'Insert Movie' option gone...

[Jian Amini]

I searched Word help on how to insert a movie into a webpage and it says
to 'save as webpage' so I did that. Then it says to go to Insert, then
Movie, then it says movie options will pop up. Whenever the document is
saved in Webpage format, the Insert - Movie option disappears. Can someone
tell me what's going on?

 

[Jian Amini]

I searched Word help on how to insert a movie into a webpage and it says
to 'save as webpage' so I did that. Then it says to go to Insert, then
Movie, then it says movie options will pop up. Whenever the document is
saved in Webpage format, the Insert - Movie option disappears. Can someone
tell me what's going on?

I just realized that many people have had this similar issue and the answer
seems to be that the Word Help file is incorrect and you are supposed to
insert a movie to a Word document, THEN save as webpage. This makes sense,
but doing this causes problems with the way the html file is saved and this
goes into other issues people have asked about as well (with the poster
frame showing in the browser instead of the actual movie). Anyway, the steps
in that specific Word X help file are exactly:


Add a movie to a Web page
1. Save your document as a Web page.
2. On the Insert menu, click Movie.
3. Under Movie, click Select and locate the movie you want to insert.
4. Under Alternate image, click Select and locate the graphics file that you
want to designate as a substitute when the user's browser doesn't support
movies or when the user turns off the display of movies.
5. In the Alternate text box, type the text that you want to appear in place
of the movie or alternative image when the user's browser doesn't support
movies, when the server where the movie or image is located is temporarily
unavailable, or when the user turns off the display of images and movies.
6. In the Start list, click an option to specify how the movie will play on
a Web page. Open causes the movie to play when the user downloads the Web
page; Mouse-over causes the movie to play when the pointer moves over the
movie; Both causes the movie to play in both scenarios.
7. In the Loop list, click the number of times you want the movie to repeat.
8. If you want to display movie controls, such as "Start" and "Stop," while
you're authoring Web pages, select the Display movie controls check box.

As you can see, there are supposed to be further options specifically
for a movie inserted in a webpage. In Microsoft Word 2001, something very
similar could be done with no problem, that is, after it was saved as a
webpage. It seems the only thing stopping Word X is that the "Insert -
Movie" disappears after the file is saved in webpage format. I think that
maybe it's a bug in Word X.
Anyway, I'm probably making this seem more complex than it is, but, I'm
wondering if the problem is possibly in the program itself. I hope this
wasn't too confusing. Any ideas would be appreciated. Thanks.

 

[John McGhie [MVP - Word]]

Hi Jamini:

OK, this gets complicated. Basically, what you have observed is a bug
This is my recollection of what's happening:

Word will embed a QuickTime movie into a Document, but not a web page. If
it encodes a document as a web page and the document contains a movie, Word
will express the web page in XML, preserving a link to the movie file.

The movie file must be on the web server when you insert it into the
document, because the URL Word adds is an explicit path.

If you then open the web page in a browser on a Mac, the movie should play
provided the movie file is visible from the browser that opened it. Except
on Windows. The movie will not play on Windows machines even if they do
have Quick Time installed, because the XML that Word writes calls QuickTime
on the Mac, not Windows.

Sorry about that. You would be better off to move the file from Word to
your web server, then edit it there to include the movie.

Cheers

I just realized that many people have had this similar issue and the answer
seems to be that the Word Help file is incorrect and you are supposed to
insert a movie to a Word document, THEN save as webpage. This makes sense,
but doing this causes problems with the way the html file is saved and this
goes into other issues people have asked about as well (with the poster
frame showing in the browser instead of the actual movie). Anyway, the steps
in that specific Word X help file are exactly:


Add a movie to a Web page
1. Save your document as a Web page.
2. On the Insert menu, click Movie.
3. Under Movie, click Select and locate the movie you want to insert.
4. Under Alternate image, click Select and locate the graphics file that you
want to designate as a substitute when the user's browser doesn't support
movies or when the user turns off the display of movies.
5. In the Alternate text box, type the text that you want to appear in place
of the movie or alternative image when the user's browser doesn't support
movies, when the server where the movie or image is located is temporarily
unavailable, or when the user turns off the display of images and movies.
6. In the Start list, click an option to specify how the movie will play on
a Web page. Open causes the movie to play when the user downloads the Web
page; Mouse-over causes the movie to play when the pointer moves over the
movie; Both causes the movie to play in both scenarios.
7. In the Loop list, click the number of times you want the movie to repeat.
8. If you want to display movie controls, such as "Start" and "Stop," while
you're authoring Web pages, select the Display movie controls check box.

As you can see, there are supposed to be further options specifically
for a movie inserted in a webpage. In Microsoft Word 2001, something very
similar could be done with no problem, that is, after it was saved as a
webpage. It seems the only thing stopping Word X is that the "Insert -
Movie" disappears after the file is saved in webpage format. I think that
maybe it's a bug in Word X.
Anyway, I'm probably making this seem more complex than it is, but, I'm
wondering if the problem is possibly in the program itself. I hope this
wasn't too confusing. Any ideas would be appreciated. Thanks.

--

Please respond only to the newsgroup to preserve the thread.

John McGhie, Consultant Technical Writer,
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
Sydney, Australia. GMT + 10 Hrs
+61 4 1209 1410, mailto:[email protected]