Christmas Countdown (2003 SP3)

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Good evening

I have been asked to make a slide that shows the days,hours and minutes left until Christmas, no problem with the slide, animations etc. but can Powerpoint do the maths (math across the pond) so that when I F5 the slide that has the current date hidden on it it shows a moving countdown?

Thanks

Steve

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Hi Steve

I have put a text box on a slide called Text1 and craeted this

Private Sub cmdButtonTime_Click()
Dim dtDateNow As Date
Dim dtXmas As Date
Dim dtDay As Date

dtXmas = DateAdd(“d”, 0, “25-dec-07”)

dtDateNow = Now

dtDay = dtXmas – dtDateNow

Me.TextBox1.Value = Format(dtDay, “##”) & ” day(s) ” & Format(dtDay, “hh”) _
& ” hours ” & Format(dtDay, “mm”) & ” minutes ” & Format(dtDay, “ss”) & _
” seconds”

End Sub

HTH

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Thats teasing young master bear knowing how useless I am at this VBA malarky

OK, on the Slide Master I have placed a text box on the Tools menu I have clicked Macro, Record New Macro, Stop, Alt+F11 unashamedly copied and pasted your code into a text box on a userform and called it timer.

On slide Master clicked on textbox clicked on Tools, Macro, selected Timer, selected Run and, and, and nothing?

Whithout being impolite, where do I stick it?

Thanks

Steve

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For anyone mystified about the basics for doing this, please see these past threads:

Basic Timer (2003 SP2) by stevehocking
Re: Timer Countdown to Start of Presentation (Office 2000) by tajsimmons
Automatic clock timer countdown (2000) (multiple suggestions)

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Thanks Jefferson

As you can see from my own post that you cite, I can make some good timers that involve minutes, for instance for my daughter who is a school teacher in primary school I made a time with an animated snail who takes 5 minutes to walk along a straight path but these can take about 15 minutes to do, to make one like that to countdown 35 days (which would mean 3 millon odd 1 second time markers) would leave me a little dizzy

Thanks for reminding me though that I have posted at least one suggestion in goodness knows how many years years

Thanks

Steve

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Steve
To get the code above to run you need to
A Insert a textbox from the control toolbox
B Insert a command button from the same toolbox
C Right click the button > view code and paste in the code above omitting the private sub and End Sub lines (which will already be there) Paste the code between these existing lines

Having done all this I’m pretty sure that code will not give you a countdown but the current position which won’t change.

You would need to add at least a Do Until / Loop around the code and a DoEvents within the loop to update the screen I think. This is pretty dodgy programming as the loop will not stop even in edit mode but it should work OK!

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Hi John

Thanks for that but it does not seem to work, when I open your zipped version nothing happens when I click the button so I made a new PP and followed your notes and used Jezza’s code and it did work to a fashion, if I clicked it every now and again the seconds would decrease but never the minutes etc. when I added to the Do event – Loop part it stopped working althogether.

Thanks for everybodies efforts

Steve

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Strange it works fine here. Are you sure you haven’t got macro security to high (above medium” and you enabled them when asked?
If you right click the button in edit mode you should see the code

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Thanks John

Thats one problem solved, I installed 2003 on my home machine at the weekend and installed SP3, it seems to have reset all of my security levels which I have now adjusted.

The seconds countdown fine but never adjust the minutes, I will have a play to see if I can do anything but don’t worry too much, its just that she who must be obeyed wanted something running in reception.

Cheers

Steve

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I have found a nice add in that puts sime nice time features into Powerpoint

http://www.tushar-mehta.com/powerpoint/ppt_timer/index.htm%5B/url%5D

it does not answer my question but I thought it a useful tool to post

Cheers

Steve

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Try This

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Fantastic John

Thanks very much for your efforts

Steve

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Try This

I’ve altered John’s code to use in a 2003 PowerPoint presentation to count down the days until a specific event to include seconds. (I posted the code below.)

However, the minutes change when the seconds change to 29. While I basically understand John’s code (and thank you John for sharing!) I’m baffled on how to fix this.

Also, ideally I would like the text box to be on the MasterSlide so the countdown could be started via a command button on Slide 1 and visible and actively counting down through Slide xx, but my attempts to do so have NOT been successful and I’m running outta swear words.

A most gracious “Thank you VERY MUCH!” to all on this site who help us with these dilemmas.

Private Sub CommandButton1_Click()

‘http://www.wopr.com/index.php?showtopic=677344&hl=countdown
‘Courtesy of John Wilson

Dim dtDateNow As Date
Dim dtXmas As Date
Dim dtdiff As Double
Dim Idays As Double
Dim Ihrs As Double
Dim Imins As Double
Dim Isecs As Double
Dim TestHours As Double

Dim SecondsDif As Double
Dim MinutesDif As Double
Dim HoursDif As Double
Dim DaysDif As Double

Dim ModSecondsDif As Double
Dim ModMinutesDif As Double
Dim ModHoursDif As Double
Dim ModDaysDif As Double

Do Until dtDateNow = “01-mar-10”

dtdiff = DateDiff(“s”, Now, #3/1/2010#)

Idays = dtdiff / 86400

dtdiff = dtdiff Mod 86400

Ihrs = dtdiff / 3600

dtdiff = dtdiff Mod 3600

Imins = dtdiff / 60

dtdiff = dtdiff Mod 60

Isecs = dtdiff

Me.TextBox1.Value = CInt(Idays) & ” Days ” & _
IIf(CInt(Ihrs) < 10, "0" & CInt(Ihrs), CInt(Ihrs)) & ":" & _
IIf(CInt(Imins) < 10, "0" & CInt(Imins), CInt(Imins)) & ":" & _
IIf(CInt(Isecs) < 10, "0" & CInt(Isecs), CInt(Isecs)) & " until event!"

DoEvents

Loop

End Sub

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Try replacing the three division operators / with the integer division operator

…
Idays = dtdiff 86400
dtdiff = dtdiff Mod 86400
Ihrs = dtdiff 3600
dtdiff = dtdiff Mod 3600
Imins = dtdiff 60
dtdiff = dtdiff Mod 60
…

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Thank you Hans!! That fixed the countdown problem.

OK – I’m greedy and still looking for answers.

Is it possible to place the countdown on the slide master to be activated by a command button on Slide 1 – so the countdown is actively running on each slide from beginning to end without having to press another command button?

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I tried to do that, but couldn’t get text in the master slide to be updated on the fly. But I’m not very good at PowerPoint VBA, hopefully someone else knows whether it’s possible at all and if so, how.

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I tried to do that, but couldn’t get text in the master slide to be updated on the fly. But I’m not very good at PowerPoint VBA, hopefully someone else knows whether it’s possible at all and if so, how.

Thanks for trying Hans.

Some code I tried would not update the Master slide during the slideshow, but when I went back to the normal/edit view of the slides the Master slide countdown clock was active and running and would continue to run until I viewed my code. Very wierd.

Still looking (as time permits) for a solution.

TJ

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