PowerPoint SHOW MODE settings

Questions & Suggestions
1

I read about a user on some other KM forum who was a Presentation Specialist, as am I who programmed a set of macros to do all of the following (if I remember correctly)

  1. Turn the volume off on the Mac
  2. Deactivate the screensaver
  3. Adjust the Energy settings to PREVENT the Mac from ever sleeping’
  4. Turn off notifications
  5. Disable Microsoft Update which ALWAYS seems to pop-up right in the middle of a slideshow presentation
  6. Adjust the User Account password to be required after 15 minutes -automatically when out of SLIDE SHOW MODE in idle mode
  7. Activate iCloud’s FIND MY MAC - just in case the computer unknowingly walks away backstage in the dark when I’m away on a 5 minute bio break (it hey it happens)
  8. Launch and arrange all my favorite presentation apps and hide them until I need them (which I know how to do, but then hide them again if they’ve been idol in the background for more than 30 minutes (which I don’t know how to do)
  9. Set the desktop to one of my politically neutral or corporate desktop backgrounds that is client friendly

Then automatically turn all that off and return it back to normal mode after 24 hours.

Maybe I need to break those 9 steps into individual forum questions to make it a bit more digestable than posting it as a single mega-macro. I’m a total newbie who can get the system control prefs pane open but doesn’t know how to select a SPECIFIC PREF PANE let alone adjust it and several others.

2

Generally that is the best way to take on any task.

You have your list of things you want to do - make a macro for each of them. Start the macro with just an Alert that says "Turn off the volume on the Mac" OK/Cancel. Dot hat action manually and then click OK.

Create a macro that executes each of the 9 macros in turn.

OK, now you already have an improvement in reliability because you wont forget a step.

Then for each macro, look at the actions you take and think about how you will automate that. Some will be easy, some will be difficult. Start with the easy ones and work from there.

And for each one, ask individually on the forum how to do it if you get stuck.

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