PowerPoint Countdown to a Special Day

Lots of people have asked us for Add Ins to countdown automatically to a special day in a constantly looping presentation.

To do this "properly" means writing event traps to detact the slide changes and this is not easy but we have discovered a DIY way!

The code to add the countdown is fairly easy. In the example we are counting down to Christmas and adding the message to the current frontmost shape on Slide 1. Make sure this shape can contain text!

The code

Sub Countdown()
Dim thedate As Date
Dim daycount As Long
Dim Icount As Integer
Icount = ActivePresentation.Slides(1).Shapes.Count-1
thedate = "25/12/2009"
daycount = DateDiff("d", Now, thedate)
Select Case daycount
Case Is > 1
ActivePresentation.Slides(1).Shapes(Icount) _
.TextFrame.TextRange = daycount & " Days to go!"
Case Is = 1
ActivePresentation.Slides(1).Shapes(Icount) _
.TextFrame.TextRange = daycount & " Day to go!"
Case Else
ActivePresentation.Slides(1).Shapes(Icount) _
.TextFrame.TextRange = "It's here!"
End Select
End Sub

Don't know what to do with the code? See Here

This is the easy bit! The real problem is getting the code to run every time slide one shows. This will only work in a looping presentation set to show in KIOSK mode. (Set Up Show > Browsed at a kiosk (full screen)

To trigger the code add a full slide sized rectangle in front of everything on slide 1 and set it's transparency to 100% and line to NONE. Give this shape an animation of Fly in from bottom and a MOUSEOVER action of run the macro above. Note the code accounts for this shape being in front of the text shape.

Transparency

Set Action

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