Exporting slides with movies to Acrobat

[Michael Levin]

I'm running Powerpoint (Office) 2004 on my Mac with Panther (10.3.9). I've
got a presentation with a quicktime movie in it, and I want to save it as a
PDF (Acrobat) since playback between Macs and PCs is not consistent in
powerpoint. I can print to PDF but my movies don't seem to play - they exist
as poster frames only. Can someone tell me how to make an Acrobat
presentation where the movies play?

Thanks,

Mike

 

[CyberTaz]

Hi Mike -

I'm certain someone more knowledgeable than I will address this, but I
believe the movie has to be embedded directly into the PDF - it doesn't
translate from PPt. Even that might not resolve the cross-platform issue
which, as I understand it, is QuickTime related - IOW, a QT movie in a PDF
isn't necessarily going to do any better on a PC than the same QT movie in a
PPT. Would like to know more, myself.

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

 

[Steve Rindsberg]

I'm running Powerpoint (Office) 2004 on my Mac with Panther (10.3.9). I've
got a presentation with a quicktime movie in it, and I want to save it as a
PDF (Acrobat) since playback between Macs and PCs is not consistent in
powerpoint. I can print to PDF but my movies don't seem to play - they exist
as poster frames only. Can someone tell me how to make an Acrobat
presentation where the movies play?

The PDF files you get by saving directly to PDF are in effect electronic paper.
They don't use trees but they're about as interactive as the tree-paper
versions.

Do you have Acrobat? The Windows versions install an add-in that enables PPT
to make somewhat more interactive PDFs. I'm not sure if Mac Acrobat supports
that as well.


================================================
Steve Rindsberg, PPT MVP
PPT FAQ: www.pptfaq.com
PPTools: www.pptools.com
================================================

 

[Steve Rindsberg]

Hi Mike -

I'm certain someone more knowledgeable than I will address this, but I
believe the movie has to be embedded directly into the PDF - it doesn't
translate from PPt. Even that might not resolve the cross-platform issue
which, as I understand it, is QuickTime related - IOW, a QT movie in a PDF
isn't necessarily going to do any better on a PC than the same QT movie in a
PPT. Would like to know more, myself.

How movies in PDFs behave is *highly* dependant on the version of Acrobat
involved. In some versions, nothing *but* MOV (QT) movies will work, PC or Mac;
QT/Win shipped with Acrobat and if you chose not to install it, you didn't get
movies. Earlier and later versions take a more liberal view. ;-)

IIRC, they can be linked or embedded (but that may STILL depend on the version).

It's a mess.




================================================
Steve Rindsberg, PPT MVP
PPT FAQ: www.pptfaq.com
PPTools: www.pptools.com
================================================

 

[Michael Levin]

The PDF files you get by saving directly to PDF are in effect electronic
paper.
They don't use trees but they're about as interactive as the tree-paper
versions.

I saw a guy present a PDF-format presentation complete with movies etc.,
and he said he did it on his Mac from an Indesign document. I'm thinking
that if the PDF format allows it, it should be possible to save such a thing
from a PowerPoint document?

Do you have Acrobat? The Windows versions install an add-in that enables PPT
to make somewhat more interactive PDFs. I'm not sure if Mac Acrobat supports
that as well.

yes - I've got the little extra menu that full Acrobat gave me in
PowerPoint, but when I use it, the exporting progress bar gets to about 80%
of the way to the end, and then just sits there indefinitely - it never
finishes...

Mike

 

[Michael Levin]

How movies in PDFs behave is *highly* dependant on the version of Acrobat
involved. In some versions, nothing *but* MOV (QT) movies will work, PC or
Mac;
QT/Win shipped with Acrobat and if you chose not to install it, you didn't
get
movies. Earlier and later versions take a more liberal view. ;-)

IIRC, they can be linked or embedded (but that may STILL depend on the
version).

It's a mess.

ugh; so it sounds like that won't solve my compatibility issue. Is there
any other preferred format? I just want my quicktime movies to play when I
take my presentation on the road. What is the most portable format?

Mike

 

[Steve Rindsberg]

I saw a guy present a PDF-format presentation complete with movies etc.,
and he said he did it on his Mac from an Indesign document. I'm thinking
that if the PDF format allows it, it should be possible to save such a thing
from a PowerPoint document?

InDesign's a different breed altogether. It's written from the ground up by
Adobe, with PDF-making capabilites built in from the start.

yes - I've got the little extra menu that full Acrobat gave me in
PowerPoint, but when I use it, the exporting progress bar gets to about 80%
of the way to the end, and then just sits there indefinitely - it never
finishes...

Loverly. :-(

What if you skip the extra menu?

I don't have Acrobat for Mac but IIRC, it installs a special Adobe PDF printer
driver. Try choosing that and printing slides directly to it. With the right
settings, that should make a leaner PDF than the built-in Mac PDF feature to
begin with. Then open the resulting PDF in Acrobat and use the link tool to
create links to your movies.

The trick there seems to be to put the movie and the PDF in the same folder
first; that way you'll get a relative link. Then, as long as the PDF and movie
file stay together in the same folder, it'll work.

Or at least that's the way it's worked in the past. With all the different
versions and platforms, there's the Alice In Wonderland aspect ... things CHANGE
so. ;-) But that should get you started.




================================================
Steve Rindsberg, PPT MVP
PPT FAQ: www.pptfaq.com
PPTools: www.pptools.com
================================================