PowerPoint: hide selected objects from printout?

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Hi,

I have to printout a handout for my students and I want to know if it’s possible to selectively hide certain objects in my slides from my Powerpoint printout?

THanks,
-Alex

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What version of PowerPoint?
Are you printing in B&W?

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You could always delete the selected items and then print. As long as you don’t save the presentation, you won’t lose anything. If you plan on doing this in the future, you could do a Save as with a new file name for the print copy file.

Jerry

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One of the great features in PPT 2010/2007 is the Selection Pane. Look on the Home Ribbon>Editing Group>Select Dropdown and choose Selection Pane.
Every object on the slide is listed. Beside each item is an eye icon. Clicking on the item removes it from view without deleting it from the presentation. You can print or show the presentation and the item will not print or show in the slide show.
That is just the start of the things you can do with the selection pane. I’ve found that it is invaluable when editing and animating.

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Alex,

Here’s some code that will do the trick. Unfortunately it does take some setup as you need to execute the following command in the Immediate window, or you could setup a sub to do it and just change it each time you run it, once for each Shape you want to hide.

Code:

ActivePresentation.Slides(sln).Shapes(spn).Name = "Hide x"

Where:
sln = the slide number {you could use slide names if you have them named}
shn = the shape number on the slide.
x = any previously unused number/letter {I’m assuming that you can’t have duplicate shape names across slides…not tested}

Once you have this setup you can use this code to toggle the shapes visible/invisible. I’ve tested this {in 2010 and 2003} and they do not print out when you can’t see them.

Code:

Option Explicit

Sub SelectiveHide()

   Dim shpCurrent As Shape
   Dim sldCurrent As Slide
   
   For Each sldCurrent In ActivePresentation.Slides
      With sldCurrent
          For Each shpCurrent In .Shapes
             If Left(shpCurrent.Name, 4) = "Hide" Then _
               shpCurrent.Visible = Not shpCurrent.Visible
          Next 'shpCurrent
      End With 'sldCurrent
    Next       'sldCurrent
   
End Sub

HTH :cheers:

May the Forces of good computing be with you!

RG

PowerShell & VBA Rule!
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