A sequence of ppt shows

[David Morrison]

I am using PowerPoint 2004 to run a slideshow in an unattended display.
At the moment, I have a single slideshow, but need to add extra
components to the end. Given the size of the presentation (lots of
photos), it would be more efficient to make a new ppt show for each
component I add. (Apart from anything else, it would be easy to switch
out one if it was no longer needed, or to update it.)

So I was wondering if there is any easy way to chain a series of
presentations together so that when one finishes, it automatically goes
on the the next one?

I thought Automator might have been a possibility, but there don't seem
to be any actions for Powerpoint.

Otherwise, I'll have to brush up on my AppleScript again......

 

[CyberTaz]

Hi David;

I think you may be searching for a complex solution to a simple problem
With respect for your concern for file size, that really isn't an issue
unless you're looking to email it as an attachment or some such. In fact,
several files will typically total up to more disk space than one file with
the same slides.

Although other options may be available I'd suggest keeping all content in
the same file. To handle the "switching out" that you refer to, look into
the use of Custom Shows in PPT Help.

 

[David Morrison]

Hi David;

I think you may be searching for a complex solution to a simple problem
With respect for your concern for file size, that really isn't an issue
unless you're looking to email it as an attachment or some such. In fact,
several files will typically total up to more disk space than one file with
the same slides.

Although other options may be available I'd suggest keeping all content in
the same file. To handle the "switching out" that you refer to, look into
the use of Custom Shows in PPT Help.

Thanks for the tip about custom shows. I may well be able to use that.

However, my wish for separate shows is real. The current presentation is
250MB, takes 3-4 minutes to load and is very slow to do anything while
editing it. This is on a recent model iMac.

My client has just given me another 700MB of pictures to add to it. I am
concerned that editing it will become even slower. I am also wary of
having "all my eggs in one basket". I don't know how reliable Powerpoint
is, but Word's tendency to corrupt files has bitten me more than once.
(And yes, I do have backups, but I don't really want to waste the hours
between backups if a document does become corrupted.)

Cheers

David

 

[CyberTaz]

Hi David;

Based on what you're describing I get the impression that the image files
are not being properly processed before being inserted into the presentation
file... Even if 700MB translates to 700 images of 1MB each, which is at
least 2-3 times the size each image needs to be. What image file type are
these images & what is the average file size? There's absolutely no reason
to be dumping something like 12MB TIFF or EPS images into the presentation
if commercially printed output isn't the objective. Even 1.3MB JPEG is
excessive in the majority of cases.

Unless the file is going to be commercially printed I have the feeling you
can cut the size considerably. If commercial printing is intended you might
be better of creating one version with hi-res images & another for display.

Regards |:>)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac

 

[David Morrison]

Hi David;

Based on what you're describing I get the impression that the image files
are not being properly processed before being inserted into the presentation
file... Even if 700MB translates to 700 images of 1MB each, which is at
least 2-3 times the size each image needs to be. What image file type are
these images & what is the average file size? There's absolutely no reason
to be dumping something like 12MB TIFF or EPS images into the presentation
if commercially printed output isn't the objective. Even 1.3MB JPEG is
excessive in the majority of cases.

Unless the file is going to be commercially printed I have the feeling you
can cut the size considerably. If commercial printing is intended you might
be better of creating one version with hi-res images & another for display.

Yes, I understand that the images need to be reduced, and the originals
are bigger than necessary. In fact I have already reduced them to
1920x1080, the size of the display they will be viewed on.

This, of course, still does not help with the "all eggs in one basket"
problem.

Cheers

David

 

[Chirag]

See if the following helps:
Linking PowerPoint presentations together:
http://www.awesomebackgrounds.com/powerpointlinking.htm

The instructions are for Windows PowerPoint. See if they work for Mac PPT as
well.

- Chirag

PowerShow - View multiple PowerPoint slide shows simultaneously
http://officeone.mvps.org/powershow/powershow.html

 

[CyberTaz]

Unfortunately the suggestion offered by Chirag won't work on a Mac because
PPT files are not recognized as embeddable objects.

You can save the 2nd file as a Movie & embed it to automatically run,
perhaps, but the movie wouldn't be editable in PPT for future revision.

I've also considered hyperlinking to the second file but I don't know of any
way to execute the hyperlink if the show is unattended ‹ perhaps something
with AppleScript but I don't know. Even if you can it won't help if the show
needs to be run on a PC.

Although you're right about the large file size being a consideration for
initial opening & editing I don't believe you can equate corruption of Word
documents with presentation files... If for no other reason the corruption
of Word documents is most often caused by misuse of the program's tools &
features. Well constructed Word files seldom simply "go sour" on their own
with any higher degree of frequency than other file types, regardless of
size. PPT file structure & features are radically different & far less
complex insofar as there is no Track Changes, fields, etc. & is designed as
object-oriented whereas Word is not. I still think Custom Shows is your best
‹ if not your only ‹ bet... And up-to-date backups are SOP for any important
files anyway, so that shouldn't be a deterrent.

I'm afraid I don't know of any other approaches :-(

Regards |:>)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac

 

[David Morrison]

http://www.awesomebackgrounds.com/powerpointlinking.htm

Thanks for that. I cannot see any reason it should not work on Mac
Powerpoint. However, it may not be suitable for my application as the
presentation will be totally unattended, and this process requires a
mouse click whenever it starts up. This could be a problem if the
computer restarts for any reason, eg, a power outage.

Cheers

David

 

[David Morrison]

Unfortunately the suggestion offered by Chirag won't work on a Mac because
PPT files are not recognized as embeddable objects.
:-(

You can save the 2nd file as a Movie & embed it to automatically run,
perhaps, but the movie wouldn't be editable in PPT for future revision.

No, but I would still have the original ppt file if changes were ever
needed.

I have tried the movie approach, but the animations did not seem to be
included in the movie. And the quality (for photos) was not great. Is
there any way to get a good representation of the ppt presentation as a
movie?

Thanks for your suggestions.

David

 

[Jim Gordon MVP]

No, but I would still have the original ppt file if changes were ever
needed.

I have tried the movie approach, but the animations did not seem to be
included in the movie. And the quality (for photos) was not great. Is
there any way to get a good representation of the ppt presentation as a
movie?

Thanks for your suggestions.

David

Hi David,

To make a full-fidelity movie use screen capture software such as
SnapZPro or Camtasia (new on the Mac). When you play the slide show for
recording purposes, use the Slide Show menu and choose Set Up Show.
Choose the Browsed by an Individual (Window) option so your presentation
will play in a window rather than full screen.

-Jim

 

[David Morrison]

I have tried the movie approach, but the animations did not seem to be

Hi David,

To make a full-fidelity movie use screen capture software such as
SnapZPro or Camtasia (new on the Mac). When you play the slide show for
recording purposes, use the Slide Show menu and choose Set Up Show.
Choose the Browsed by an Individual (Window) option so your presentation
will play in a window rather than full screen.

The target display is Full HD, ie, 1920x1080. Good thing I have a 24"
iMac to do this with

On a slightly related issue, Jim, I have a question about your PPT FAQ
item:

http://www.pptfaq.com/FAQ00566.htm

I have a presentation set up using 4:3, and it contains a lot of
animations - about 20 per slide.

Now this presentation has been repurposed to run unattended in a
display, and there it runs on the Full HD screen. As it stands, it works
well, albeit with black bars down the sides.

But now with the sequence of pictures, I want them to look as good as
possible, which means the input pictures should be 1920x1080. Which also
means that the screen size needs to be set to that value in Page Setup.

Wen I change the size so I can add the new big pictures (or even a movie
that size), the graphics get stretched.

In the section:

What if the presentation's already done - and set up for a normal 4:3
ratio screen?

you give a process to get them back to normal by deleting the distorted
one, copying from the old and pasting into the new. When I do that, I
find that the size of the image has changed.

So for example, say I make the page into 16:9 by widening the screen in
Page Setup and leaving the height the same. This stretches an image
horizontally. Copying and pasting into the new ppt gives the right
proportions for the image, but it is shrunken.

In the original, it is 312x265, scaled to 93%. In the new one, it is
157x133, scaled to 47%.

Do you have any idea why it is doing this?

Thanks

David

Powerpoint 2004

 

[David Morrison]

In the original, it is 312x265, scaled to 93%. In the new one, it is

157x133, scaled to 47%.

Do you have any idea why it is doing this?

Aha! It's because I pasted the picture into an empty place holder that
was hiding behind the picture......

Cheers

David

 

[David Morrison]

I am using PowerPoint 2004 to run a slideshow in an unattended display.
At the moment, I have a single slideshow, but need to add extra
components to the end. Given the size of the presentation (lots of
photos), it would be more efficient to make a new ppt show for each
component I add. (Apart from anything else, it would be easy to switch
out one if it was no longer needed, or to update it.)

So I was wondering if there is any easy way to chain a series of
presentations together so that when one finishes, it automatically goes
on the the next one?

I thought Automator might have been a possibility, but there don't seem
to be any actions for Powerpoint.

Otherwise, I'll have to brush up on my AppleScript again......

Thanks to everyone for the help. I have actually got myself a solution,
and written an AppleScript that people might find useful.

First, the solution. The extra 250 pictures I wanted to add to the
presentation were just a simple slide show; no special transitions were
needed.

GraphicConverter does a magic slideshow. It does what seems sensible and
does it with with just a folder of pictures, automatically scaling
everything to fill the screen.

It has an option to export the slideshow as a QuickTime slideshow movie
(MPEG 4) which gives quality virtually indistinguishable from looking at
the original pics.

I then inserted that movie into a new slide in the ppt presentation,
adjusted the height to be 540 pixels and the width to be 1000 pixels.
Then used the alignment tool to centre it on the slide.

Works perfectly. Well almost, when the movie finishes, there is a short
flash of white before it goes back to the start for the next loop. I
thought it may have been the movie background, but it was still there
when I changed the background to black. :-(

Now, the AppleScript. Before I had worked out the solution above, I had
been looking at what needed to be done to make the existing 4:3
presentation into 16:9 so the pics would display at full size. The
problem with changing the size in Page Setup was that all the graphics
would get stretched horizontally. Jim's PPT FAQ suggested copying each
graphic out of the old presentation, and pasting into the new one to
restore the aspect ratio of the graphics. With hundreds of pictures,
that did not sound very attractive, and there would also be the problem
of getting them back where they belonged.

It turns out that AppleScript (and probably VBA) can do almost this. So
the script below opens a Powerpoint file, copies all the slides over to
a new presentation, and then adjusts the width of each object on the
slide to its previous value.

What I am not sure of is what other non-slide objects there are in a ppt
file. This only copies slides and everything they contain. Anything else
will need to be set up again, or maybe the script can be made to copy
them too.

To use this, copy the script and paste it into a Script Editor window.
Click on the Run button.

Note that some of the lines may have been wrapped. Almost all lines that
do not start with either a space/tab or two hyphens (--) are mean to be
on the end of the previous line. If that proves impossible, let me know
here and I'll post it on a web site somewhere.

Cheers

David

-----Cut below this
--
-- Make a 4:3 presentation into 16:9 while attempting to keep all
proportions correct.
--
-- Opens a ppt file, copies all the slides over to a new presentation
which is a 16:9 version
-- of the original, then adjusts all objects to restore their aspect
ratio. The new presentation
-- is left open in Powerpoint for any fine tuning.
-- Note that objects will have been moved around by the widening, and
may need to be
-- moved to regain the original layout.
-- Only tried on Powerpoint 2004
-- David Morrison, October 2009

--
-- Get the file to be widened
--
set OldFile to choose file with prompt "PPT file to widen"
--set OldFile to open "/Users/fred/Desktop/test3.ppt"

tell application "Microsoft PowerPoint"
launch
--
-- Open original presentation
--
open OldFile
set OldPresentation to name of active presentation
set OldPresentationWidth to slide width of page setup of presentation
OldPresentation
-- Calc below needs careful understanding. It makes the width greater
so
-- that the aspect ratio is 16:9. Height is unchanged.
set NewPresentationWidth to 16 / 3 / 4 * OldPresentationWidth
--
-- Create new presentation
--
set NewFile to make new presentation
set NewPresentation to name of active presentation
set NewDocumentWindow to document window 1
set slide width of page setup of presentation NewPresentation to
NewPresentationWidth
--
-- Start processing slides
--
repeat with i from 1 to count of slides in presentation
OldPresentation
set OldSlide to slide i of presentation OldPresentation
-- Copy the slide to the new presentation
set OldSlide_i to copy object OldSlide
set NewSlide_i to paste object of presentation NewPresentation

-- Adjust the sizes of shapes in the new presentation
repeat with j from 1 to count of shapes in OldSlide
set OldShape to shape j of OldSlide
set NewShape to shape j of slide i of presentation
NewPresentation
set OldWidth to width of OldShape
set OldHeight to height of OldShape
set OldLeftPos to left position of OldShape
set OldTop to top of OldShape
set TempLockAspectRatio to lock aspect ratio of NewShape
set lock aspect ratio of NewShape to false
set width of NewShape to OldWidth
set lock aspect ratio of NewShape to TempLockAspectRatio
end repeat
end repeat
close presentation OldPresentation
end tell
-------Cut above this

 

[Jim Gordon MVP]

Aha! It's because I pasted the picture into an empty place holder that
was hiding behind the picture......

Cheers

David

No Fair! You answered your own queation!

LOL - Glad to hear you figured it out.

-Jim