Randomize the order of a PowerPoint presentation

PPTools
Shape Styles brings the power of styles to PowerPoint. Apply complex formatting with a single click
Merge Excel, CSV or tab-delimited data into PowerPoint presentations to create certificates, awards presentations, personalized presentations and more
FixLinks prevents broken links when you distribute PowerPoint presentations
Optimizer saves disk space and bandwidth, shrinks your PowerPoint presentations to the right size for email, screenshow or printing
PPT2HTML gives you full control of PowerPoint HTML output, helps meet Section 508 accessibility requirements
Prep4PDF preserves interactivity in PowerPoint presentations when you convert to PDF
Image Export converts PowerPoint slides to JPG, PNG, GIF, WMF and more

Pre-made solutions

Excel MVP Tushar Mehta has a free add-in that creates a custom show of the slides in random order and shows it

There's another VBA example on David Marcovitz' site. Look for examples 8.16 and 8.17. Go to Examples by Chapter and click on Chapter 8.

Bill Dillworth mentions this alternate solution:

Create an action button and have it invoke this macro (that will take you to a random slide):

Private Sub CommandButton1_Click()
    ActivePresentation.SlideShowWindow _
        .View.GotoSlide Int(Rnd * _
        ActivePresentation.Slides.Count) + 1
End Sub

Or roll your own with VBA

This macro from PowerPoint MVP Brian Reilly will randomize the order of slides in a presentation:

Sub sort_rand()

    Dim i As Integer
    Dim myvalue As Integer
    Dim islides As Integer
    islides = ActivePresentation.Slides.Count
    For i = 1 To ActivePresentation.Slides.Count
        myvalue = Int((i * Rnd) + 1)
        ActiveWindow.ViewType = ppViewSlideSorter
        ActivePresentation.Slides(myvalue).Select
        ActiveWindow.Selection.Cut
        ActivePresentation.Slides(islides - 1).Select
        ActiveWindow.View.Paste
    Next

End Sub

See How do I use VBA code in PowerPoint? to learn how to use this example code.

Contents © 1995-2008 Stephen Rindsberg, Rindsberg Photography, Inc. and members of the MS PowerPoint MVP team. You may link to this page but any form of unauthorized reproduction of this page's contents is expressly forbidden.

content authoring & site maintenance by

Friday - The Automatic FAQ Maker