Disable mouse and keyboard control during a presentation

Suppose you're putting a presentation out where just anyone can operate it.

You want users to navigate using ONLY the buttons and hyperlinks you've included in the show. You want to disable the keyboard and mouse so that stray clicks and keypresses don't send your show off into uncharted territory.

Set the show up as a KIOSK presentation

• Open your presentation in PowerPoint
• PPT 2007: On the Slide Show tab, Set Up group, click Set Up Slide Show. Or in earlier versions, on the main menu bar choose Slide Show, Set Up Show ...
• The Set Up Show dialog box appears
• Click Browsed at a kiosk (full screen)
• Click OK
• Add hyperlinks and action settings the user can click to navigate between slides

Now when you start the presentation, the user can:

• Click your hyperlinks or action buttons to navigate through the presentation
• Press the ESC key to end the presentation

But the user will not be able to:

• Click or right-click to change slides (other than clicking on your hyperlinks/action settings)
• Use the keyboard to control the presentation
• Use the mousewheel to control the presentation

This means that you'll have to create hyperlinks or action settings to supply all navigation needs. Hint: Putting action buttons on the slide masters instead of on individual slides can save a LOT of work.

No ESCape!

And what if you don't want users to press the ESC key? Two options:

• Hide, lock, unplug or otherwise disable the keyboard. We don't recommend hot-swapping PS/2 keyboards but with a USB keyboard you can plug and unplug them as needed.
• Use Shyam Pillai's No Escape add-in for PowerPoint 2000 and higher (add-ins don't work if you're using the free PowerPoint Viewer to display the presentation)

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