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Home | Articles
Giving PowerPoint Pizzazz with Macromedia Flash
by Patrice-Anne Rutledge
See Also: PowerPoint
And Flash
Introduction
The Requirements
Inserting a Flash Movie into Your PowerPoint
Presentation
Presenting with Flash
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 About
Patrice-Anne Rutledge
Patrice-Anne Rutledge is the best-selling author of more
than 20 non-fiction books, primarily on communications and
web design. She has also contributed to numerous international
publications, founded several newsletters and websites, and
has created marketing communications materials, technical
documentation, and web content for leading international
organizations. Patrice's most recent book is Special Edition
Using Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2003 (Que). She can be
reached at patrice@patricerutledge.com or
through her Web site:
PatriceRutledge.com
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Also by Patrice-Anne Rutledge: Microsoft
Producer
Introduction
If you've ever admired the use of Macromedia
Flash in creating interactive and animated Web sites, you've probably
also considered how great it would be to incorporate Flash's sophisticated
functionality into your PowerPoint presentations as well. With a
little know-how, this is actually an easy thing to do. In PowerPoint,
you can play Flash movies through the use of an ActiveX control (swflash.ocx).
If you use Internet Explorer 4 or later, you should already have
this control.
There are many reasons you might want to use
Flash movies in your PowerPoint presentation, most notably to
take advantage of Flash's interactive vector animations and small
file size. In some cases, you may already have Flash movies on
your Web site or intranet that you want to incorporate into PowerPoint.
Or you may want to create a Flash movie specifically to include
in a presentation, enabling you to add some extra pizzazz to
PowerPoint's existing functionality.
Back
The Requirements
To use Flash in a PowerPoint presentation,
you'll need the following software:
- Microsoft PowerPoint 2003, 2002, 2000,
or 97 for Windows. Earlier versions of PowerPoint don't
offer ActiveX support (nor does the Macintosh). The examples
in this article use PowerPoint 2002 and Flash MX, but the
steps for incorporating Flash movies into other versions
of PowerPoint are very similar.
- Macromedia Flash Player. In most
cases, the computer on which you plan to deliver your PowerPoint
presentation probably already has Flash Player installed (not
the same thing as Flash itself, which you use to create Flash
movies). The player is preinstalled with Windows 98 and later
as well as Internet Explorer 4 and later. According to Macromedia,
98.3% of all web users have Flash Player on their computers.
If you have any doubts as to whether you have the latest version
of the player, though, it's best to Download it. Use Internet
Explorer (not Netscape Navigator) to navigate to http://www.macromedia.com/Downloads/,
where you can Download a free copy of the latest Flash Player.
- Macromedia Flash (any version).
You obviously need Flash to create the Flash movie you plan
to include in your PowerPoint presentation, but you don't need
to have Flash software installed on the machine with which
you create or deliver your presentation. You just need the
Flash movie file. So even without Flash, you can still experiment
with the possibilities of incorporating Flash movies in PowerPoint.
Many other programs deliver Flash movies for training, demo,
or marketing purposes, so you may already have Flash movies
on your system. To find them, do a search in Windows Explorer
for any files with the extension *.SWF. This extension stands
for Shockwave Flash and is the standard for all Flash movies.
If you don't have Flash software on your computer and want to try it out,
Download a trial version of the newly released Flash MX from the Macromedia
Web site at http://www.macromedia.com/Downloads/.
The site also includes tutorials and documentation to help you get started.
Back
Inserting a Flash Movie into Your PowerPoint Presentation
Inserting a Flash movie into PowerPoint is
basically a straightforward process. Let's say that you want
to start your PowerPoint presentation with a Flash movie. To
do so, create a blank slide as the first slide of your presentation.
Open the Control Toolbox (where ActiveX controls are stored)
by selecting Tools, Control Toolbox. Click the More Controls
button in the lower right corner of the Toolbox and choose Shockwave
Flash Object from the drop-down list as your control type (see
Figure 1).
Figure 1 - Select the Shockwave Flash Object control to insert
a Flash movie.
Position the crosshair pointer at the upper
left corner of the slide and drag down to the lower right corner,
making the control cover the entire slide. A large X temporarily
appears on your slide; this disappears after you've assigned
properties to this control or, in some cases, after you're previewed
the presentation the first time. Of course, if you don't want
your Flash movie to cover your entire slide, just drag the crosshair
pointer to the appropriate location. You can also resize later
if you want.
To assign properties, click the Properties
button on the Control Toolbox (or right-click the control and
choose Properties from the menu that appears). In the Properties
dialog box, shown in Figure 2, ensure that ShockwaveFlash1 is
selected as the object rather than the slide itself.
Figure 2 - Specify how and when to run your movie in the Properties
dialog box.
Set the following properties:
- Movie. Enter the complete directory
path name or URL of the Flash movie you want to play, such
as:
c:\My Documents\FlashMovies\MyFlashMovie.swf.
You can enter a location on your own computer or a location on the Web or
intranet. Be sure that you enter the *.SWF file and not another format such
as *.FLA (a Flash document, not a movie).
- EmbedMovie. Set to True to embed
the movie in your presentation, avoiding any concerns about
running your presentation on another machine and losing the
Flash movie.
- Playing. Set to True to start
your movie as soon the slide appears. If you want to control
when the movie starts playing, set to False.
- Loop. Set to True if you want
your movie to loop; set to False if you don't want it to loop.
- Menu. Set to True if you want
display a menu of options when you right-click on the Flash
movie during presentation. Menu options include the ability
to play, rewind, loop, and print your movie as well as to specify
settings, quality, and more. Although this is easy and convenient,
there are also more elegant ways to control your movie.
- Quality. Set to High for the best
quality. Other options include Medium and Low.
If you prefer to enter your property information
in a more traditional dialog box format, select the Custom row,
click the ellipsis, and enter your information in an abbreviated
Properties dialog box. The settings are the same regardless of
which way you enter them.
After you exit the Properties dialog box,
the Flash movie should appear in your PowerPoint presentation.
If the large X continues to appear, a still version of the movie
should replace this after you preview your presentation.
Back
Presenting with Flash
To preview the Flash movie in your PowerPoint
presentation, press F5. The presentation should automatically
start with the movie, as illustrated in Figure 3. You can then
move on to the next slide to continue your presentation just
as you normally would.
Figure 3 - Start your presentation with flair …and Flash.
If for some reason the Flash movie doesn't
appear, return to Normal view and check your properties again.
Verify that the path you entered under Movie is accurate and
includes the complete path name of your *.SWF file. Complex navigation
paths can sometimes be problematic. If you think this might be
your problem, right-click the file in Windows Explorer, choose
Properties, and copy the text in the Location field. Then return
to PowerPoint, paste the text in the Movie field in the Properties
dialog box, and add the *.SWF file name. Also check that Playing
is set to True. This setting can sometimes revert to False after
previewing, so it's a good idea to verify your properties before
you run any presentation with Flash movies. If your movie still
won't play, try reinstalling the Flash Player.
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