How to properly collaborate on creating PPT files?

[Bill Estep]

Aloha,

I have what appears to be a rather unusual situation when it comes to
PowerPoint slideshows being authored in our organization. We have
individuals or teams in different departments who are responsible for
developing their own Slideshows (For the sake of discussion, I'll call them
TEAM Slideshows). TEAM Slideshows are assembled and saved to a file named
according to the department (ex: Team_A.ppt, Team_B.ppt, etc.). There is
also a Slideshow for the head department (I'll call it the MAIN Slideshow).
The MAIN Slideshow introduces with information for all meeting attendees,
then has a section for each team to go over their own TEAM slides.

From within the MAIN, we have links that jump to each team's Slideshow.
When a TEAM slideshow is finished, it returns to the MAIN and we can continue
on. Linking to the file seems to be the proper way to go, but it introduces
another problem: Saving the complete and final PowerPoint presentation to
our Intranet web-page. In order for links to continue working, every PPT
file must be packed into the download. This means that single-click viewing
off the webpage is not available, and the reader has to download then
unzip/unpack several files in order to review the presentation.

We've also tried inserting/pasting TEAM slides into the MAIN, but this
requires links within the MAIN to be updated every time, and any links within
the imported TEAM slides are then broken.

We'd like to know how to quickly SAVE or EXPORT the entire Slideshow (and
its linked files/slides) to a SINGLE presentation without any links from the
MAIN or TEAM slides breaking or being lost in the process. Is there a way to
easily accomplish this task? Or is there a better way to assemble the final
PPT to include all the slides and links in the first place?

Mahalo (thank you) in advance for any assistance.

 

[Rick Altman]

Hmm, a really good question from our Hawaiian slidemaker...

Linking is a terrific way to maintain autonomy and be able to work on
component parts of a group-oriented presentation. But indeed, it presents
challenges when you are looking to transport the entire load. A few things
come to mind as a way of orienting the conversation, and I see from your
post that you already know some of this:

MAKE LINKS LOCAL: If you are careful to place MAIN and TEAM in the same
folder, they
will always find each other, even if they end up in a different common
folder.

TRANSPORT TOGETHER: If you place the files into a zip file, they will be
unzipped into
a temporary common folder.

EXECUTE: There are a number of simple and free programs that can turn .zip
files into
self-extracting, self-executing programs. That means all you would have to
do is launch
an .exe file to have all of the .ppt files extracted to a single folder and
MAIN automatically
launched.

The issue here is one of security: some organizations will not allow .exe
files to be downloaded and run from the Internet. If you are forced to
forego Step 3 above, you will need to provide a simple set of instructions
on what to do with the .zip file once downloaded (i.e., place all files into
a common folder). Or you can actually place the .exe file you create into
its own .zip file (this is a .zip of an .exe of a .zip!). Download and unzip
into a single .exe, which can then be launched with a simple double-click.

---------------------

The alternative to all of this is to import slides from TEAM into MAIN.
Import is very different than inserting; importing literally copies slides
from one file to another -- no linking. This is fraught with a whole new set
of issues around version control, format control, and ownership. But if you
want to transport, it is always easier to transport one file rather than
many.


Bill, I think this whole topic needs to be turned into a seminar at
PowerPoint Live...





--
Rick Altman

Author
Why Most PowerPoint Presentations Suck...and how you can make them better
www.betterppt.com

Host
The PowerPoint Live User Conference
Oct 28-31 | The French Quarter of New Orleans
www.powerpointlive.com

 

[Bill Estep]

Rick,

Thank you for taking the time to respond. I did consider the creation of an
executable, such as a Zip file, but it is not quite as simple (as I would
like) to utilize from the Intranet web-site. It is also additional training
for the person who's actually putting together the presentations. Not that
it's very difficult, actually, but the fewer things to go wrong, the better.
I'm not sure of this, but is there additional licensing required for creating
Zip executables?

Aside from that, my only other thought was perhaps there was a way to
"group" together slides within PowerPoint, and somehow link to the group.
Apparently there is not (the closest seems to be the Custom Show, which is
not capable of dynamically updating when additional slides are inserted or
rearranged).

I suppose this thread may turn into more of a suggestion for Microsoft: In
a future release of PowerPoint, please allow the "grouping" or "sectioning"
of slides within a single PowerPoint presentation, and a way to link to these
groups or sections. This way, we can delete and insert slides within the
group/section, and will not have to go back and correct links from outside
the group. Something like "slide folders" or "slide chapters"? Slideshows
within slideshows. It's not too ridiculous of an idea, is it? Else, allow
the export or saving of a PPT or PPS file that gathers all required resources
into a single file. This way, my Intranet users can just click and open the
presentation with little effort and instruction, but my teams can author
their slideshows without having to worry if, during the presentation, it
behaves as desired.

 

[Amra]

I have rather different suggestion to you - convert your PowerPoint
presentation into Flash format. I think this can help. There were lots of
converters that I’ve tried and finally I chose FlashSpring. So I recommend
you to point it out. If you are interested, more info here:
http://www.flashspring.com

 

[Rick Altman]

Bill, a custom show almost does this for you, in that you can define
numerous custom shows within a presentation and then create a menu slide to
provide a jump-off to each custom show and an automatic return to the menu
when done. But it's still all one file, without support for remote editing.

Have you tried saving your presentations to the MHT web-page format? I am
always surprised how much of the fidelity is maintained. If you went that
route, your links would be URL hyperlinks to other MHT files -- the only
thing would become a webcentric activity.

There is no additional licensing restrictions for using .zip files, and the
programs that create self-extracting and self-executing files are free and
easy to learn.

Food for thought...




Rick A.