Download the ppt-timer.zip
file to a location of your choice. Unzip
the file and extract the ppt-timer.ppa file to a location of your choice.
Take care to save in the same folder the help
file, ppt-timer.chm, if present.
Office programs have a
default location that might be an useful
location for this add-in. The location
of this folder has changed with different
versions of the software. To locate
this folder on your computer, open
PowerPoint, then select
Tools | Add-Ins.
In the Add-Ins dialog box, click the Add
New.. button. This will open in the
default folder used by PowerPoint for
add-ins.
In PowerPoint:
Select
Tools | Macro >
Security... If the security setting is
High or Very High, the add-in won't work.
Temporarily, set the security level
set to medium.
Select
Tools | Add-Ins... | Add New...
button to
locate and add the .PPA file saved above.
Ensure that it has a 'X'
(or a checkmark)
to the left of the name. If it doesn't,
select the add-in, then
click the Load button.
When PP asks if macros
should be enabled, the answer must be yes
Once the add-in is
loaded, the security setting can be returned
to high (or very high).
The add-in displays the user selected time
information with the use of a custom textbox that it
adds to every slide. Putting the textbox on
each slide adds tremendous flexibility in terms of
how the time is displayed -- or not displayed -- on
a slide-by-slide basis.
At the same time, this customization is completely
optional. If during a slideshow no
custom textbox is available on a slide, the add-in
will create and use a default box.
Customizing the display format is a two-step
process, with an optional third step.
Saving the customized formatting: It is extremely
important to be aware of this quirk. For
historical reasons, the add-in deletes the
customized timer textbox at the end of a slide show.
So, the only way to save the customization is to
save the presentation just before starting a
slide show and to not save the presentation
at the end of the slide show. This legacy
behavior will be improved in the next release of the
software.
First, add the textbox
needed for the time display. This is
done through the menu item
TM | Customize Timer >
Add Timer Item
The result is a textbox on
the slide as shown on the right.
Format the text as
desired (Font, Size, Color, etc.) Move
the textbox as desired. In the example
on the right, the textbox was moved to the
top-left corner of the slide and the text
formatted as Arial size 18 in Green.
Second, once the textbox is
satisfactorily formatted, use the
TM | Customize Timer >
Copy Timer Item menu item to
duplicate this textbox on all existing
slides.
Third, and this is strictly
optional, customize the textbox on
individual slides. This is
particularly useful to not
show the time on a specific slide.
Just select the textbox and move it off the
slide.
As mentioned in the section on Purpose, the
add-in can show either the time of the day, the
elapsed time of the presentation, or a countdown
timer for the presentation. This is configured
through the Presentation Timer dialog box.
Use
TM | Presentation
Timer... to access the dialog box
Select the desired display from the option
buttons in the Select
Option section. Specify how
often the display is updated while the slide
show is running.
The section at the bottom is specifically
for use with the Count
down Timer option. It lets one
configure various countdown options,
including the ability to forcibly end the
show after a grace period that starts after
the regular countdown reaches zero.
The customization and configuration selected
before the slide show control what time element is
shown on each slide and how it is shown. Also,
if the 'force end of show' option of the countdown
timer is in effect, the slide show will be stopped
at the end of the grace period.
