Wednesday, April 2, 2008

Cannot Embed Flash Movies in PowerPoint 2007

Here's one of the typical questions I have been asked about no longer being able to embed Flash movies in PowerPoint 2007:

I've been working with inserting Flash movies in PowerPoint without any problems in PowerPoint 2003, but since upgrading to 2007 I've not been able to embed a single Flash movie! PowerPoint 2007 poses no problems in getting the Shockwave Flash object into the PowerPoint slide, and it even allows me to set the embed option to True, but the fact is that the Flash file does not embed at all -- it does not travel with the PowerPoint presentation. This makes sharing impossible -- have you run into this issue, or know any workarounds?

There's no official word on this yet as to what is causing the issue, but it is clear that PowerPoint 2007 is preventing the embedding of a Flash movie -- maybe this is due to enhanced security controls in this version -- or it could be due to some other reason.

You can still continue using PowerPoint 2003 to create presentations with embedded Flash movies. If you must use PowerPoint 2007, you could make sure that the Flash movie and the PowerPoint presentation are in the same folder -- and then copy the entire folder if you need to move the presentation to another computer.

Labels: 2007, embed, flash, powerpoint

Wednesday, October 3, 2007

Benchmark Presentation for PowerPoint to Flash Conversion

There are scores of PowerPoint to Flash converters out there, and they all do some things right, and they all have their problem areas. In such a scenario, it's difficult to rank them all. So I decided on a points system, and created a benchmark presentation. This benchmark presentation has 24 slides, and I provide 5 points for each slide for a total of 120 points.

And then I provide another 80 points for:

Program interface (10 points)
Support options (10 points)
Output (10 points)
LMS options (10 points)
Integration with quizzing features (10 points)
Output to a non-Flash format (5 points)
Output to Flash based screen savers and EXEs (5 points)
PowerPoint 2007 compatibility (10 points)
Pricing (10 points)

This gets me the score for the product -- anything up to 200 points. Then I convert this score to percentage points. Watch out soon to see how the different converter products score.

And the benchmark presentation is not available as a free download now, although you can request access through the feedback form...

Labels: add-in, flash, powerpoint

Thursday, September 20, 2007

Extract Flash: Conversation with Rhys Jeremiah

Rhys Jeremiah has been working in IT after graduating from Bristol University with a degree in mathematics. He started writing database applications for a large insurance company and quickly moved into web development, the largest site for a major international motor manufacturer. Although now teaching mathematics, he still manages some IT work. He currently lives in Cardiff, Wales with Sarah, his wife, and their children Lloyd and Carys.

Geetesh: Tell us more about your Extract Flash product, and what inspired you to create this.

Rhys: As is often common, the reason for creating the Extract Flash product was to solve a problem that could have easily been avoided. The company I was working for at the time was a major client of a marketing firm here in the UK. Last thing on a Friday afternoon, we were asked to update a flash file on a website and that the replacement file would be winging its way to us via email very soon. None of us in the office were quite prepared for the fact that the file had been placed into a PowerPoint presentation. It seemed that the last thing the marketing company did before the weekend was to send that file as numerous phone calls to get the original file failed. So we had a problem.

I noticed that it was possible to drag and drop the embedded Flash object between Office products and even drop it onto the desktop as a scrap file (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/138275). So I reasoned that the file must contain the Flash file that we were searching for. Hence it was worth digging a bit deeper. On opening the scrap file in a binary editor, I was able to locate the header block of the SWF file and without too much effort it was the possible to pull the binary data out and write it back to disk. The reason I wrote an application to do this is that I enjoy the challenge of trying something new, and also providing a useful tool to the community. In theory the scrap approach would work for any type of embedded object so long as the header block could be read and processed. With a small amount of knowledge it would be possible to change the file to search a binary file for any header block and extract the embedded data. From memory I think that SWF files are held in PowerPoint files without encryption so you don't necessarily need to mess about with the scrap file.

Geetesh: Many people believe that their embedded Flash content in a PowerPoint slide is secure -- so this does prove them wrong. How important is it for them to be aware of this, and would the scrap approach also work with any other embedded content in Microsoft Office documents.

Rhys: From my experience many people think that all embedded files in Office documents are secure. I can't count how many times someone has sent me a Word document containing loads of images. I've never really considered the people actually use this method to protect their files. It's certainly naive to approach security in this fashion. Personally I think that the only way to secure your sensitive data is not to give it away, as soon as you release any information you lose the ability to control the distribution. If you really want to secure your embedded content don't embed it.

Labels: embed, extract, flash, powerpoint

Sunday, August 19, 2007

Embedded Flash in PowerPoint: Can it be Extracted?

Here's a fictitious question: I have embedded a Flash movie in a PowerPoint presentation, and I would not like anyone to be able to save that embedded Flash movie from my PowerPoint presentation and use it elsewhere. And it does not seem doable -- so are my Flash files really safe?

OK -- yes they are reasonably safe only because many people are just not aware of that possibility, but remember that technology moves faster each day. There are indeed third party products that allow you to extract Flash content from PowerPoint files quite easily, and although these are not too well known or documented, they do exist.

So don't assume those Flash movies cannot be extracted.

If you need a Flash movie that's within a PowerPoint file, you can always request the creator of the presentation for a copy of the Flash movie. And just in case you created the presentation and lost the Flash movie, you can use the third party tools!

Labels: embed, extract, flash, powerpoint

Saturday, August 18, 2007

Edit the Control Properties (PowerPoint 2007)

Important Note: Make sure you read this post on not being able to embed a Flash movie within a PowerPoint 2007 presentation.

Now that you have inserted the control in your PowerPoint 2007 slide, it's time to bring in the Flash movie within the control. You need two things:

A PowerPoint slide with the Shockwave Flash control inserted.
A Flash movie placed in the same folder as your PowerPoint presentation.

If you don't have a sample Flash movie, get it here...

Get started with editing the control properties:

Right-click the control and choose Properties (see Figure 1).

Figure 1: Access the properties
This will bring up the Properties window that you can see in Figure 2. Select the (Custom) option so that you can see the three ellipses (...) towards the right -- click on these ellipses. If you don't find the (Custom) option, ignore these steps, and proceed to Step 6.

Figure 2: Properties window
This will bring up the Property Pages dialog box that you can see in Figure 3. If this dialog box covers your Flash control or the slide, you can move it away a little.

Figure 3: Property Pages dialog box
In the Movie URL text box, type the name of the Flash SWF file that you placed in the same folder as the presentation. You can also type an entire web URL within this text box if you want to access a SWF live from the Internet. Check the Play option, and do check the Embed option too (unless you typed in a web URL in the Movie URL text box). There are several other options in this dialog box that you can tweak as required, but do remember that the Background Color option makes no difference!
Click OK to get back to the slide and play the presentation. Once you play the presentation you may want to resize and reposition the inserted control.
Not applicable for everybody: If you branched out from Step 2, select the Movie option in the Properties dialog box, and type the name of your Flash SWF (see Figure 4) -- no path is required since we already placed everything (the presentation and the SWF) in the same folder. Also change the EmbedMovie option to True.

Figure 4: Properties window
Save the presentation.

Maybe you don't want to make any more changes, or you might want your Flash movies rewound after playing. Or maybe you don't want to follow so many steps, and prefer an automated one-click process. In that case, look at FlashBack.

Wednesday, August 15, 2007

Insert the Control (PowerPoint 2007)

I'm assuming you have the Developer tab of the ribbon enabled, have all the prerequisites installed, and have assembled everything in one folder.

Now you can insert Flash movies in your PowerPoint 2007 presentations. If you are using an older version of PowerPoint, look here...

Select the Developer tab of the Ribbon, and within the Controls group, click the More Controls button (see Figure 1).

Figure 1: Click the More Controls option.

This will bring up the More Controls dialog box that you can see in Figure 2. Select the Shockwave Flash Object option, and click OK.

Figure 2: Select to place a Shockwave Flash Object control.

The cursor will now turn into a crosshair, drag and place a control on the slide so that your control looks like what you can see in Figure 3.

Figure 3: The placed Shockwave Flash Object control.

Now that you have placed the control, you need to link this to the Flash movie. I show you how to do that next...

Labels: flash, insert, powerpoint

Tuesday, August 14, 2007

Enable the Developer tab in the Ribbon

The options that allow you to insert Flash movies in PowerPoint 2007 (and maybe later versions) are found in the Developer tab of the Ribbon.

By default, this tab is not visible (as shown in Figure 1) -- and has to be turned on. If the Developer tab is indeed visible in your Ribbon (see Figure 2), you need not enable it.

Figure 1: There's no Developer tab in the Ribbon by default.

Figure 2: Now there's the Developer tab!

Otherwise, this is how you can enable the Developer tab in the Ribbon:

Choose Office Button | PowerPoint Options, to bring up a dialog box of the same name.

In the Popular tab (on the left pane), check the option that says Show Developer tab in the Ribbon, as shown in Figure 3.

Figure 3: Check the option to show the Developer tab
Click OK to get back to the PowerPoint interface -- you should now see the Developer tab in the Ribbon (refer to Figure 2).