The Overlay feature supports Microsoft PowerPoint 2007, 2010, and 2013. Creating an overlay for a topic involves the following steps:
The first time you create an overlay, you receive a prompt to install the TopicOverlayEditor add-in, which adds a custom Overlay Editor ribbon to Microsoft PowerPoint with specific tools for working with overlay objects. If you choose to not register the add-in, the topic opens in Microsoft PowerPoint without the Overlay Editor ribbon. Once you register the add-in, the message does not appear again. While you can create overlays without registering the Overlay Editor ribbon, you do not have access to the features on the ribbon. See Edit the Overlay for more information about using the Overlay Editor ribbon.
Note: If you cancel the installation of the overlay, you can install it later by reopening the Topic Editor.
When you create or edit an overlay, a Developer Not Available message appears and closes when you exit Microsoft PowerPoint and return to the Developer. While you are editing a topic in Microsoft PowerPoint, the Developer remains open, but locked in a suspended state. The Developer is not editable while it is in this suspended state. You can use the Resume button in the message to force the Developer to resume at any time during the overlay editing session, but a warning notifies you that any changes made to the overlay during the Microsoft PowerPoint editing session are lost.
When you add an overlay to a frame, the Developer saves a backup of the original screenshot for that frame so that you can restore that screenshot. It also saves the Microsoft PowerPoint file (Overlay.pptx) for further editing. The Microsoft PowerPoint file contains the overlays only; the underlying screenshots are not included in this file. The Microsoft PowerPoint file is saved to the local cache folder for the topic and the original screenshots of frames that contain overlays are saved to an Original folder in that topic folder.
Note: The overlay file and the Original folder with the original topic screenshots are included in a topic export.
You can choose to delete all overlays from all frames from the Topic Editor and restore the original screenshots. This action also deletes the Microsoft PowerPoint overlay file. If you mistakenly delete all overlays, you can restore them during the same editing session using Undo in the Topic Editor.
Note: To remove individual overlay objects from one or more frames, edit the topic overlay in Microsoft PowerPoint.
Recaptured Screenshots
As you develop a topic, you may need to recapture a screenshot that already contains an overlay. When you close the Recorder after recapturing or re-recording a screenshot that contained an overlay, you are notified that the new screenshots do not contain the overlays. A Missing Overlays dialog box presents two options:
Multi-user Considerations
To create a new overlay:
To edit an existing overlay from the Topic Editor:
To remove overlays from all frames in a topic from the Topic Editor: