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Info-things on PowerPoint usage including tips, techniques and tutorials.
See Also:
PowerPoint and Presenting Notes
PowerPoint and Presenting Glossary
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:
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.
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Tagged as: Links, PowerPoint
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.
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Look at a tool like Camtasia or HyperCam to record your presentation to a movie – thereafter create a VCD/DVD from that movie.
These links might help:
Camtasia Studio and PowerPoint
Camtasia Studio and PowerPoint – Another Tutorial
If you have access to PowerPoint on the Mac, you can output your entire presentation to a QuickTime movie:
Related Links:
How do I convert my PowerPoint presentations to VHS?
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If you don’t want the navigation buttons (shown in Figure 1, below) such as the arrows (for Before and Next slides), Pen and Menu to be visible when you play your PowerPoint presentation, you can choose from three options.
Figure 1: Navigation buttons in Slide Show view
Here are the three options:
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Techniques
You might want to explore products like Photo Album, Image Importer Wizard,
etc to make it easy for you to import pictures:
You have several options:
Photo Album for PowerPoint 2000
http://office.microsoft.com/downloads/2000/album.aspx
http://www.indezine.com/products/powerpoint/ppphotoalbum.html
Photo Album for PowerPoint 2002/03 is built-in within PowerPoint 2002/03
Image Importer Wizard
http://www.mvps.org/skp/iiw.htm
http://www.indezine.com/products/powerpoint/addin/iiw.html
PowerTools Import Export
http://www.corpimaging.com/PowerTools/Index.htm
http://www.indezine.com/products/powerpoint/addin/powertools.html
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