Background Duplicates

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Background Duplicates

Postby Scouse » Mon Oct 21, 2013 12:35 pm

In my slideshow I'm currently putting together, I'm having a problem with PSP duplicating background, seemingly at random. I have a slideshow with about 500 slides. I change the background on slide #320, and when I get to 439 & 479, they now have the same background as 320 (although I previously loaded a different photo for both of them). If I change the background, within the slide, it changes all three - always the same three slides..... bizarre!
I seem to remember I occasionally got this on PSG, but found my way round it - can't remember how.

Any ideas?
Thanks
Tom

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Re: Background Duplicates

Postby im42n8 » Mon Oct 21, 2013 1:35 pm

The background for the show affects ALL slide backgrounds. You should be able to select those slides that you don't want the background to match the background and select any background you want. However, if you've already done that, one of the options below should work for you. You are supposed to have the option to change the background of any slide you want to change the background on and not have it affect any other slide backgrounds. The only way I know of to do that is to have a slide that is setup to use the show's background option . . . but, stranger things have happened .... however, it's possible that the slides that don't change when you change the background have a set option to NOT use the show's background. It's worth a check ... and could save lots of time. However, if there is some untoward linking function going on, continue below.

There are 4 ways of fixing an inadvertent link of this kind of feature that I'm aware of ... one is technical while the other 3 are not. You're probably better off trying the first one ... and then the others if it doesn't work.

1) Select and open the "offending slide" and change the background ... not the SHOW background. Just click on the solid or gradient background color selection. That should reset the link. If not, go to the next option.

2) This requires that you add a blank slide and then copy the contents of the "offending" slide onto or into the new slide.

Select the offending slide. Right Click, select "COPY." Select the new blank slide. Right Click, select "Paste Into."
.... the problem with this is that it "might" not reset the link between backgrounds. If this doesn't work, try the next option.

3) Open slide options on the "offending" slide. Select the the new blank slide by simply clicking once on it (it should turn color, indicating the selection). Starting with the last layer, copy each layer in the layer stack to the selected slide. Unfortunately you have to do this one layer at a time. Now, if you have any masks in the stack, you'll have to double click on the slide you just copied things to to select it and re-enable the mask and include all layers that were in the original mask set. When you've verified that everything in the newly created slide works fine, delete the original.

4) This is the technical one ... and requires a text editor such as NotePad (you're editing an ASCIII file). Open the PSH file and immediately save the file to a new name. Note the slide number that has the problem and subtract 1 from the value. In the PSH file, locate "cell[xx].background=1" ... below that add the line "cell[xx].bgUseGradient=1" .... presumably this should also break the link. Note that "xx" is the slide number minus 1 (so if the slide is 314, then xx would be 313). All this line does is to tell the program to NOT use the show background color ... at least, it's supposed to.
-- Note: I haven't run into this particular problem before ...

Dale
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Re: Background Duplicates

Postby Scouse » Tue Oct 22, 2013 12:40 pm

Thanks Dale - I'll keep this for future reference.

I got round it a bit crudely I'm afraid - I just deleted the three offending slides and recreated them elsewhere - then dragged them back where I wanted them. I didn't use the "background" at all this time though - just created an extra layer and faded the picture so it acted like a background.

Thanks for the great reply.

Cheers
Tom


im42n8 wrote:The background for the show affects ALL slide backgrounds. You should be able to select those slides that you don't want the background to match the background and select any background you want. However, if you've already done that, one of the options below should work for you. You are supposed to have the option to change the background of any slide you want to change the background on and not have it affect any other slide backgrounds. The only way I know of to do that is to have a slide that is setup to use the show's background option . . . but, stranger things have happened .... however, it's possible that the slides that don't change when you change the background have a set option to NOT use the show's background. It's worth a check ... and could save lots of time. However, if there is some untoward linking function going on, continue below.

There are 4 ways of fixing an inadvertent link of this kind of feature that I'm aware of ... one is technical while the other 3 are not. You're probably better off trying the first one ... and then the others if it doesn't work.

1) Select and open the "offending slide" and change the background ... not the SHOW background. Just click on the solid or gradient background color selection. That should reset the link. If not, go to the next option.

2) This requires that you add a blank slide and then copy the contents of the "offending" slide onto or into the new slide.

Select the offending slide. Right Click, select "COPY." Select the new blank slide. Right Click, select "Paste Into."
.... the problem with this is that it "might" not reset the link between backgrounds. If this doesn't work, try the next option.

3) Open slide options on the "offending" slide. Select the the new blank slide by simply clicking once on it (it should turn color, indicating the selection). Starting with the last layer, copy each layer in the layer stack to the selected slide. Unfortunately you have to do this one layer at a time. Now, if you have any masks in the stack, you'll have to double click on the slide you just copied things to to select it and re-enable the mask and include all layers that were in the original mask set. When you've verified that everything in the newly created slide works fine, delete the original.

4) This is the technical one ... and requires a text editor such as NotePad (you're editing an ASCIII file). Open the PSH file and immediately save the file to a new name. Note the slide number that has the problem and subtract 1 from the value. In the PSH file, locate "cell[xx].background=1" ... below that add the line "cell[xx].bgUseGradient=1" .... presumably this should also break the link. Note that "xx" is the slide number minus 1 (so if the slide is 314, then xx would be 313). All this line does is to tell the program to NOT use the show background color ... at least, it's supposed to.
-- Note: I haven't run into this particular problem before ...

Dale

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