Insert Movies

Works with PowerPoint 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003 for Windows

by Geetesh Bajaj, February 10th 2007

In this tutorial, I'll show you how you can bring in movie clips in PowerPoint:

1. Navigate to the slide where you want the movie clip to be inserted.
   
   
2. Choose Insert | Movies and Sounds| Movie from File, as shown in Figure 1.
   
   
   Figure 1 : Insert a movie from file
   
   
3. This will summon the Insert Movie dialog box that you can see in Figure 2. Navigate and choose the movie file you want to insert, and then click the OK button.
   
   
   Figure 2 : Insert Movie
   
   Remember that PowerPoint only allows you to insert a limited range of movie file types such as WMV, AVI, MPG, etc. If you need to insert a movie in another format, you'll have to convert it to a format that PowerPoint accepts.
   
   Note: Although PowerPoint may list QuickTime MOV in the "File of type" dropdown box (refer to Figure 2 above), be aware that this support is only for QuickTime movie files encoded around a decade ago -- read here for more info...
   
   
4. This get you back to your slide -- PowerPoint prompts you with a dialog box as shown in Figure 3, asking whether the movie to play Automatically or When Clicked in the slide show.
   
   
   Figure 4: How do you want to play your movie?
   
   If you choose Automatically, PowerPoint will play the movie the instant that the slide containing the movie is shown in slide show view.
   
   If you choose When Clicked, the presenter will have to click on the movie clip that PowerPoint places on the slide to play the movie.
   
   
5. Whichever option you choose (as explained above), PowerPoint will place a black rectangle representing the movie at the center of the slide. You can right-click this rectangle to display the context menu shown in Figure 5. To tweak more advanced options, choose Edit Movie Object.
   
   
   Figure 5: Edit Movie Object
   
   
6. This opens the Movie Options dialog box, as shown in Figure 6, which allows to change several options:
   
   
   • Change the sound volume of the audio in the movie
   • Make the movie loop and rewind during playback
   • Hide the movie while it is not playing during slide show
   • Zoom the movie to full screen (available only in PowerPoint 2003)
     
     
     Figure 6: Movie Options
   
   You'll also be able to find out how long the movie plays, and the path to the the movie file.
   
7. After making changes as required, click OK to apply the changes -- or click Cancel to return without making changes.