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MS Office Forum / General PowerPoint Questions / November 2007What happened to <footer> variable in PowerPoint 2007
Hi, I had a training course yesterday on Office 2007 and tried out some of my powerpoints I had done in PPT 2003. On the footers of the master slide of my powerpoints for all of my courses, I had something very practical saved in a slide design template, e.g. in a text field at the bottom of the master slides: SWE101: <footer> Autumn 2007 It seems <footer> has disappeared when I opened these slides in PowerPoint 2007. What happened? I didn't have much time during my training to play around with it, and the instructor seemed to be uninformed about <footer> from powerpoint 2003. The advantage to this approach is that when I repackage handouts or slides for a course during a new semester, I only have to update the design template, which contains the course title and the semester part, and then apply it to my slides. Ideally, I'd use fields like in Word, but PowerPoint never supported these as far as I could tell. I thought going to Office 2007 would give me more features and not less... I agree that SmartObjects are very cool, but it's going to be a step backwards if I will lose the <footer> variable. What about <date/time>? It seems that <#> has stayed, at least on the tests I did yesterday. Before I upgrade (contradiction of terms?) to 2007 on my own PC, I'd like to be sure that this isn't going to break on all of my PowerPoints for all of my courses... Thanks in advance! My recommendation, install the trial version and see what happens to older presentations before jumping in with both feet. :-) Austin Myers MS PowerPoint MVP Team Provider of PFCPro, PFCMedia and PFCExpress www.playsforcertain.com > Hi, > [quoted text clipped - 29 lines] > > Thanks in advance! > My recommendation, install the trial version and see what happens to older > presentations before jumping in with both feet. :-) No offense, but that's a pretty common-sense recommendation, really. That can't be how one gets on the MVP team... :-) I think I found an answer. Maybe an MVP could confirm for the sake of others. Installing 2007, even a trial version, is not any fun only to find out <footer> has been nuked. http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/powerpoint/HA101077171033.aspx?pid=CH100668191033 My conclusion is that the <footer> variable from 2003, which could be inserted into text fields on masters, has been abolished in 2007. Otherwise, M$ would mention it on this help page shown above. Sounds like the same is true for the <date/time> variable. Too bad, since these fields could flow dynamically into text fields with other (static) text. I may be able to find a layout that tolerates a fixed size of a dynamically flowing footer field (as opposed to a variable), by putting other text around it. > > Hi, > [quoted text clipped - 29 lines] > > > Thanks in advance! >> My recommendation, install the trial version and see what happens to >> older >> presentations before jumping in with both feet. :-) > > No offense, but that's a pretty common-sense recommendation, really. > That can't be how one gets on the MVP team... :-) Umm, yes it is. Well, you gotta throw in a bunch of acronyms no one understands. :-) Honestly, the reason I suggested this is there are many saying other "things" don't always translate well either. I have a couple presentations that 07 completely trashes the embossed fonts on. :-( Austin Myers MS PowerPoint MVP Team Provider of PFCPro, PFCMedia and PFCExpress www.playsforcertain.com > My conclusion is that the <footer> variable from 2003, which could be > inserted into text fields on masters, has been abolished in 2007. > Otherwise, M$ would mention it on this help page shown above. Fact of the matter is that there never was a <footer> variable or date/time or any other variable in the same sense that there are field codes in Word, for example. There were (and in PPT 2007 still are) special bits of data that PPT understands as places to substitute date and slide number, but you can't type them in yourself. However, if you create a text box and on the Insert tab/Text group choose Date/Time or Slide Number, PPT will insert the magic and you'll get the appropriate info. Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be any equivalent way of getting a footer wherever you like, but see my other post for a way around that. As to installing the trial version, I wouldn't do that just yet. Since you have another way of trying your files in 2007, use that rather than risk messing up an existing previous-version Office install. > Sounds like the same is true for the <date/time> variable. Too bad, > since these fields could flow dynamically into text fields with other [quoted text clipped - 37 lines] > > > > > Thanks in advance! ----------------------------------------- Steve Rindsberg, PPT MVP PPT FAQ: www.pptfaq.com PPTools: www.pptools.com ================================================ How did you insert your footer in the PPT 2003 file? There are a couple of ways you can get text in there, and I think they don't all behave quite the same. So, if you typed SWE101: and have <footer> in there to pick up the info from the View | Header and Footer dialog, it should work fine. It does here, anyway. BUT. I was talking to Steve Rindsberg about this same subject earlier this week, and he was telling me that the < and > are not just < and > characters -- you can't just type them from the keyboard. Maybe that's the problem? Try opening a new, blank presentation in PPT 2003, go to View | Master, and type SWE101: before the <footer> tag. Then go to View | Header and Footer and type the info in the Footer box. View | Normal and see if it takes. Save and close the file and open it in PPT 2007 and see if the appropriate footer info is still there. It does work here.  SignatureEcho [MS PPT MVP] http://www.echosvoice.com What's new in PowerPoint 2007? http://www.echosvoice.com/2007.htm (New!) The PowerPoint 2007 Complete Makeover Kit http://tinyurl.com/2qzlpl Fixing PowerPoint Annoyances http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/powerpointannoy/index.html > Hi, > [quoted text clipped - 29 lines] > > Thanks in advance! On Nov 16, 8:33 am, "Echo S" <msnewsgro...@echosvoiceUGHSPAM.com> wrote: > How did you insert your footer in the PPT 2003 file? There are a couple of > ways you can get text in there, and I think they don't all behave quite the > same. In 2003, I go to the slide master. By default, it has 3 text fields that have <date/time>, <footer> and <#>. It's true that these are not "typed in" but exist by default. So, if I want to get: SWE101: <footer> Autumn 2007 I just click the cursor on the text field with the <footer> before it, then type text in front of it (SWE101: ) and hit carriage return after the <footer> part and type the next line. This info was saved in a .dot file, which I can just update (with the info for a new semester or course name), and apply to an existing PPT file. For example, if the subject of my powerpoint was "Intro to OO programming", I only had to update the .dot with the course name and semester info, and the "Intro to OO programming" was already in the Footer part (<footer> variable, if you will) of the dialog box that was proper to the PPT to which I apply it. I might have 15 modules, "Intro", "How to debug", "Understanding UML", etc. for different courses. These modules are reused, and it was nice to apply the .dot to them as needed. This is why the <footer> variable was important to me. > So, if you typed SWE101: and have <footer> in there to pick up the info from > the View | Header and Footer dialog, it should work fine. It does here, > anyway. Yes, that is how it works. But in 2007, it seems to "replace" the contents of the <footer> variable, with the whole text field from my 2003 master slide. I guess it's confusing, since the master still shows the <footer> in 2003, but 2007 seems to do away with it. > BUT. I was talking to Steve Rindsberg about this same subject earlier this > week, and he was telling me that the < and > are not just < and > > characters -- you can't just type them from the keyboard. Maybe that's the > problem? That's right. If by chance you delete that <footer> placeholder, you have to re-do a new presentation to get it back. > Try opening a new, blank presentation in PPT 2003, go to View | Master, and > type SWE101: before the <footer> tag. Then go to View | Header and Footer > and type the info in the Footer box. View | Normal and see if it takes. Save > and close the file and open it in PPT 2007 and see if the appropriate footer > info is still there. It does work here. I unfortunately can't run PPT2007 today to try this out. But, when you say "appropriate footer info is still there", do you mean some <footer>-type placeholder is there? I'm not complaining about the *contents* of the footer placeholder disappearing, but rather that I can't wrap text *around* the footer. Having a <footer> allowed me to wrap customized text around the fixed text (true contents) of my powerpoints. In other words, in 2007 I seem to lose the variable-like nature of the placeholder. One of the things that I found while surfing yesterday was that the slide masters work differently in PPT2007. There is now a single slide master and the rest are thumbnails. It seems like when 2007 takes a 2003 file, only one of the master slides is the "true" (topmost) master. Again, without being able to play in 2007, I am not sure about this assumption. But I seem to recall when I opened my 2003 file in 2007, I was looking at a thumbnail of the master slide which didn't have the <footer> text placeholder. Perhaps the <footer>-like placeholder still exists, but I was just not working with it on the true slide master. I found an example of how footers appear in 2007. Can anyone tell me if in the following exercise, it's possible to type text into and around the 'footer' word (assuming it's on the master slide as it's shown in the image)? http://office.microsoft.com/training/Training.aspx?AssetID=RP102296711033&CTT=6& Origin=RC102296661033 The image is at http://office.microsoft.com/global/images/default.aspx?AssetID=ZA102249111033 in case the link above doesn't work. Sorry if these things are vague - I guess it's obscure what I'm trying to do, and not having 2007 to play with in front of me is very frustrating. I have a friend who has PPT 2007 and I will try it on her PC. Thanks for all the ideas, nonetheless. Regards, > -- > Echo [MS PPT MVP]http://www.echosvoice.com [quoted text clipped - 35 lines] > > > Thanks in advance! I still don't know how you're populating the <footer> text, though. Here, I add that via View | Header and Footer. I did what you did. I went to the slide master, clicked before the <footer>, and typed SWE101:. Then I clicked after the <footer>, hit Enter, and typed Autumn 2007. Then I go to View | Header and Footer and type in the text that I want to show up in the <footer> part. But you mentioned applying templates, and I'm not sure how that figures into things. Anyway, If I open that 2003 file in 2007, then the text I added via View | Header and Footer is there when I look at Insert | Header and Footer. (Header and Footer is on the Insert tab of the ribbon in PPT 2007, not on the View tab.) But I also see the text I entered in the footer placeholder before and after the <footer> text. (For example, in 2007 I see SWE101: jadskfj jkjd Autumn 2007 -- jadskfj jkjd is the nonsense text I put in via View | Header and Footer in PPT 2003. In PPT 2003, I just see the nonsense text jadskfj jkjd in the Header and Footer dialog box.) What I can't do, which is something I hadn't realized before your latest reply, is force a line break between the <footer> text and text I entered after it. There should be a line break there because I pressed Enter. I suspect that's a bug. The footer behavior is different in 2007 than in 2003 because in 2003 and prior, it confused a lot of users. There were so many ways to get text into the footer area (type it on the master, add it via Header and Footer dialog), and users often couldn't figure out how to get rid of text that someone else had entered. So now, if you type info in the footer placeholder, it shows up in the Insert | Header and Footer dialog as well. But yeah, I'm not seeing a way to create the <footer> thing in 2007. I think the Header/Footer dialog and Footer placeholder and how they work together need to have some more thought put into them. And yes, the slide masters are very different in 2007. One master with many layouts that inherit their settings from the master. (You can still add multiple masters so you can have different designs if you want.) SignatureEcho [MS PPT MVP] http://www.echosvoice.com What's new in PowerPoint 2007? http://www.echosvoice.com/2007.htm (New!) The PowerPoint 2007 Complete Makeover Kit http://tinyurl.com/2qzlpl Fixing PowerPoint Annoyances http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/powerpointannoy/index.html > On Nov 16, 8:33 am, "Echo S" <msnewsgro...@echosvoiceUGHSPAM.com> > wrote: [quoted text clipped - 137 lines] >> >> > Thanks in advance! On Nov 16, 6:32 pm, "Echo S" <msnewsgro...@echosvoiceUGHSPAM.com> wrote: > But yeah, I'm not seeing a way to create the <footer> thing in 2007. Thanks. I finally played last night with PPT2007 on my friend's laptop for around 20 mins with a new file. I looked at the master slide and its thumbnails, etc. Conclusion: <footer> as a placeholder that can be inside a text box has been eliminated (answering the question which is the subject of the posting). The footer still exists, but it's an entire text box. <#> still exists, and you can use it as you could in 2003. That is, you can type stuff like "Slide:" before the "<#>" placeholder, or even enter carriage returns around it, etc. I have not played enough with the date/time, but I got the impression it's also an entire text box like footer. Too bad Office 2007 is more ergonomically consistent with respect to menus, etc. but is now inconsistent now with <#> and footer, date/ time... It's definitely a step backwards. Footers, slide numbers etc. work a bit differently now, and your old ones may not transfer, but try this: Open one of your old files in 2007 On the Insert tab, Text group click Header & Footer Put a check next to Footer and type in the text you want. Click Apply to All. You can use the Slide Master view to format the footers for all of your slides. In other words, you can still get there, I think; you just take a few different turns along the way. ----------------------------------------- Steve Rindsberg, PPT MVP PPT FAQ: www.pptfaq.com PPTools: www.pptools.com ================================================ |
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