The Object Packager is a feature that's part of all versions of Windows since Windows 3.1. It provides a way to embed videos (or anything else) within a PowerPoint presentation.
1. In your active PowerPoint slide, choose the Insert | Object... option. This will present you with the "Insert Object" dialog box.
2. In the "Object Type" listing, choose the "Package" option. Make sure that the "Create New" radio button is checked and click OK. This will present you with the Object Packager interface.
3. Choose File | Import... , navigate to your video file and cick "Open". Within Object Packager, click File | Update followed by File | Exit. This will bring you back to PowerPoint.
4. Right click the object within PowerPoint and choose Custom Animation. In Powerpoint 2002 and 2003, this will activate the Custom Animation task pane. Choose Add Effect | Object Animation | Activate Contents within the task pane.
5. Drag the package icon slightly off and outside the slide area if required. You can choose the OnClick or After Previous option in the Start drop down menu of the Custom Animation task pane - but I would rather leave it at OnClick if the icon has not been dragged off the slide.
Using the technique above, you can embed almost any file in most Microsoft Office applications - but there are a couple of caveats you need to be aware of:
1. You will always get a warning message about viruses.
2. Object Packager is not a ery stable application - its looks confirm its Windows 3.1 ancestry.
3. The files packaged this way will always open in their associated application - and does not look elegant especially if you are presenting to an audience.
4. This technique will not work with the PowerPoint Viewer.
Having said that, this is a great way to embed those RealMedia and QuickTime files that PowerPoint will not play by default.
Related Link:Create a ZIP EXE with a PowerPoint presentation:
http://www.indezine.com/products/powerpoint/cool/zipexe.html
Thursday, August 26, 2004
Although this example uses Excel as a source of a word list, it should work with almost any program. The entire procedure uses an undocumented PowerPoint trick uncovered by PowerPoint MVP
Steve Rindsberg - who called it the SneakyHAX Trick. Here is Steve's original way to
Create a PowerPoint presentation from a plain text fileThis page was the result of a question posted on the
PowerPoint Newsgroup:
I am a teacher and have a list in Excel of 225 "sight" words. I would like to import these words into a PowerPoint presentation with one word per slide so the kids can have electronic flash cards. Is there a way to do this without retyping each word?
Kathy Jacobs, another PowerPoint MVP answered the post - this is included here with her permission. Thank you, Kathy.
1. Save your Excel file as a text file - choose File | Save As... and choose
Unicode Text (*.txt) as the File Type.
2. Open the text file in Notepad or another text editor to make sure that each word is on a separate line.
3. Launch PowerPoint and choose File | Open. In the File Type drop down menu, choose
All Outlines so that your text file can be selected. Click OK.
4. Each word should end up on its own slide in the title placeholder. Format the presentation as you want. (You can even add pictures to the slides to show what the words mean.)
Tip: If you want to take it even further, make the second line of each entry the definition. Indent the second line one tab and it will become the first level bullet. Like so:
Email
A way to communicate with others via text or HTML messages
Computer
Machine that computes
Tip: To change the look of the presentation, apply a template. You'll find several
free PowerPoint templates on Indezine.
Related Link: You can read
Kathy's interview on Indezine...
Tuesday, August 24, 2004
This technique assumes you know how to loop
sound across slides.
When you loop the presentation using the options in Slide Show | Set Up Show, you'll find that the music starts again on the first slide whenever the presentation is looping. To overcome this problem, PowerPoint MVP
Glenna Shaw provides the perfect solution:
1. The trick is to insert a "kick-off" slide at the beginning of the slide show to start your music.
2. Next mark slide 2 through the last slide to be a
custom show with automated timing to advance slides. Make sure Slide 1 DOES NOT have automated timing to advance slide.
3. Add an Action Button (or hyperlink) to Slide One to link to the Custom Show. Slide 1 should now have two items; the sound file and an action button or hyperlink to start the Custom Show.
4. Set up the slide show to loop until ESC using automated timings and showing all slides.
5. Save it as a
.PPS (recommended).
When you run the slide show, Slide 1 will start the music and you'll need to click on the Action Object or Hyperlink to start the custom show. From that point on, the presentation should loop through Slide 2 to the Last Slide without resetting the music (unless you have some other sound stop it between Slide 2 and the Last Slide). If you saved it as a PowerPoint Show (PPS), the whole thing will close neatly when you press ESC.
There's a sample file for this technique that you can
download from Glenna's site... The sample is called
Loop Sounds.
Monday, August 23, 2004
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