Pausing an Automatically Running Show (Uses vba)

If you set your show to run with automatic transitions so that it will run unattended but then want to pause at various time, how can you do this?

In a normal presentation you can just press the "S" key or the ""pause/break" key which will pause the presentation until you press it again or the "B" key which will pause the presentation AND blank the screen.

So far all is well, but if you have deliberately disabled the keyboad by using slide show > set up show > browsed at a kiosk to stop clients controlling the show with the keyboard - no keys will work to pause the show!

In kiosk mode you must use action buttons or hyperlinks to navigate and you will soon discover that there's NO "Pause" action button! You can use the custom action button and add the text "PAUSE" or a pause symbol (add text or format autoshape > fill effects> picture) but how to make it work as a pause button?

The simplest answer is to use vba (visual basic for applications) programming to call up a message box with the message "Paused - press OK to restart".

Open the vba editor (alt f11) and insert a module. Copy and paste this code into it:

Sub pauses()
Response = MsgBox("The show is paused click OK to restart", , "Paused")
End Sub

Now make the action of your button Run Macro - pauses. If you want the button on every slide you should place it on the master slide.

Remember that vba will not run when using the viewer or if the computer has macro security set to high.

A more elegant way is to use the vba to pause and restart the presentation without any messages:

Cut and paste this code:

Sub paused()
ActivePresentation.SlideShowWindow.View.State = ppSlideShowPaused
End Sub

Sub restart()
ActivePresentation.SlideShowWindow.View.State = ppSlideShowRunning
End Sub

Make the MOUSEOVER action of your button = Run Macro paused
and the MOUSECLICK action Run Macro restart.

To pause the show place the mouse over the button and to restart click on the button.

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