PowerPoint 2003: using slides from your file library in a slideset

Using a "library" of PowerPoint files to keep the words to your hymns, song and prayers lets you get the content right once, and use it over and over again,

This is described in Organising your Template, Song and Prayer files.

With this approach, you need to include slides from your library when you make the slidedeck for each service.   If you copy-and-paste, the slides from the library won't have the same format as the rest of the service.    A better approach is to use PowerPoint's "include" function.

To do this in PowerPoint 2003:

Open the PowerPoint file where you want to put the hymns etc for this service.
Hint: you may want to start from a service-template, as this helps to get things in the right order


For each place in the PowerPoint where you want to include some material from the library:

1. Choose File / Slides from files from the menus. This opens the Slide finder:
   
   
   
   
   
2. Click the Browse button in the top right hand corner of the Slide Finder window
   
   
3. Go to the place where you have stored your collection of hymns or prayers.
   (If you share these instructions with people from your church, it may be good to name the specific directory or disk drive here.)
   
   
4. Choose the file that you want to include, and click Open
   
   
   
   
   
5. Either click the Insert All button, or choose the slides you want and click the Insert button.
   
   
6. Click Close to put the slide-finder away

Result:
The slides from the file that you chose will be put into the file you are working on, just after the currently selected slide. They will pick up the formatting that applies in the PowerPoint file you are currently working on - edit the Master slide in this if you need to change anything on all slides.

Hint:
While you are working, you may notice problems with your file library. In the short term, it's quicker to fix the problem right in front of your. But in the long term, you can save a lot of time by fixing problems in the "slide library" as you see them.

See also:  Re-using Slides in PowerPoint 2007 (coming soon)


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