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How to insert Flash into PowerPoint 2007 Permalink
This tutorial explains how to insert a Flash movie into a presentation directly through PowerPoint 2007. For users of other PowerPoint versions, special instructions are available for PowerPoint 2003 or earlier, as well as for PowerPoint 2010.
To play a Flash movie in a PowerPoint presentation, you have to add an ActiveX control and create a link to your Flash file. It is important to have Adobe Flash Player installed and ActiveX control registered on your computer.
Is there an Easier Way?
If you would like to avoid going through a series of steps in order to insert a Flash file on your slides, you can always choose to use iSpring Pro, a handy PowerPoint add-in that allows you to insert Flash movies with a single click. Check it out; you can download it, install it on your computer and give it a try.
Inserting Flash is not the only advantage of iSpring Pro. It also converts PowerPoint presentations into Flash, packaging all the multimedia resources into a single .SWF. Flash format is more compact and it makes your presentation ready to be emailed or uploaded to any website or blog.
Step-by-step instructions
- Create a new or open an existing PowerPoint presentation and select a slide you wish to insert Flash file onto.
- Click the Microsoft Office button and hit PowerPoint Options.
- In the PowerPoint Options window, enable Show Developer Tab Ribbon option in the Popular tab, and click OK.
- Go to the Developer tab in the main PowerPoint menu and click on the More Controls icon in the Controls section.
- Select Shockwave Flash Object from the list and click OK. Use the mouse to draw the control on a slide. You can resize the control to adjust the size of Flash animation.
- Right click on the control you added and click Properties in the context menu.
- In the opened Properties window, click the Movie property and specify a full path to your Flash file. You can add a Flash file located on your computer (e.g. C:\My movie.swf) or web resource (e.g. http://www.ispringsolutions/tour.swf).
- You can tune your Flash movie playback by setting it to play automatically and/or looped.
- To start playing Flash movie automatically when the PowerPoint slide is displayed, set Playing property to True. You can add custom controls for Flash movie and set this property to False.
- To loop Flash movie playback while the slide is displayed, set Loop property to True.
- Now you can save your presentation or view it as a slideshow: click SlideShow icon in the View tab or press F5. Press Esc to return to normal view.
Insert vs Embed
There are two ways of integrating a Flash movie into a PowerPoint slide: embed and insert. When you embed Flash into a presentation, it gets stored as an external presentation resource and can be viewed on any computer that has Adobe Flash Player. (Most computers already have it installed). When you insert a Flash movie, PowerPoint creates a link to a .swf file's location on your computer. PowerPoint 2010 only allows you to link external Flash files; it doesn't allow you to embed Flash movies into your presentation due to security restrictions. You can embed Flash movies into your presentation by saving it as a PowerPoint 97-2003 compatible copy.
It's a good idea to store all external resources like Flash movies and a PowerPoint presentation in one folder. The trick is to link a Flash movie's file name instead of a full path to a file. Even if you play your slideshow on another computer, your presentation will run just as smoothly, including all of the Flash animations.
iSpring PowerPoint add-in allows you to create a solid Flash (.SWF) file from your PowerPoint presentation with all external multimedia resources embedded. This makes presentation viewing and delivery easy and hassle-free.