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The Show Bubbles property allows you to turn all bubbles on or off in a topic. You can prevent the bubble from appearing during playback in See It! and Try It! modes. This allows you to create the equivalent of a PowerPoint slide show, and then record sound to narrate it if desired. In this case, a bubble on each "slide" would not be appropriate.

There are three options in the Show Bubbles property:

Always: All bubbles show for the topic.
Never: No bubbles show for the topic.
Use frame settings: Uses the settings on each frame to determine if the bubble appears. This is the default value.

Using this option does not update the settings on the individual frames. It acts as an override and ignores the settings. This option does, however, turn off all of the action areas for the topic. Since the action areas are not present, you may want to make sure that the Enable skipping in Try It! mode option is selected when you publish the content so that the frames can be advanced by pressing ENTER in Try It! mode; if there are no action areas, there is no visual cue as what to do to advance the frame, and you may have difficulty advancing the frame.

If sound has been recorded for the topic or the frame, all frames displayed during See It! mode playback advance automatically when the sound has finished playing. The only exception is if the Delay has been set to Infinite on the frame. In this case, the user is prompted to Press ENTER to continue to the next frame. In Try It! mode, all frames are shown, but the frames must be advanced manually by either performing the correct action or pressing Enter. No remediation is shown if you perform the incorrect action.

If there is no sound associated with the topic, turning off the bubble has the following affect on the various frame types in See It! and Try It! modes:

Introduction/End Frames
See It! and Try It!: Skipped
Explanation frames
See It! and Try It!: Skipped
Decision frames
See It! and Try It!: Included; user must choose a path
Action frames
See It! and Try It!: Bubble hidden; action area displayed unless it has been turned off
No-context frames
See It! and Try It!: Bubble hidden; action area displayed unless it has been turned off
Frames with Infinite time delay
See It!: Skipped
Try It!: Bubble hidden; action area displayed unless it has been turned off

Note: If there are alternative actions on a frame and you hide the bubble, the bubble is hidden for all actions.

To show or hide bubbles for a topic:

Display the Properties toolpane.
In the Library or Outline Editor, select the topic(s) for which you want to change bubble settings.

You can select multiple documents using the standard Windows selection keys (CTRL+click and SHIFT+click).
In the Topic category, click in the Show Bubbles cell.
Select Always, Never, or Use frame settings.

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