Breadcrumb allows you to add a visual reminder of where you are in a presentation. Adding a Breadcrumb is useful to help know where you are within a presentation and allows your end users of the presentation/PDF click to navigate the document.
N.B. Adding and customizing a Breadcrumb is available to all UpSlide users. We've added the instructions for administrators to reflect the relative complexity it involves.
Overview
You will create some slide master elements and tag them so UpSlide recognizes them as shapes to use for the breadcrumb. These shapes will be used to set the positioning, formatting and sizing. This means you can customize the breadcrumb on a presentation-by-presentation basis such as creating more/less complex versions in different formats.
Set your slide master
Adding the master layout
- Open an UpSlide compatible template.
- Within the UpSlide Table of Content master create a new layout
- Rename the layout to UpSlide Breadcrumb
Creating the base style and formatting
Within the breadcrumb you should create two shapes:
- One which contains the formatting of non-current (sub)section AND the position (vertical and horizontal) of the whole breadcrumb.
- The second which contains the formatting only for the current (sub)section
The distance between the breadcrumbs is determined by the gap between the non-current and current shape (blue arrow in the example). The green arrows are showing the positioning set by the non-current shape.
Assigning the formatted shapes into the engine
You now need to rename the two shapes in the PPT selection pane.
- Open the selection pane
- Select one shape at a time and name as either Current Section or Other Sections
Checking how your breadcrumb looks and functions
- Close the slide master and press TOC refresh (no need to close PPT)
- All the breadcrumbs are refreshed in full everytime. So don’t try and manually (re)format one on a slide!
- In the example above we included a static Agenda one in the client slide master and hyperlinked it to the default Contents page in the template.
Stopping it appearing on some layouts
The breadcrumb will not appear on UpSlide automated section dividers. You will have other layouts you do not want the breadcrumb to appear on. You can’t control it per ‘slide’ but can control it by layout used.
- Create a shape such as a box in the slide layout within the master and name it UpSlide Options.
- Right click the option and Edit Alt Text and insert: {"NoBreadcrumb": true}
- We recommend you hide this shape within the Selection Pane
Forcing only section names to appear (and not include subsection names)
If you include subsections anywhere in your presentation then the breadcrumb on every slide throughout the presentation will only show subsections of the existing section. In sections which do not include subsections no breadcrumb would appear.
You can change this setting so only sections appear in the breadcrumb and they will appear on every slide even in sections which do contain subsections. To do this add Alt Text to the non-current shape in the slide master: { "DisplayMode" : "SectionsOnly" }
Tips for creating shapes with good formatting
- Tick resize shape to fit text
- Add in margins e.g. for the example see right.
- Make sure the text is aligned to the left or right. Middle align + resize shape to fit text = usually overlaps and looks ugly
- Do not assign “wrap text in shape” because otherwise long names will cause a vertical increase in the shape. Having it unticked causes a horizontal (widening) which is usually the desired results
Depending on the shapes you use, you may want a nice 'start' to the breadcrumb in a different shape. You can do this by adding the first shape in to your presentation slide master (not the TOC master) and naming and formatting as you want. Then, give your breadcrumb shapes enough margin so they flow after it. See below: