PowerPoint Notes

How do I convert word lists in Excel to PowerPoint slides

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 file

This 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…

Filed Under: Uncategorized

How Do I Loop Sound/Music for a Looped Presentation?

Note: This technique was last tested using PowerPoint 2003–yes, this is a very old post!

Also, this seems to work in PowerPoint 2007 as well, but fails in PowerPoint 2010 and higher because the sound stops playing when you step into a custom show.

This technique assumes you know how to loop sound across slides in PowerPoint.

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, here is a solution:

1. First of all make sure all your slides are set with automatic transition timings. If your first slide has a sound inserted and set to play across slides, remove the music clip. You can select the sound icon, and press the Delete key.
2. Now place your cursor before the first slide in the Slides pane, or in Slide Sorter view. Then insert a new “kick-off” slide at the beginning of the presentation. This is the slide where you will start your music.
3. Next, mark all slides from your second slide through the last slide to be a custom show. Do note that all these slides already have automated timings to advance slides. Make sure Slide 1 does not have automated timing to advance slide.
4. Add a sound clip to the first slide, and set it to play across slides.
5. Add an Action Button (or hyperlink) to the first “kick off” slide. Bring up the Action Settings dialog box, and not the Hyperlink dialof box, and link to your custom show. Slide 1 should now have two items; the sound file and an action button or hyperlink to start the custom show.
6. Set up the slide show to loop until ESC using automated timings and showing all slides.
7. Save it as a .PPS or .PPSX (recommended).

PowerPoint MVP Glenna Shaw helped with this answer.

Plus, there’s a sample file for this technique that you can download from Glenna’s site. The sample is called Loop Sounds.

When you run the slideshow, 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 or PPSX), the whole thing will close neatly when you press Esc.

Filed Under: Techniques
Tagged as: Glenna Shaw, Loop Sound, PowerPoint, Tutorials

PPTX vs. PPSX (or PPT vs. PPS)

Quite often, you might have received a PowerPoint presentation with a PPS or PPSX file extension rather than the normal PPT or PPTX extension. Here’s more info.

First, let us tell you a little about these extensions:

• PPT is the default file extension for saving presentations in PowerPoint 2003 and earlier versions.
• PPTX is the default file extension for saving presentations in PowerPoint 2007 and later versions.
• PPS is the the show mode extension in PowerPoint 2003 and earlier. These files run in “play-presentation” mode when double-clicked.
• PPSX does the same thing in PowerPoint 2007 and later, and it runs in “play-presentation” mode when double-clicked.

Here are some more details that might help you clear the gobbledygook further:

• Technically there is no difference between PPT (or PPTX) and PPS (or PPSX) files.
• With PPT and PPS files, you can actually rename the extensions whenever you want and the presentation file will remain the same.
• With PPTX and PPSX files, you cannot rename at will, but trust us, they include the same slide content!

The difference lies in how PowerPoint treats them:

• By default, PPT and PPTX files open in edit mode within PowerPoint allowing you to use all the menus and commands.
• By default, PPS and PPSX files open in slideshow (play-presentation) mode, and you see no PowerPoint interface. When the presentation finishes or you manually exit using tthe ESC key, PowerPoint also quits.

Having said that, you can play all PowerPoint file formats (PPT, PPS, PPTX, PPSX) directly from within Windows Explorer. Right-click the file and the choose the Play option in the context menu.

You can also edit a PPS or PPSX file without changing the extension using either of these options:

• Just drag and drop the PPS or PPSX file from Windows Explorer into an empty PowerPoint window.
• Launch PowerPoint and open a PPS or PPSX using the File/Office Button | Open option to edit a presentation.

How Do I Convert a PPSX File to PPTX?

Follow these easy steps:

1. Save your PPSX file in a convenient location such as your Desktop.
2. Choose the File | Open option in PowerPoint to open the PPSX file. Make sure you choose this File | Open option rather than double-clicking the file, or double-clicking an email attachment.
3. With your PPSX file open in Normal view in PowerPoint, press the F12 keyboard shortcut to bring up the Save As dialog box.
4. Make sure you save now as a PPTX file. You can choose PPTX in the Save as type drop-down list.

See Also: PowerPoint Tutorials | PowerPoint Tutorials: Interface and Basics

Filed Under: Reference
Tagged as: Basics, File Formats, PowerPoint, PPS, PPSX, PPT, PPTX, Tutorials

PowerPoint Links and Link Problems

Have you ever inserted an audio (sound) or video (movie) clip on your PowerPoint slide only to discover that while the media clips do play on the computer where they were inserted, but not on any other computer? Or did you add hyperlinks to Excel sheets, Word documents, and PDFs from within your PowerPoint presentation, only to discover that those link also do not work on any other computer, other than where they were linked!

As we learned from the above paragraph, PowerPoint creates links from two types of files:

1. Media Files: These include audio and video clips — common formats can be identified by file extensions such as AVI, WMV, MPG, MP3, WMA, WAV, etc.
2. Other Files: These are documents such as Word documents (DOC, DOCX), Excel sheets (XLS, XLSX), Acrobat (PDF), etc.

The reason why these links do not work is because PowerPoint typically “links” these files — so the linked files are not contained within the PowerPoint presentation file at all. When you are playing your slides, and PowerPoint encounters a linked file — it fetches the file from its original location and plays it or shows it — depending upon what type of file it is.

Now whatever we explained is true for all versions of PowerPoint other than the latest versions: PowerPoint 2010 for Windows, and PowerPoint 2011 for Mac — these newest versions actually include all media files within the PowerPoint presentation file itself — but they continue linking to any other file such as Word and Excel stuff.

Whenever you insert a media file or link any other file within PowerPoint 2007/2008 and earlier, it is invariably linked to the presentation. In fact, PowerPoint avoids embedding any files within the presentation — that’s probably sound reasoning in the first place because embedded movies would balloon up PowerPoint file sizes like nothing else! PowerPoint 2010/2001 and newer though are not too scared of ballooned file sizes, and they now contain the media file right within the PowerPoint file itself — but even these versions, continue to link to other files.

Now for the bad part — PowerPoint is not too good at remembering link locations. As far as the presentation and the linked files are on the same system, you will not face any problems. However, if you decide to move or copy the presentation to another computer system, you’ll discover that PowerPoint cannot locate the linked files — it won’t even offer to find the links for you. The solution is quite simple — assemble all your to-be-linked files in the same folder as your presentation even before you insert them into PowerPoint. And yes, only insert or link files for a presentation that has been saved at least once.

So what do you do about existing presentations with links already made? For those files, you can change links with a third-party PowerPoint add-in from Steve Rindsberg called RnR FixLinks Pro.

Also, some versions of PowerPoint, such as PowerPoint 2003 include a neat Package to CD feature (File | Package to CD). You can also use the Package to Folder option in that feature to copy the presentation and all linked files to a new folder. Both these options copy all linked files to the CD or new folder.

Related Link: Sounds/Movies don’t play, images disappear or links break when I move or email a presentation has more detailed information.

Filed Under: Uncategorized
Tagged as: Links, PowerPoint

How do I email a PowerPoint presentation?

There are umpteen ways to do just that – but let us explore the easiest ways to email a PowerPoint presentation.

1. Make sure that all linked files such as movies, sound, etc. are placed in the same folder as the presentation even before your insert them within the presentation.

2. Thereafter, zip the entire folder into one zip archive file. Do not create self-unzipping executables since some email programs block EXE files by default – also Windows EXE files cannot be run natively on other platforms like the Mac. If you are not sure that the recipient is aware of how zipped files are unarchived, provide them links to unzipping applications for Windows and Mac:

WinZip (Windows only)
StuffIt (Windows and Mac)

3. Attach the zip file with your email message. If it is a large attachment, consider asking the recipent for permission beforehand. You might also want to consider uploading your zipped presentation online and including the download URL with the file size in the body of the email.

4. Provide links to the free PowerPoint Viewer for users who amy have no PowerPoint installed on their systems:

PowerPoint Viewer 2003 for Windows.
PowerPoint Viewer 98 for Mac.

Filed Under: Uncategorized