How VBA Can Add Power To Your PowerPoint Presentations

Personalising your presentations may help to give you more confidence that you are getting your message across in the best way possible.

Thanks to Microsoft's (MS) computer writing software, you can now add your own touches to many MS products including PowerPoint. This application is commonly used in board rooms and other locations where important information needs to be shown to others, such as in classrooms. The software allows you to add different types of data to slides, such as graphs and animations, meaning you can be sure your presentation holds the viewers' attention.

Many users of PowerPoint are satisfied with the options the software offers and do not feel the need to make their own additions to the application. Indeed without adding these simple programmes, also called macros, to PowerPoint there are many functions that allow you to create and personalise you own presentation. For instance, if you feel confident you can manage without using the product's templates, you may like to opt for the custom style layouts, where you can let your imagination run free if you desire.

However, through Visual Basic for Applications (VBA), you are able to add more features to the programme so it better fits your needs. VBA programmes are often referred to as 'procedures', which make up 'modules' that contain them. Procedures are made up of code, and this is a selection of numbers, punctuation and text, which is the heart of your macro and commands the application to work in a defined way.

The advantage of VBA is that it can be used by you to tweak several MS products, with training courses in this subject area available for those who wish to learn more. If you prefer to leave computer programming to when you have learned more about the subject there are many macros available to you online if you are keen to personalise PowerPoint to make it work even better. For instance, you may be looking to make alterations to the application's toolbar so you can more easily access functions that are not currently available on it.

As well as being able to make alterations to the product, you also have the option of installing or writing computer programmes that function during your presentation. For example, your slides may contain Flash movies that you would like greater control over while they play in PowerPoint. Code is available online to download so that you can play, pause and rewind these files whenever you see fit.

Before you begin adding code to the software it is important that your security settings are not too high, as this may prevent them working. Training courses can help you to set these to the appropriate level without leaving your computer open to viruses, which can sometimes be spread via macros. Collections of codes are stored in modules, which may be downloaded to the MS Product or copied by you into the VBA editor.

This is found via the toolbar and once it is opened you can transfer the desired module to PowerPoint. In order to prevent errors in your code from being copied, you can run a short Debug request, which helps to uncover syntax problems in the text. As soon as you have successfully added the code then it is accessible without activating the VBA editor and you are free to enjoy the added computer programmes quickly and easily.