PPT command line

[DJSennello]

I get a PPT (2003) file e-mailed to me daily that needs to be displayed as a
slide show on a public display. What I’d like to do is automate things. I
can start PPT and load the presentation and start it as a slide show remotely
from a command line. What I CAN’T seem to do is automate it so the slides
advance, say every 20 seconds. The whole goal is NOT to go to the remote
machine and fire things up manually. It all needs to be remote command line.
It looks like timings are stored in the PPT file itself. Any solution,
macro, VBS that can be tacked on the command line would help. I’m thinking
PPT just isn’t up to this task. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

 

[DJSennello]

Thank you for your kind help. I may have missed it somewhere, but I haven't
found an add-on that would do these things yet. My kludge right now is I
have a script to kill the remote PPT, open a local (to me) copy of the PPT
presentation, set timings, save to the remote share, the remotely start PPT
with /s <file.ppt> command line. It works, but a little too busy... Again,
thank you for your help!

 

[SteveP]

It sounds like you simply need to save the file (or rename it, since it's a
2003 version) to PPS, "PowerPoint Show". Before you do, in Slide Show | Set
Up Show, be sure it's set to use slide timings, and it's set to loop until
"esc". Of course also make sure that all the slides have a 20 second
duration by checking them in the slide sorter view.

Then save as a PPS and when you execute the file, it should just run.

PowerPoint is more than adequate for this task. It's all in the settings.

Steve Puffenberger
www.painfreepresentations.com

 

[DJSennello]

Thank you for your help Steve. My goal is to not have to “touch†the
presentation at all, other than save it to a remote share. I was hoping PPT
had a global default slide show setting separate from the PPT physical file,
or a CL parameter.

 

[SteveP]

Well, someone is going to have to "touch" it to make the revisions, so if
they can check the show settings and save it as a PPS instead of a PPT, you
won't have to touch it at all.

And actually if they're simply updating the previous slide deck, the show
settings shouldn't change. All they need to do is save as PPS. If they
can't figure that out, since this is an Office 03 formatted show, you can
simply change the extension to PPS instead of PPT when you upload.

It's just a matter of getting the "loop until esc" and "use slide timings"
settings right in the master.

(In case you missed this piece of it, launching a PPS file by
double-clicking its name in Explorer or using a command prompt starts the
show in the "run" mode, and if timings are present and the loop settings are
correct, it will start and run all day. No construction window or other
controls appear - it just runs full screen. To edit a PPS file you have to
launch an empty instance of PowerPoint and then open the PPS using the
File|Open command.)