How to Create a Pop-Up in PowerPoint

By Ryan Menezes

Add interactivity to your slideshow with pop-up images.
i IT Stock/Polka Dot/Getty Images

Interactive PowerPoint presentations respond to your input by changing a slide's content. PowerPoint can move elements, emphasize objects already on the screen or cause new ones to pop up into view. For example, a slide can contain a tag cloud of search terms customers use to find your site. Each time the mouse rolls over one particular term, an image can pop up to illustrate the term. When the mouse rolls off the term, the pop-up vanishes.

Create Pop-Up Objects

Insert an image or shape to serve as the slide's background. Drag its corners to extend it over the entire slide, right-click it and click "Send to Back."

Insert the image or text that must pop up.

Click "Select" in the ribbon's Home tab and click "Selection Pane." Click the pop-up object's entry and type "pop-up" to rename it.

Click the icon of an eye beside "pop-up" to hide the object.

Create Your Pop-Up Macros

Click "Options" in the ribbon's File tab to open the PowerPoint Options dialog box.

Click "Customize Ribbon" and click the check box next to "Developer." Click "OK."

Click "Macros" in the Developer's tab's code group to open PowerPoint's Visual Basic editor.

Type the following code to create a macro to show the object:

Sub mcrPop() Set pop = ActivePresentation.Slides(7).Shapes("popup") pop.Visible = True End Sub

Replace "7" with the current slide's number.

Type the following code to create a macro to hide the object:

Sub mcrUnPop() Set pop = ActivePresentation.Slides(7).Shapes("popup") pop.Visible = False End Sub

Again, replace "7" with the current slide's number.

Apply the Macros to the Objects

Click the slide's background image and click "Action" in the ribbon's Insert tab to open the Action Settings dialog box.

Click the dialog box's "Mouse Over" tab and click the "Run Macro" option button. Select "mcrUnPop" from the drop-down box and click "OK."

Insert an object, such as a text box, that triggers the pop-up.

Click the object and click "Action" in the ribbon's Insert tab to open the Action Settings dialog box.

Click the dialog box's "Mouse Over" tab and click the "Run Macro" option button. Select "mcrPop" from the drop-down box and click "OK."

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