Linked Slides

You can link PowerPoint slides to those used in other presentations, in much the same way that you link to Excel. When inserting content using the Library pane, you are provided an option (enabled by default) to link inserted slides to their source slides.

For example, suppose a slide in a shared library contains year-to-date information and is updated weekly. You add this slide to your presentation on May 1 using the Library pane, but on May 15 when you are putting the finishing touches on your presentation, that slide is already outdated. If you linked the slide to its source when inserting in your presentation, you can simply click the Macabacus > Refresh Link button to update it to the current version.

When you open a presentation, Macabacus will automatically check it for updates to slides linked to library slides. If updates are available, you will have the opportunity to preview them before applying them to your presentation.

The Manage Links dialog, accessed by clicking the Macabacus > Manage Links button, lets you perform the operations described below on multiple linked slides at once.

Select one or more linked slides and click the Macabacus > Refresh Link button. The source presentation need not be open to update linked slides.

Select one or more linked slides and click the Macabacus > View Source button. If the source presentation is already open it will be activated, and the source slide will be made visible. If not, Macabacus will open the source presentation.

Select one or more linked slides and click the Macabacus > More Linking Tools > Break Link button. This removes the link between the slide and its source.

In Macabacus v9 and later, when you republish library slides in the Library Manager dialog, Macabacus retains the link identifier of the original slides so that links to the original slide now point to the new slides. In older versions of Macabacus, you must migrate links as described below when republishing slides to ensure that links are preserved.

When linking to slides in other PowerPoint presentations, the source slides in those presentations are tagged with information identifying them as link sources. If source slides are deleted or replaced, any pre-established links to them will be broken. This presents a problem when updating the content in shared libraries, as the administrator of that content must be careful not to unintentionally break links that could affect multiple end users' presentations.

For example, suppose a slide in a shared library contains year-to-date information and must be updated weekly. Multiple Macabacus users link to this slide in their presentations. If the administrator of the shared library simply adds the new slide and deletes the old one, all of those previously established links would be broken.

The administrator should instead use the Migrate Links tool, accessible from the Macabacus tab in the Links group, to migrate any existing links from the old slide to the new one, before deleting the old slide. This will point the links in users' presentations to the new slide, and the old slide can be safely deleted.

_{This documentation refers to the latest Macabacus version. Some features and descriptions of these features may not apply to older versions of Macabacus. Update your Macabacus software to take advantage of the latest features.}