So… you’ve been given this task where you need to present movies in your Powerpoint presentation…

How does one go about inserting movies into Powerpoint without massively increasing the size of the presentation?

Well, by default, Powerpoint allows you to insert MPEG/AVI files in via the Insert menu, but we all know that MPEG/AVIs are HUGE in size…

So… what do we do? We use the latest hype in Web 2.0 language - SWF/FLV files! “How do we insert those, Russ ?” you might ask. Well, that’s where this article and a few other come in handy:

1) You cannot import FLV files! But … … you CAN import SWF Video files. What’s the difference? The extension and size limitation(s). the reason FLV exists is because SWF by default can only support upto 16,000 frames. There are a few software out there that have been successful in beating this limit, by “stitching” the multiple files together. Mainly, Sorenson Squeeze and Allok’s FLV Converter come to mind (edit by jez: A free FLV converter). By using these tools, you point to the MPEG, define the parameters for the SWF/FLV file and click “Convert”.

2) Tools needed:

a) Sorenson Squeeze, Allok FLV Converter, or any other converter of your choice that you feel comfortable with in generating SWF/FLV files with.

b) Powerpoint ‘00/’03/’07

c) Patience and Comprehension

d) These M$ articles:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/291875 AND http://support.microsoft.com/kb/291876

Steps: (NOTE: I will be using Allok and Powerpoint 2007 in this tutorial for conversion. In my case, I had several MOV files to convert)

1) Open your favorite browser (hopefully Firefox!) and in 2 seperate tabs open the referenced M$ articles, and read them. PLEASE READ ONLY!

2) Open Allok’s and add the MOV files. From the output choose “SWF Video”, choose 30 FPS (for high quality) and click Convert. It took 5 minutes to convert 10 30MB MOV files to SWF Video.

3) Open Powerpoint ‘07 and create a slide.

4) Follow the instructions on KB291876 to get 1 SWF file onto the slide.

In addition to what’s described in the M$ article, Set:

-) Embed to True (so that you don’t have to worry about the SWF file anymore, it becomes a part of the presentation)
-) Loop to False (so that the movie doesn’t loop once played or set toTrue if you want it to!)
-) Menu to True (as a backup plan, this way for some reason if all else fails in trying to control the movie, you can at least right click and click on Play etc.)
-) Play to False (if you want to control the playback options of the movie. If not, just leave it as True and control the looping)

5) Follow the instructions on KB291876 to get an understanding of the controls mechanism. Those 3 mentioned functions are what we will use. So, once you hit Alt-F11, you’ll get the Visual Basic Editor window, in there, on the left you’ll notice a “slide###” where # stands for a number. The idea is sort of like the Flash ActionScript editor, where the code you will enter only affects the slide you are on. (Before I get flaming from others, there are ways to make functions global and called accordingly… I’m not here to teach you VBA… just to get a Flash control working in Powerpoint! So please just follow along! thx! :) ) So double-click on the slide then empty the contents that appear in the middle of the screen. Then copy-paste the 3 functions from the M$ article. Take out the slide#, and replace the # in the ShockwaveFlash# with 1, so it reads as ShockwaveFlash1.Play for example. (Again, this CAN be changed… I’m not here to teach VBA… If curious, look at the ShockwaveControl’s property on the slide by right clicking and going to Properties. In the menu look at the control name on the top. You’ll notice by default it’s called ShockwaveFlash1 hence why I said put a 1) Once done, hit the Save button and wait 10 secs :) close the VBA Editor, and go back to the slide. Now follow the instructions in the article for dropping a Custom Action button on the slide. In our case, you will drag 3 buttons down. Rewind, Play and that blank square one on the very right. The idea is, when you drag the button, you will click on Macro and choose the appropriate Macro for the button to run. i.e. For the rewind button, choose Slide1.Rewind then click OK. Repeat X 2 and drag them around to your liking.

Now… if you have followed my instructions to the letter, you should have a slide with a movie in the middle, and 3 buttons.: Rewind, Pause and Play!

Play the slideshow and enjoy! :) the best part? No additional files to worry about linking when taking the Powerpoint presentation on the road!

CEO/President