Using Flash With PowerPoint 97/2000

filed under Flash and ActionScript

Being a designer and a High School student, I make numerous presentations in differing situations. Usually, I'd carry my laptop around and give PowerPoint presentations, but I always felt that it just wasn't what I was looking for in giving my audience a clear sense of my message. Then....I discovered how to have Flash animations work along side PowerPoint content. Download my Presentation so you can Examine it and view it.

Adding Flash To PowerPoint

1. Once you have created an SWF file that you would like to use in your presentation, copy the SWF into the folder where your presentation resides. 
    
2. Then, in PowerPoint, go to the slide where you would like the animation to be. Then click on View > Toolbars > Control Toolbox. You should see a window similar to this below:

 
Note: Your window may look different. I increased the width of the control to make it fit nicely on this page.
 

3. After you have the Control Toolbox window on, click on the "More Controls" icon. (The last icon with a hammer and wrench). From there, scroll down the list and choose Shockwave Flash Object. See image below.

4. After you have the Control Toolbox window on, click on the "More Controls" icon. (The last icon with a hammer and wrench). From there, scroll down the list and choose Shockwave Flash Object. See image below.

Once you have done that, you should see a cross hair replacing your mouse pointer. All you have to do now is simply click and drag on the slide where you wish to have your animation. See image below:

Now here comes the slightly complicated portion. Select the crossed rectangle you just created, and click on the "Properties" button on the Control Toolbox. See image below:

Once you have clicked the Properties, you should see another "Properties" window with various options visible. For most instances, the main captions you would modify would be the Loop, Menu, Movie, Quality. The Movie property is the most important, and you specify the location in the box. The list below will help you. A brief explanation as to what each property does is listed below. For the image of the Object Property box, click here.

• Loop
  Specifies if the animation loops or not. The default values can only be True or False.
   
• Menu
  Specifies whether you would like a menu to appear when someone right clicks on the animation.
   
• Movie
  This is where you specify the file location. That is why I mentioned earlier to put the SWF file into the same folder as your PowerPoint presentation. You simply type in the name of your SWF file "presentation.swf" or "C:\My Documents\presentation.swf", etc.
   
• Quality
  Customize the quality of the animation. Values are Low, Medium, High, Best.

Once you have entered in the values, then preview the animation. You should see the Flash animation work perfectly in the slide. If it doesn't, check to make sure you entered the file name correctly. That is usually the main reason why your animation doesn't work. I have uploaded the PowerPoint and SWF code so you can examine it to see how I did it. Click Here To Download Source.

From the Properties window, check the box for Embed. That will make sure that your animation is saved in the PPT file format. If you do not check the Embed box, you will need to make sure that both the SWF and PPT file are saved in the same folder (or as specified in PowerPoint).

 
Another best part about this; is that you can publish to HTML on PowerPoint 2000. So, you can upload all the various Files AND the SWF file onto your web site and allow the whole world to enjoy your presentation.

I hope the information helped. If you have any questions or comments, please don't hesitate to post them on the kirupa.com Forums. Just post your question and I, or our friendly forum helpers, will help answer it.

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	Kirupa Chinnathambi kirupaBlog

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