When you create an overlay from a topic, the topic opens as a presentation in Microsoft PowerPoint with the name Overlay.pptx. Although the overlay opens to the slide that represents the active frame in the Topic Editor, all frames are converted to slides, except for the Start frame, as this is a duplicate of the first frame. Any changes made to the first frame also appear in the Start frame.
The first slide in the overlay file is an instructional slide called Guidelines for Overlay Editor. This slide includes suggestions of what you should and should not do while working with the overlay.
Each slide from a topic frame includes the screenshot and action area, if one is included, the bubble showing the bubble text, and a frame ID in a box to the left of the screenshot. The frame ID identifies the frame in the Topic Editor and also identifies the name of the graphic file containing the frame screenshot. For example, a slide with a frame ID of 6 in Microsoft PowerPoint identifies this frame as frame ID 6 in the Frame Structure in the Topic Editor, and also indicates the screenshot graphic (which can be found in the local cache for the topic) is 6.png.
Topics that include other paths, such as Alternative Paths and Decision Frames, are converted into a linear sequence of slides in Microsoft PowerPoint. This means that the slides for a Decision path may start after the last slide of the primary path.
The overlay process exports author notes from the Author Notes pane in the Frame Comments toolpane in a topic to the Notes pane in Microsoft PowerPoint. You can modify the existing notes and enter additional notes. An author, subject matter expert, or reviewer can use the Notes pane in Microsoft PowerPoint to enter additional information or request changes to be made once the topic is imported back to the Topic Editor. Information may include where to move the bubble, frames to insert, alternative actions and paths to record, custom text to add to frames, and so on. While you can format the text in the slide note, this formatting is not supported in the Topic Editor, and is removed when the topic is imported back to the Topic Editor.
The overlay slide notes are written directly into the topic. They are not saved with the overlay, and therefore, are not cleared or reset when you delete the overlay.