preventing PowerPoint presentations from being edited

During trials parties typically exchange PDFs of demonstratives prepared in PowerPoint for openings, witness examinations, and closings. While these PDFs can capture some of the animated steps in a slide deck, and sometimes even include video added to slides, much of the content of the PowerPoint presentation will inevitably be omitted from the PDF version. If you'd like to, or are required to, send out a PowerPoint file with the full functionality of the original, but don't want the recipients to be able to edit the file, OfficeOne has an add-in called Shape Locker that will allow you to lock it down and make it impossible to alter.

See this link: https://officeoneonline.com/shapelocker/shapelocker_download.html

Shape Locker will appear on the Design Tools tab on the PowerPoint ribbon.

If you select the objects on a slide and then click on 'Lock Shapes' you will be prompted to indicate how you want to lock down each selected shape. You can configure the presentation so that shapes cannot be resized, repositioned, or even selected, and so that text can't be edited.

The add-in is not free - a single user license costs $49, but a trial version is available. The trial version lasts for 11 days.

I tried running some vba code to select all of the shapes in a PowerPoint file at once, but this did not allow me to use Shape Locker on all slides automatically. It's necessary to lock the shapes on each slide one by one.

I've tested it out, and confirmed that I could not edit text after running it, or select any object at all on a slide. However it was possible to access the Animation pane in PowerPoint and make changes there.

Preparing a PDF of a PowerPoint Slide Capturing Each Animated Step

Massimo Rimondini has done everyone who has to prepare a PDF or hard copies of PowerPoint presentation a great favor by developing an add-in for PowerPoint which will separate each animated step in a presentation onto a separate slide automatically. PPspliT is available as a free download here: https://www.maxonthenet.altervista.org/ppsplit.php

After it is installed, a new tab will appear on the ribbon named, 'PPspliT'. Here you'll see if you have the option to split up the presentation of each animated object which is triggered by a click.

Be sure to first save the master version of the slide show as a copy. Check off the option to preserve slide numbers, so it's easy for the reader to find their place in the hard copy when viewing the live presentation.

After the 'Split animations' button is clicked, the add-in will create new slides - one for each object that you have animated. In presentation mode, a simple enough PowerPoint should function the same way. The result will allow you to distribute the show as a PDF, or print it as a hard copy without the animated steps obscuring any detail that falls underneath another object as the animation is run. You'll also have a hard copy which will function like a flip book, creating an animated effect the old-fashioned way.

As always, Litigation Support Tip of the Night tested the demonstrated technique and confirmed that it worked. I used PowerPoint 2019 tonight.

PowerPoint in the Background on Zoom

During the hopefully soon to end COVID pandemic, folks have done an awful lot of tinkering around with Zoom backgrounds for the sake of humor, or to hide messy living rooms. Don’t miss that an advanced share screen setting will allow you to have an active Powerpoint presentation displayed in the background, while your webcam image is still shown to an audience.

Click on the Share Screen button at the bottom of the screen in a Zoom session. Then click on the Advanced tab in the dialog box which opens, and select, 'PowerPoint as Virtual Background'.

Your Zoom image will appear in front of the slides at the lower right. This feature will work even if you don't have PowerPoint installed on your PC. Your webcam image can be moved and resized simply by clicking on it, and dragging at the corners. Zoom will capture your hand gestures in this mode, but it's very difficult to get them right.

A small box with controls to move slides forward and backward should appear when your cursor is moved across the screen.

Click 'Stop Share' at the top of the screen to exit this background mode.