Summary: You can link from one presentation to another by embedding a web object.
Difficulty: Medium
Linking Elegantly
A question frequently asked in support is how to link seamlesslessly from one presentation to another, be it online or offline or even on a CD ROM. Reasons for wanting to do this are numerous including wanting to give a course to students using already prepared materials which include two or more modules, or wanting a user to go from one online course to another without leaving their training, so to speak.
An easy way to do this would be to simply create a hyperlink on the last slide that linked to your next course. The problem with doing this is that it creates a new window and so might look messy as it lies on top of the preceeding course.
Or you could do something like this. If you click on the course below, you will see a short specimen course which links to another, in the same window.
How do you do it?
Well to create the above, I used the web object feature of Presenter to place some basic JavaScript to tell my browser to change URL address. Let’s have a look at the JavaScript I used (click on image below to view):
If you look carefully, without knowing what all the functions or code mean, you can see a link at the end. This link is where you want your presentation to go after finishing the present course. This is really the only thing you need to change in the above code before you can use it yourself.
In this example, my second course had already been loaded up to my server before I created the first module. The second module is at this address:
http://mediaenglishonline.com/daveperso/blogdemos/linkingpart1/presentation2/player.html
There is a course at that address above. Click it to see if you like.
The reason I uploaded this course first was that I needed to know the absolute address or URL of my course for me to link to it from my first course. (of course, you can plan how and where your course is going to lie beforehand so you don’t necessarily have to upload it first).
Now this link needs to be edited in the Javascript code which itself needs to be copied into a file called index.html and placed into an empty folder somewhere on your computer for use later. You can call the folder Next Presentation Web Object.
Let’s create a linking web object now
Now that might sound a little complicated but it really isn’t. Let’s go ahead and make a linking web object now to see how easy it is.
You should now have a folder on your computer called Next Presentation Web Object in which there is a single file called index.html. The link at the end of the code in the index.html file is to the course that you want your first course directed to.
Adding your web object to your presentation
The majority of the work is done.
Now, create a new presentation and we’ll add a slide at the end which contains a web object.
Now you can upload your course to any location you like and when it finishes, it will run into your new web object and take the user to your second presentation. This example will also work offline, provided you have a connection to the Internet for it to call up the second presentation.
For your own work you need to change the link in the index.html so that it takes the user to your course. Make sure that it is an absolute address and you put http:// at the beginning of the address.
In Part 2, I’ll show you how to link from one presentation to another using a relative link plus how you can create a looping series of presentations both offline and online.
Notes
- If you are using Presenter 5, the web object feature leaves an ‘ugly’ border so making the object smaller might not be a good idea. It might be better to leave the web object full slide, and actually incorporate an image into the web object. This example shows how I have inserted an image into the index.html file.
You can download the corresponding Next Presentation Web Object folder here. Either use the same image or insert your own into the images folder.
- The link in the index.html can either be an absolute address like:
http://www.articulate.com/mypresentation/player.html
or a relative address like
../mypresentation/player.html.
An absolute address means that you are giving the specific address of your course whereas a relative address means you are giving the address relative to where you are at the moment, ie the course you are looking at at the moment. If you are preparing a course for offline ose or CD ROM, you’d probably want to use a relative link. In this article, we concentrated on the absolute address first as it’s the easiest to set up and we’ll look at relative addresses in Part 2.
- This method of linking between presentations is probably not recommended on an LMS.
[...] open in its own window. Here’s another cool way to do it, courtesy of Daveperso of Articulate: How To Link From One Presentation To Another – Part 1 __________________ [...]
Hi Dave.
I apreciate your tip, and using on a large presentation.
Working with small presentation and linking them have advantages in the public time savings.
I use the introduction, then a menu that links the another parts of the presentation…and works fine in the menu to the another part. But at the end of one parts needs to link at Menu.
The return links is maked like a popup window. ????
I am using Articulate Studio 09 last vertion instaled, and PowerPont 2007 .
What I am doing wrong?
This is very interesting.
When I try this, I lose the navigation bar at the bottom.
I am hoping to use this idea to link up Articulate courses (I don’t have an LMS).
Is there a way of getting back from the linked to course to the original course, or would I need to daisy chain them?
Thanks!
Hi Jose,
Thanks for your question. Are you using a relative link to get back to the Menu or an absolute link? You might want to submit a case to Articulate Support and mark it for my attention and I’ll be able to take a better look.
Hi Kita, I am not sure why you are losing the navigatio bar. That shouldn’t be affected. Regarding getting back to the original, this sounds a little like Jose’s question. I think “daisy chaining” as you say would be the best solution here. ie. place a web object at the end of your linked course that takes you back to the main menu.
We have a presentation with a web object in the middle (to ask a question). I want to link to the ‘next slide’ when the web object completes successfully. We’re actually using the web object to ask a question and record an answer. This works fine so far, but then I would like to link to the next slide in the presentation.
Currently, we’re thinking about having a ‘next slide’ button on the page (not in the web object) that the user can click on. This works fine, but we need to make sure that the user answered the question first. So I’d like to either ‘disable’ the ‘next slide’ button until the question is answered, or be able to link to the next slide from my web object. I don’t see how to link within the presentation from a web object. Is that possible?
Thanks!
Hi apple17, That’s a good question and the truth is I haven’t found a way to do this either and I have tried in the past.
What I have done sometimes is to provide a special password at the end of the web object which the learner used to “unlock” the next slide where I placed a one-slide Fill in the Gap type quiz question. Using the quiz settings, I could stop any learner going beyond that slide unless they placed the correct password in the question. It is a bit messy though and is not always suitable and it would definitely be nicer to have direct communication between a web object and a slide.
I suppose if the course was not on an LMS, you could place an absolute or relative URL link to the next slide. This would relaunch the course again (ie the loader would appear) but the course would start at the next slide. You would need to use the format player.html?slide=n where n is the slide number you want the course to start on. You’d need to design your web object such that the link would appear just at the end of the activity within the web object itself.
I have followed the instructions and the initial index.html page directs the user to the first module, but the subsequent modules won’t load. The web object displays a 404 (not found on this server) error. I’m sure I have the URL correctly entered.
However, if I type into the address line of my browser the same URL information, I’m taken to the next module and it begin playing. That’s how I know my URL info is correct.
Any thoughts? I’m stumped.
Hi Dave,
Is the part 2 regarding Relative links on this site somewhere as that is where we seem to be having tremendous problems in setting up a CD with our presentations on it.
thanks for the link!
Hi Delclan,
Yes, I have been meaning to remove that Part 1 from the post for a long time. Actually, Part 2 actually became “Create a Menu For Multiple Presentations“. If you read the article and download some of the example project files, you’ll see how I used relative links to link from the main menu to the modules and back. Let me know if you have a specific question I can answer.
I’ve been reading this thread because I’m about to try this out for a course of my own and I just had a thought. Could you create a swf file in Flash as a button that the user could click on to move to the next portion of the course when they are ready instead of having Articulate do it automatically as a web object. Just a thought that popped into my head as I was reading.