Assign hotkey on Powerpoint?

[TechBill]

We tried googling last night but couldn't find anything on this.

We have one of those remote mouse pointer that advances the next slide on PowerPoint and we use dual monitor setup on PP because we use the same main computer for other things like music or video.

In order to use the remote the PP have to be running in foreground or the Mouse cusor over on the PP second monitor so we are wanting to try to set up a hotkey that allow us to advance or go back a slide then we can set up a button on the remote to the hotkey.

We wanted to be able to advance or go back a slide when PP is minimized to the taskbar.

Is there a way to set up like this?

Thank you
Bill F

There are several programs called "keyboard remappers" that usually have hotkey capabilities. Do a Google search for that.

There is also a company called "x-keys" that lets you assign any keys or a macro of keys to a special USB keypad. I own a couple and they are pretty cool:
http://www.piengineering.com/xkeys.php

This one can fit above your keyboard and might do the trick -- and you can probably think of some other things you could use it for to make your life easier:
http://www.piengineering.com/xkeys/xkstick.php

[TechBill]

Originally Posted by Tim Eason

There are several programs called "keyboard remappers" that usually have hotkey capabilities. Do a Google search for that.

There is also a company called "x-keys" that lets you assign any keys or a macro of keys to a special USB keypad. I own a couple and they are pretty cool:
http://www.piengineering.com/xkeys.php

This one can fit above your keyboard and might do the trick -- and you can probably think of some other things you could use it for to make your life easier:
http://www.piengineering.com/xkeys/xkstick.php

I read the website and not sure how that would help in our case.

Basically we want to use the remote control to advance the slide or go back a slide without having PowerPoint running in the foreground and minimized to the taskbar.


Right now we assign our remote button to the keyboard left and right arrow keys however PowerPoint have to be on the foreground before the key would work.

If it minimized or another program running foreground then the remote control would be operating that program unless we move the mouse cursor over to the dual monitor and press the button on the remote but the Media person have to remember to let go of the mouse when the Speaker need to take control of the mouse to change the PowerPoint slide and sometime media person forget to let go of the mouse so the Speaker can change the slides and wound up having a tug of war over the mouse cursor which is funny anyway ...

But you gave me a starting point, I didn't think about look at third party hotkey program that would allow me to assign hotkeys to specific program keys. I thought maybe I remember doing that a long time ago. So I will google up further and research on this.

Thank you for the inputs!

Bill F

That's just how Windows works. Whatever window is active is the one that reacts to the keyboard. There is a page with a bunch of PPT plugins that I can't find anymore, but I found this one:

http://www.bettersolutions.com/powerpoint.aspx

If I find the other page I'll post it. I think it had some plugins that would help. The link is somewhere here at CMN....

[TechBill]

Originally Posted by Tim Eason

That's just how Windows works. Whatever window is active is the one that reacts to the keyboard. There is a page with a bunch of PPT plugins that I can't find anymore, but I found this one:

http://www.bettersolutions.com/powerpoint.aspx

If I find the other page I'll post it. I think it had some plugins that would help. The link is somewhere here at CMN....

Yes I am aware of that how Windows works that whatever is active is one that reacts to keyboard.

In some softwares they have hotkey where you could set up hotkey that the software will watch for the certian keystrokes and reacts to it.

Like Setting up Ctr + Shift + F1 will reacts like an left arrow key but the software doesn't need to be active to detect it.

I am still googling to see if I can find a small hotkey program that would do something like this.

I do run a similar program for my TV radio remote control on my HTPC Media system at home so certain programs reacts to it or loads or close DVD players etc all on one remote control but it is written for that specific radio remote control so it not something I can use for PowerPoint.

I am kind of surpised that MS didn't offer or support custom hotkey in their PowerPoint.

Bill F

What about this one (I didn't look closely):
http://officeone.mvps.org/powershow/...tor_media.html

This page has a bunch of interesting links:
http://www.realtimesoft.com/multimon/products.asp

Oh -- this is the one I was looking for:
http://officeone.mvps.org/powershow/powershow.html

I think that might do it for you:
"View the slide show on a monitor while you continue working on something else on another monitor."

That's my best try.

[TechBill]

Originally Posted by Tim Eason

Oh -- this is the one I was looking for:
http://officeone.mvps.org/powershow/powershow.html

I think that might do it for you:
"View the slide show on a monitor while you continue working on something else on another monitor."

That's my best try.

Thanks for helping out with the research. I will check them out.

God bless you!

Bill F

[tpichler]

We had this problem years ago and we wrote an application that looks for game controller button inputs and connects to the PowerPoint API (application programming interface) to navigate slide shows. We called it PraisePoint It monitors the game controller constantly and automates PowerPoint. This allows us to be using any application and when the controller is clicked PowerPoint will respond.

Then we found a RF key fob remote kit from a company call uLink and modified the receiver to close the electrical contacts of a game controller I took apart. The end result is a nice little RF remote that our worship leader can use from the stage. We click for the services but he often clicks during practices so he can jump arround easier.

Interesting that Tim would mention the xKeys modules. We have one of those too and we really like the quality of the unit. You still have to write custom software because the included software just sends virtual keystrokes to the application with focus. But they do have a free SDK (software developers kit) if you are so inclined.

If you have a programmer at your church who is interested I am more than willing to share code with them for the PowerPoint, game controller and xKeys parts. What version of PowerPoint do you have? Microsoft has changed the API many times over the years.

I feel obligated to pop this wonderful bubble with a small issue that will eventually irritate you PowerPoint animations stop as soon as the PowerPoint application loses focus. The best way we could deal with this was to have our application actually steal focus from whatever app was running and give it back to PowerPoint. Then you had to wait for the animation to complete before you could continue working in the other app. For the most part this was a very good solution because we did not have long running animations.

FOCUS!!!! That's the word I've been racking my brain to remember. It was like a song stuck in my head and I couldn't remember who sings it. Thanks for that! Sorry...... that's off-topic.

Sounds you came up with an innovative and marketable solution! You should think about packaging it and offering it for sale. I bet a lot of churches would be interested. You can contact me if you want any advice on doing that. I've done a lot of my own product development (mainly training and graphics). I could put in a good word to the people I've worked with in the past.

[TechBill]

Thank you for the offer but we don't have anyone with programming skill in our Church. We use PowerPoint 2003.

I have to admit that I agree with Tim that you have a marketable software if you improve on it to make it more flexible so it would work on any rf remote out there even from the keyboard itself.

Almost all remote on the market allow you to assign keystrokes to each buttons and if you design your software that we can add keystrokes and assign it to PowerPoint API then you probabaly have a very marketable software.

Example .. On your software one would set up like alt + ctrl + n keystroke to advance the next slide and alt + ctrl + p keystroke to go back to the previous slide on PowerPoint then they can set up their remote buttons do those keystrokes or the media person can hit thoses keystroke on the keyboard without having to bring up the PowerPoint in the foreground on desktop to change slides.

What we are looking for a software can watch for those assigned keystrokes and send command to PowerPoint API to perform the actions (change slides etc) without having it up in the foreground.

God Bless!
Bill F