Relatively few presenters experiment with what are known as external hyperlinks. An external hyperlink takes a presenter out of the current slide show to open a separate external slide show, Web site, or other object.

Using PowerPoint presentations to open other presentations via hyperlinks produces seamless transitions between groups of content. The presenter never leaves Slide Show mode while accessing a potentially unlimited number of available options. It’s this process that gives Relational Presentation its true power and value. Everything needed is instantly viewable by click.

At the same time, keep in mind that opening slide shows via hyperlink requires computer memory equal to the size of those shows. Clicking link after link opens window after window on top of each other, all of which require memory space while open.

It’s not uncommon during a long, involved presentation or teaching session to have 50 to 100, or more, windows open at the same time!

Generally, this is not a problem. Most modern computers have plenty of memory to handle such demands. Even if they don’t, and PowerPoint runs out of actual memory to use, it creates what is known as virtual memory. The software temporarily allocates necessary space on your hard drive and calls it memory. This course of action is quite efficient and you probably won’t notice the difference in performance. Your presentation platform will seem to function as normal, with only a slight decrease in speed.

So, unless you are using a very old computer with little memory, don’t worry about having a lot of slide show windows open. Just make sure to leave plenty of space available—at least 3 gigabytes—on your hard drive.

By the way, if your interactive presentation platform seems to be operating slowly, for example external shows take a long time to open, it may not be a problem with memory, or even the speed of your computer. Make sure your virus protection software is not automatically scanning all Microsoft Office files that open.

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