other thing you could do is you can
make your tabs a little longer to
accommodate more content now what we
don't have is the rollover capability so
what we do have those we have the hyper
linking and interactivity so let's go
ahead and go out of slide master and we
want to test this first thing we need to
do is make sure that all of these have
the same layout so i'm going to select
all the slides we go to my layout and
you can see I've got that here so i'm
going to select that all the hyper
linking here should work and the way we
can test that is by looking at the
titles up here so let's go ahead and
we'll just preview and reading view so
let's see you can see as I click all the
tabs are working so i get that dynamic
work now the reason i put this on the
master slide is because at the master
slide if i want to change something i
can change it once and it's applied
across the board if you're using the
layout if I did this individually at
each slide level it's going to take a
lot longer to do updates but this
essentially is that tabs interaction the
only difference here
is if we get out of it as I need to
start putting contact on here or content
so in this case I've got you know some
pictures and text and that's easy enough
to do and that I've got my content so
let's say I want to do this little gray
box on here how would i do that i just
come in here and do a rounded rectangle
I think it's probably just partial here
right and then I'm going to make this
slightly light gray and i'll do the
outline will be a nudge darker so
there's my box now this box actually is
the same across all of these right so
I've doesn't matter what I click on the
box is basically the same so i can put
that on my master slide as well so let's
go ahead and grab that make it a little
smaller so more Headroom i'm going to
grab that i'm going to control x take it
off here come to my slide master control
V so now I've got the the box on there
and i'm going to go ahead and grab one
of these because i'm going to show you
what we're going to do with that and
close that so now I've got content here
right now I've got my tabs I've got
everything set up the only thing I need
to do that my content so let's do this
let's say when i click on a tab i want
to make it seem like that tab is active
so if you look at this right here when i
click on a tab i get a state change on
the tab so i can tell which tab i'm on
so let's say I want to do that in
PowerPoint the way I could do that is
let me come over here i'm on tab1 I can
take that box I copy
I can do this so that it looks like the
tabs on top right so if i go to 2i can
take that and drag it down here and then
it's over here so that it looks like
it's lifted off the page and then I can
come to this one do the same thing I'll
just drag it down and we'll go 24 and
drag
down so now I've gotta visited state if
I wanted to you know I could actually
make all the original tabs a little
darker which i'm actually going to do so
this way I've got these tabs i'm going
to recolor this i'm going to go to
format now right now they're colored
white I don't want to necessarily light
gray although you know that actually
works i'm going to keep them light gray
so if i get out of this you can see
there's a very clear distinction as i go
through the tabs and then it's just a
matter of putting content on here so
when we look at this i have actually
going to get rid of this black thing too
because i don't like that black thing up
here so you've got a place to put a
branded element or titles or whatever
you want to put in there when you
actually look at the tab interaction
itself it's all on the master slide
right and then they're in your layout so
once you apply the hyper linking all
works because they're linked to specific
slides when we actually look at this it
works right so it looks like little tabs
interaction i've gotta visited I've got
a selected state so i can see it's a
little bit different than the other ones
and the interactivity works then it's
just a matter of putting content on
there so if you're using articulate
presenter for example i can insert let's
say insert a photographic character you
just take one of these characters here
will take atsumi you know I've got her
here when I want to get one of those
poses where it looks like she's there
right we'll just take one of these so i
can put her here and maybe over pull her
out a little so she's kinda hanging off
the box that's kind of what we see here
right so she's hanging out of the box so
there you go so you've got your tabs
interaction you've got the interactivity
it all starts at the master slide so you
build out your blank slides and then
hyperlink to them and then you've got a
nice tab here and then you've got your
character and I'm going to clean that up
for you put the character and all
all you have to do is right click and
change picture and put your own
characters on there then add your
content and you're all set and the same
thing with the titles you can change the
titles here and that'll change them up
here so you've got a nice little
starting interaction and hopefully you
can use that now one last thing is if
you use that the color scheming you can
come up here and you can add a new color
scheme and you can see how you can make
your tab look a little bit different
the other thing you can do is create
your own theme colors and then you just
apply you know the colors so they match
and then when you change the color
themes to match yours you'll have an
interaction that works for you and since
these are neutral here that probably
doesn't really matter and then these
colors can actually be part of your
color branding hopefully that helps