Display Pop-Up Text In PowerPoint (Screen Tip Mouseover)

See how to display pop-up text in PowerPoint by hovering your mouse cursor over an object.
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In this Microsoft PowerPoint Tutorial, you will learn how to use the screen tip functionality of hyperlinks in PowerPoint, to display text onscreen during your presentation when you hover your mouse over an object. Although there are a number of things you can do with hyperlinks to add navigational features to your PowerPoint presentations, you can also just use them to display what is known as "rollover or mouseover text" onscreen during a PowerPoint presentation. And this is especially a neat trick when combined with hide and appear animations within your layouts.
A couple of quick notes to remember when using hyperlinks to display rollover text onscreen in PowerPoint:
#1: You are limited to 256 characters (including spaces), which is approximately 48 words
#2: You can only view the rollover text in the presentation mode of your PowerPoint deck (it will not display in the normal view of your deck)
#3: You want to link the hyperlink to the slide on which you want to display the rollover text so that if you click the link, you remain on the same slide (unless you want to hyperlink somewhere else within your document)
Shortcuts covered in this PowerPoint tutorial:
-- CTRL + K - with either text or an object selected, opens the insert hyperlink dialog box
-- SHIFT + F5 - starts your presentation mode from the current slide you are on
To learn how to create the hide and appear animations I used in this PowerPoint tutorial, see Neil's KZbin Video "Microsoft PowerPoint: Show and Hide with Animation:
• Microsoft PowerPoint: ...

[@workinprogress5936]

I have spent an hour looking for a tutorial on how to do this and yours was the only one I found. Thank you.

[@Nutsandboltsspeedtraining]

Glad you found our video and hit helped you out! Good luck with your presentation.

[@楠-u4z]

Thanks men. I was trying to do this on my presentation and couldn't figure it out until I saw your video.

[@AISTvideoChallenge]

Great shortcut feature! How do you adjust the text size of a Screen Tip?

[@Doesntmatterok]

Where have I been all these years!! Thank you so much for sharing this. Is there a way to make the pop up box visible to the audience? I did a test with my coworker but she couldn’t see the pop up box.

[@Nutsandboltsspeedtraining]

Great question, and It shouldn't. As long as you can see it on your screen, they should be able to see it too.

[@rebeccadevlin3236]

This might be a stupid question, but do you add shapes, and then hyperlink specifically to that shape, or can you for example have a map, and then hover over a point to bring up the hyperlink? Envisaging many on a page...

[@Nutsandboltsspeedtraining]

As long as the map is made of shapes (a vector map), you can use the shapes within the map for the effect. If it is an image of a map (so not individual shapes), you can float rectangles over the points on the map where you want something to pop up, add the hyperlink, and then set the rectangles to No Fill and No Outline so they disappear. I hope that helps.

[@Lesesnack]

Thanks for the tutorial. How i can change the font size of the pop-up text? If i present on a beamer, the pop-up text is unfortunately to small and not readable.

[@anubhavsahni]

Awesome.. u made it so simple and easy.. thank you!

[@ronakjoshi6328]

Speechless video..thanks so so muuuuch❤👍 unforgettable help u had done 4 me

[@Nutsandboltsspeedtraining]

Glad it helped! Thanks for checking out our channel.

[@danafarnsworth5881]

Can you change a rollover for the colors in a theme?

[@kevinIi]

Fantastic Bro ! Thanks much !!!

[@Nutsandboltsspeedtraining]

Glad you like it!

[@Nutsandboltsspeedtraining]

This is a great hyperlink trick for showing additional information onscreen during a presentation. You are limited to 256 characters of text, but it can be extremely effective when combined with appear and disappear animations for an onscreen graphic. Enjoy!

[@pharhadsookun9789]

how you draw the map of u.s.a and how interlink the colours of the states?

[@Nutsandboltsspeedtraining]

You can download the the USA vector map in PowerPoint for free at the site below: www.presentationmagazine.com/powerpoint-maps-of-the-usa-3762.htm The way you create the colors is to overlay the map on top of itself, with the states that you want colored as specific groups. You can then use hide and appear animations like I did in the tutorial. Hope that helps! I'll try to put a tutorial together of how I did it at some point in the future.

[@Nutsandboltsspeedtraining]

Pharhad Sookun I made a new video showing how to hook up the colors in PowerPoint to a vector map using triggers and animations: kzbin.info/www/bejne/jouboZiegt6Lers

[@malakbakr3407]

But I dont know why it doesnt work on my power point ??? Does it play on special versions of power points

[@malakbakr3407]

How could i combine hyperlink note with appear and disappear animation

[@JyotiSingh-bz8zs]

how did you get the interactive map in there? Did you use tableau ?

[@Nutsandboltsspeedtraining]

I downloaded a free vector map of the united states online. If you get a true vector, you can un group the graphic down into the individual pieces. See my other video for creating that effect: kzbin.info/www/bejne/jouboZiegt6Lers

[@fieldstalker2474]

ty

[@Nutsandboltsspeedtraining]

Glad that helped!

[@famkis8680]

Awesome! I will use this to show a screen info tip on some text on the slide. Is there a way to not show that text blue and underlined?

[@SahraVicente-fd8xt]

Is this effect still possible if I convert the PowerPoint to PDF ?

[@Nutsandboltsspeedtraining]

Unfortunately not, as soon as you convert into the PDF format you lose these types of popup effects.

[@MikeBirkhead]

I've been using the self-referencing link for hover over text for quite a while and I have several powerpoints with this added. -- However, recently I have shared those powerpoints with several other people. --Still works for everyone using PC, but the hover-over effect doesn't work on MAC. Is there a quick fix? Thanks!

[@Nutsandboltsspeedtraining]

Great question. Unfortunately, no. Macs have little quirks like that which is why I always recommend working on PCs for PowerPoint. The two are very similar but still very different. The PC versions also have ALL 4 types of PowerPoint shortcuts (CTRL, Hybrid, QAT and Ribbon)...Mac versions still only have one of those. Another reason to stick with the PC.

[@MikeBirkhead]

That's too bad. Perhaps I can find a way to convert it to a working solution within PDF. I know PDFs have something very similar, but you have to have adobe pro to do anything with it.

[@JerroldLynch]

I've noticed that PowerPoint has 2 main ways of triggering actions for objects, that's with mouse click or mouse over. is it possible to trigger actions with letters on your keyboard, For example if i press "A' I trigger an action on a certain object. The reason i'm asking is because i want to trigger actions simultaneously. for example pressing "A" and "B" at the same time to trigger two or more actions at the same time.

[@Nutsandboltsspeedtraining]

+Jerrold Lynch Unless you get into VBA, there is no way that I know of to set animation to your keystrokes. That said, you can trigger two animations at the same time. in the animation pane, just set the second (third or forth, etc.) animation to fire with or after previous...that way when one animation goes, they all go... I think that is what you are trying to accomplish. Shoot me back a note if that doesn't make any sense.

[@JerroldLynch]

I understand what you're saying. Ive done all these things in power point to the point of making mini games with it lol. PowerPoint is an amazing software and im glad each update of Office makes it even better. But I do agree that VBA would be the better option. Thank you for your response. .

[@TheJBardopoulos]

great - but how to you get rid of the 'click to follow hyperlink' bold text that I see appearing below the context info / pop-up box? Also, I see you have something like a named cross-reference to the box in question (i.e. when you're navigating to the location of the hyperlink) - how did you do that?

[@AnuRadha-vb3sf]

Can anyone tell me how to copy the text when I hover on the shape

[@Nutsandboltsspeedtraining]

I don't think you can do that... it is just a pop up, so there is no way to select and copy the text while running it in Slide Show mode. To get the text, you will have to go into the Hyperlink (Ctrl+K) and grab it from the ScreenTip.

[@yatharthahuja6420]

Really informative and helpful video! Is it possible to include more text or text image combination in the pop-up?

[@Nutsandboltsspeedtraining]

To do that you will need to use appear and disappear animations instead of this hyperlink trick. Check out this video for details on how to do that: kzbin.info/www/bejne/jouboZiegt6Lers

[@mikerushing224]

Very nice and easy to understand. Thanks

[@Nutsandboltsspeedtraining]

Mike Rushing No problem! Thanks for checking out our video and commenting. Good luck with your presentations!

[@CarolynB24]

This was working for me last week, but when I returned to finish this project today I am getting the Action Settings box popping up after CTRL K instead of the insert hyperlink box I was getting last week and cannot correct it. Thanks! Carolyn

[@Nutsandboltsspeedtraining]

My guess is the object in question has an Action Setting like a sound, hover over effect or something else associated with it. If you add an Action Setting other than a hyperlink to an object (the command next to the hyperlink command in the Insert Tab), hitting CTRL+K will open the Action Setting dialog box (which has a hyperlink option) rather than the hyperlink dialog box. On your computer, see what happens if you insert a new shape, select it and hit CTRL+K. My guess is it will open up the hyperlink dialog box again for you. Advise if that solves your issue.

[@atlasidiomas3095]

I'd like to do that on Google Slides. Is it possible?

[@RC-vw5cf]

How did you do the rectangle colour linked to your map colouring?

[@Nutsandboltsspeedtraining]

Check out my step-by-step blog post here: nutsandboltsspeedtraining.com/powerpoint-tutorials/triggers-for-appear-disappear-animations-in-powerpoint/

[@rajeshramesh1252]

This is cool.. Wil this work if I convert it in to PDF...?

[@Nutsandboltsspeedtraining]

Unfortunately not. PowerPoint animations don't flow through to the PDF format.

[@learnspreadsheets]

This is cool, but is there a way to change the text size?

[@Nutsandboltsspeedtraining]

Great question. There is not a way to change the text size for the pop up text effect. If you need bigger text, you'll need to use appear and disappear animations to bring the text on and off screen. Check out my other video on how to do that kzbin.info/www/bejne/jouboZiegt6Lers.

[@DrKentVC]

Sweet! And the hyperlink does not have to be functional (it can point back to right where you are) to produce the mouseover text.

[@Nutsandboltsspeedtraining]

You are correct! Glad you enjoyed the video and thanks for the comment.

[@vinoangel]

Wow.. Thanks a lot for the simple explanation & demo. It really saved my time and effort. Thanks a ton to the team.

[@Nutsandboltsspeedtraining]

Glad that helped you out! Thanks for the comment and good luck with your presentations.

[@spehnmeister-w2u]

Awesome! Thanks!

[@Nutsandboltsspeedtraining]

Glad you enjoyed the trick, thanks for the comment!

[@j5j810]

Very nice presentation... Shall i know how did u make: Highlighing only parts of the pictures when clicking each hyperlinked box in this presentation?

[@Nutsandboltsspeedtraining]

Sampath Kumar To make the different pieces appear and disappear you need to use triggers. Check out our other video for how to quickly pull this off. kzbin.info/www/bejne/jouboZiegt6Lers

[@jasminerp5334]

This video has blown my mind. I am loser, i know...

[@Nutsandboltsspeedtraining]

This is not something that most people know (until you see it done, it is not very intuitive). You are all good!

[@ladventer]

Handy video - thanks!

[@Nutsandboltsspeedtraining]

Glad you enjoyed the video, thanks for the comment!

[@joshuakevintaytayan1011]

Does this work on Powerpoint 2010 ?? Because I followed your step by step video and it still don't work . . . Any ideas on how I could get the same effect but with different tools ?

[@Nutsandboltsspeedtraining]

Yes, it should work in PowerPoint 2010. Send me your slide and I will take a look at it for you: taylor (at) nutsandboltsspeedtraining.com

[@andrzejwojewodzki6983]

Nice tutorial. I made step by step, but no text came... I do use PP2010, able to programing VBA but want to use simplest way. I found the trick usefull but after I created the hyperlink to present slide and the text tip, there is no interaction (pop-up) during presentation :(

[@Nutsandboltsspeedtraining]

Interesting. First off, double check that your hyperlink is set to a slide. I.e. you do have to have a real live hyperlink to something (just point it at the same slide) to get the pop-up text effect to work. If that doesn't work, send me your slide and I'll take a look at see what the issue is. You can email me at taylor (at) nutsandboltsspeedtraning.com

[@Nutsandboltsspeedtraining]

We just launched a free new mini-series to help you save 40 hours in PowerPoint! You can get started today using the link below. Enjoy! nutsandboltsspeedtraining.com/free-save-40-hours-mini-series/

[@nataliawaclawiak278]

Hi this is a really nice feature but what I think makes it even more effective is the way you have created and saved the information in a normal view. Believe it or not I can't do it the same way you did, which I really wanted for a training purpose

[@chol7543]

I've looked at a few of your videos/tutorials today and am amazed at your knowledge and ability to explain these different features. I have a question about returning back to a particular screen or slide after a hyperlink takes the user to another slide in the deck. I am building an iPDF (interactive PDF), I am inserting an ICON for users to click on and want to have an acronyms page at the end of the deck that links to every page. I have set up the link to the icon on my master slide in PPT, however if the slide deck is 50 pages long and a person clicks on the acronyms icon at page 3 I want them to get back to page three after they're done reviewing the acronyms list. Is that possible - to install a back to previous page option. OR, it is possible to make the acronyms page a mere pop-up window for each slide? I attempted to hyperlink the acronym icon and then mouse over to return to the previous page, but when converted to PDF it isn't functional (either that or I did something incorrectly). Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks!

[@Nutsandboltsspeedtraining]

Great question. For a standard hyperlink, you cannot force someone to move back to the original slide. If you go the hyperlink route, what you can do is create a back button (either with a shape or with text) to jump back to a specific slide. That's one way. The other way is if you have Office 365, you can now create ZOOMS which is basically the same thing as a hyperlink with the option to return to the original slide automatically. Shoot me an email at taylor (at) nutsandboltsspeedtraining.com and I"ll screen capture what I mean if that is helpful for you. That said, the zoom will not carry into a PDF format, so you will have to distribute your slides in PowerPoint (like a picture presentation) as I demo here: kzbin.info/www/bejne/oYHNlKVvlqqdock

[@boloyde84]

Is there someway of displaying all the hyperlinks' text? For example when you click on Democrat the state names pop up. Thank for the video and tip

[@Nutsandboltsspeedtraining]

Jose Avalos Thanks for the note. All of the text, up to 255 characters should show...that said, if you are trying to get a bunch of text to pop-up you will want to move to an appear and disappear animation technique with triggers. It sounds complicated but is pretty straight forward. Check out my other video for how to pull it off. kzbin.info/www/bejne/jouboZiegt6Lers

[@mohashin142]

Hi, This is really nice. How did you do that color changing effect?

[@Nutsandboltsspeedtraining]

You mean the color changing of the states? Those are just different shapes with normal shape fills. The trigger is what makes them appear, giving the effect of filling in the states. Hope that helps.

[@wardahnoor8833]

im doing all the steps and yet in slideshow when the mouse rolls over the object, no pop up appears. however, upon clicking i stay on the same slide (only achievement i guess. :/ can u help? PS: im using Power point 2010

[@Nutsandboltsspeedtraining]

That's weird (it definitely works in PPT 2010). Can you send me an example of a slide that you have set that doesn't work? I will take a look and see if I can figure out what you are missing. [e-mail]

[@wardahnoor8833]

Nuts & Bolts Speed Training funny thing is when i send a slide to another pc and open it there, it works fine. figured it out today. now i dont know whats wrong with my version of powerpoint

[@Nutsandboltsspeedtraining]

Totally weird. I would try fixing (or repairing) your version of PowerPoint to see if that fixes it.

[@charlotte.upandaway]

Thanks a bunch for this quick informative video! This will really come in handy :D

[@Nutsandboltsspeedtraining]

Yes, it's a VERY cool trick. Thanks for the comment. If you ever need a quick review, check out my step-by-step blog post of the trick here: nutsandboltsspeedtraining.com/powerpoint-tutorials/powerpoint-mouseover-text-effect/

[@gnanasekaranmurugan58]

How to increase screen tip text size

[@Nutsandboltsspeedtraining]

Great question. The screen tip text style and size is not customizable (unfortunately). That would be a great PowerPoint feature update to be able to specify it though.

[@mfmvanzella]

Thaaaaaaank you Taylor

[@Nutsandboltsspeedtraining]

Maria Fernanda Martinez V. Rock on! Good luck with your presentations!

[@leonardoD81]

Thank you so much. This was a great help!!!

[@Nutsandboltsspeedtraining]

Hi Leonardo, glad you enjoyed the post, thanks for the kind comment. If you want to see how to hook up the animations I used in the video, you can also check out our hide and appear animations tutorial: kzbin.info/www/bejne/jouboZiegt6Lers

[@emilybowman939]

How would you do this if you need to use more than 256 characters?

[@Nutsandboltsspeedtraining]

Emily Guerin Hi Emily, good question…below are two options (easiest to hardest) #1: The least sophisticated way is to setup an object with an appear and disappear animation to bring your text box (no text limit) shape or picture on and off screen…it's a little different than the mouseover effect, but it still works. Check out our latest video to see how to pull this off (you can then adapt for your own situation): @XZ8pehMyXDY #2: the more technically sophisticated way is with Visual Basic (VBA). You can check out the below link for some VBA code for a custom pop-up box from pptalchemy...the site is run by John Wilson, of the PowerPoint MVPs who is known as one of the go-to guys for PowerPoint VBA related issues: @FAQ00691_Use_VBA_to_create_popup_text.htm Let me know what you end up going with and how it works out in your presentation. Cheers, Taylor

[@abestnextstep]

I used this but when I created a hyperlink within the document the ScreenTip no longer works. Is this an error you're aware of?

[@Nutsandboltsspeedtraining]

+Cassandra McCrory Hi Cass...just saw your comment here on YT (it got spammed for some reason) but I think you are now all squared away now. Thanks again for reaching out and good luck with your presentations!

[@idiotsnightmare]

You made a screen tip... all you need to do is enter the text in the screen tip box, you don't need to have it on the slide page at all

[@Nutsandboltsspeedtraining]

Thanks for the comment. Are you referring to the Thumbnail for the video where I have a split screentip and text on the slide? In the video, I do put the text in the screentip... or are you saying there is another way to create the pop-up text effect?

[@veero8130]

Dude!! Thanks so much!

[@Nutsandboltsspeedtraining]

Glad you enjoyed the trick! If you want to see a cool variation of that trick, check out my other video here: kzbin.info/www/bejne/jouboZiegt6Lers

[@kepptube3530]

Do you know the shortcut of pop-up text?

[@Nutsandboltsspeedtraining]

No...is there a shortcut that you know of that immediately takes you to those features? I know you can hit CTRL+K for the hyperlink and then ALT+P for the screen tip...but not anything that immediately drills you into it. If you know of one, please share :)

[@ginagillin]

Hi, I tired doing this on a column chart and it won't work. Is this normal?

[@Nutsandboltsspeedtraining]

Are you trying to make the entire chart appear and disappear...or are you trying to get a specific series of data within the chart to appear and disappear? The effect should work for the entire chart, but not the specific series. If you want to do specific series you need to break your charts apart, and then animate them. See how to break a chart below. If you still can't get it to work send it to me and i'll take a look: taylor (at) nutsandboltsspeedtraining.com elearningbrothers.com/breaking-charts-perfect-sized-powerpoint-pieces/

[@angelalucas3217]

this doesn't work for me..any reasons why?

[@Nutsandboltsspeedtraining]

+Angela Lucas Thanks for the note. Two quick questions. #1: Are you using a PC or Mac? #2: Which part isn't working? Inserting the hyperlinks and the screen tips or getting them to pop-up on screen? Let me know and I'll see if i can get you sorted out.

[@laciecalloway]

My portion of an upcoming presentation is 10x better than it was due to this video. I've got definitions for users to scroll over when looking at different organisms under microscopy; instead of just seeing what they're pointing to is called, they can now read more about it too.

[@Nutsandboltsspeedtraining]

+Nueronymous Nice job! Glad to hear the video helped. If you end up building the presentation out further, you can also use the actual hyperlink to jump to a more detailed slide of the different organisms (maybe you already did that). So if you hover over the object or picture you get the pop-up text but then if you click it you jump to a slide with a detailed breakout. Thanks again for the kind comment and good luck with your presentation! Cheers!