Embedding FLASH files into Powerpoint
CAVEAT: The folowing does NOT work with PowerPoint on Macs, more notes at the foot of this post…
We create a lot of FLASH content for people, and while we don’t use PowerPoint, often our clients do, and would like to get the movies we’ve created into their presentation. The subject embedding FLASH (.swf) files in PowerPoint has been covered on numerous blogs, but often not very clearly, and not taking into account different versions of PPT!
After a bit of searching we found working instructions on sameshow. These seem to be written for a modern version of PPT, but if you have an older version, you can get the ‘Developer Tab’ up as a floating toolbar by:
View | Toolbars | Control Toolbox
The hammer icon seems to be a relict from the past indicating more controls – anyway, click this and you will get the Shockwave Flash option (amongst several tens of others). Then:
Draw a box on the PowerPoint slide and right click for properties. You need to add/change two important parameters here:
- EmbedMovie needs to be set to TRUE
- Movie needs the location of the .swf file you want to play
I find the easiest way to find a file in Windows is to stick it in a root drive (e.g. C:) so you just have to type in c:filename.swf to get it. Two other things to remember:
- Remove the file from the root afterwards, to prevent this getting cluttered
- Remember to EMBED the movie, or it will NOT work if you take the PPT to a different computer (if you do 1 above and you have not embedded the file, it will stop working immediatly, so you don’t have to wait until you are speaking at your conference to find out that your talk is b*ggered)
A full method with screenshots is available on the sameshow website:
How to insert Flash into PowerPoint
Hope your talk goes well!
Running Flash in PPT for Macs
In short – this is no longer possible. Previously we could export a Flash movie as Quicktime with a Flash track – giving reproduction of both the appearance and functionality of the original Flash movie (as long as only simple code was used in the movie). From QuickTime 7.3, however, Apple has withdrawn support for Flash altogether (Current Quicktime version 7.6.x).
