Converting a PowerPoint

Presentation into a Macromedia

Flash Movie
by Eduardo Hernández
Overview

This brief tutorial illustrates necessary steps to convert a PowerPoint presentation into
a Macromedia Flash movie, and then we will discuss how to add a navigation bar to our
new Macromedia Flash movie allowing users to browse our slides.

Advantages

Migrating a PowerPoint Presentation to Flash will allow users to watch your

presentation using any computer, running Windows, Macintosh or Linux, only requiring
a web browser with the Flash Player Plugin installed. Netscape, Internet Explorer,
Mozilla, everybody is welcome here! Forget the days when you only needed Internet
Explorer to watch correctly a Powerpoint presentation.

Limitations

PowerPoint animations and actions are lost with this approach, but they can be rebuilt
once our presentation is imported to Flash. Please see frequently asked questions at
the end of the document.

Background of PowerPoint presentations is also lost, but it can be easily imported into
Flash. Please see frequently asked questions at the end of the document.

Steps

1. Save your presentation as a Windows Metafiles sequence.

2. Import this sequence into Macromedia Flash.

That’s all! Isn’t that great?!

Saving Your Presentation as a
Windows Metafiles Sequence

Having your presentation open in

PowerPoint, choose File - Save As…

From the Save As dialog box, choose

Windows Metafile (.wmf) as type,
and click on Save.

Tell PowerPoint to export all of the

slides by clicking on Every Slide
Button.

A dialog box will appear showing you

the path where our files were created.

Now, our Presentation folder will have

as many wmf files as slides our
presentation has.

Importing WMF files into

Flash

Start Macromedia Flash.

Save your Macromedia Flash Movie in

your presentation folder by choosing
File – Save As… and type
presentation.fla

NOTE: If you don’t see file extensions

in your Windows environment, just type
presentation for the filename.

A PowerPoint presentation is an
800x600 show, so we have set our
Flash movie dimensions to 800x600.

From Modify menu, choose Document

(Flash MX) or Movie (Flash 5).

Type 800 for width and 600 for height.

Click on OK.

Now let’s rename our layer from Layer 1

to Slides, because we will be using this
layer to store our PowerPoint slides.
Double-click on Layer 1 and type Slides.
From File menu, choose Import…

Now, browse to colors folder and select

the wmf file for the first slide, usually
called slide1.wmf

Click on Open

Flash will detect the images sequence,

and we must confirm to import all of the
images in the sequence by clicking on
the Yes button.

Done! Now our Flash movie has

imported every slide from our
PowerPoint presentation, and has
created a keyframe for every slide.

By clicking on every keyframe of our

movie you will see your original
Powerpoint slides.

Since a Macromedia Flash movie is a

sequence of frames, if your test this
movie with default settings all you will
get is a sequence of slides.

Try it! From Control menu, choose

Test Movie.

To leave Test Movie screen, from

Window menu, choose presentation.fla

If you want your slide transitioning

automatically but slower than what we
have now, you must modify the frame
rate, expressed in Frames Per Second or
fps.

For example, setting 1 fps will result in

1-second slide transition (1 frame per
second). Specifying 0.5 as fps, we
would get 2-seconds slide transition
(0.5 frames per second).

If you don’t want your slides being

automatically transitioned, we must put
a STOP for our first slide.
Putting STOP

Add a new layer with Insert menu and

choose Layer. Name it Actions.

Select the first frame from Actions

layers

Press F9. Actions panel appears. Here

you write code in ActionScript.

From the left pane, choose Actions –

Movie Control and you will see a set of
ActionScript instructions you can add to
control your movie.

To add the stop action to the first frame

of Actions layer, double click on stop.
This will transfer the stop action from
the left pane to the right pane.

Take a look at the first frame of Actions

layers. There’s a little ”a”. That means
we have added an action for that frame.

Now, try your movie once again!. As

soon as your Flash movie gets frame 1
it stops, because of the action we’ve
just added.

To leave Test Movie screen, from

Window menu, choose presentation.fla

Creating our Navigation Bar

To finish your presentation you need a

navigation bar. For this tutorial we will
create a very simple navigation bar
consisting of only 2 buttons: next and
previous.

We will add a new layer for our

navigation bar.
Select Slides layers to insert a new
layer between Slides and Actions
layers.

Insert a new layer by selecting Layer

from Insert menu.

Rename your new layer as NavBar.

Now, you need buttons. You can create

and design your own buttons, but for
this tutorial you will be using buttons
provided with the Macromedia Flash
Common Libraries.

Let’s add buttons to your movie’s

Library from the Common Libraries!

Press F11 (or Window menu -

Library) to open the movies’ Library.
Probably some elements (such as
images) are already stored here.

From Window menu, choose Common

Libraries, and then Buttons. This will
open a library with buttons.

You should have two libraries open:

your movies’ library and buttons library.

From Buttons Common Library, expand

Playback category by double clicking
the orange icon next to the Playback
title.
Add a “Next” button to your movie’s
library. This button will take users to the
next slide in your presentation.

Scroll down your common library until

you find a button called Gel Right. Your
can preview buttons by selecting them
in the Common Library.

Drag the Gel Right button from the

Common Library and drop it over your
movie’s library. This will add the button
to your Flash movie.

Do the same with the Gel Left button.

Displaying buttons

You just have added buttons to your

movie’s library, but they are not part of
your movie scene.

Select frame 1 from NavBar layer, then

from your movie’s library (not from
common library) drag a copy of the Gel
Left button to your movie scene.

If you feel, you need to resize your

button, select the button and use the
Free Transform Tool from Macromedia
Flash toolbar.

Add a copy of the Gel Right.

Align buttons by choosing Align from

Window menu.

Adding Actions to Buttons

Select Gel Left button in your Flash

movie.

Press F9 to open Actions panel.

Browse left pane to search for Action –

Movie Control – Goto.

Add the goto instruction by double

clicking on it. This should add the
following ActionScript lines:

on (release) {
gotoAndPlay(1);
}

Select the on (release) { line and

change it from release to press by
checking press and unchecking release
from Event’s check boxes above.

Select the gotoAndPlay(1); line and

change Type to Previous Frame.
Code should look like this:

on (press) {
prevFrame();
}

Close Actions panel by pressing F9.

Explanation: with this instruction, our

Gel Left button will always take you to
the previous slide.

Select the Gel Right button, which

plays the role of “Next”.

If Actions panel is not open, Press F9.

Browse left pane to search for Action –

Movie Control – Goto.

Add the goto instruction by double

clicking on it. This should add the
following ActionScripts lines:

on (release) {
gotoAndPlay(1);
}

Select on (release) { line and change

from release to press by checking
press and unchecking release from
Event’s check boxes above. Code
should look like this:

on (press) {
gotoAndPlay(1);
}

Select gotoAndPlay(1); and from the

Type combo box, choose Next Frame.

Now, your code should look like this:

on (release) {
nextFrame();
}

Try your movie, by choosing Test

Movie from Control menu
But my PowerPoint presentation has a background and I want it in Flash!

1) Always add an empty slide at the end of your Powerpoint presentation. This
way, you will have a slide having only your background.
2) While in Presentation mode (Full Screen) press PrtSc key to “print your screen”
when your empty slide is being displayed. This will copy your background to
Windows clipboard.
3) Add a layer called BACKGROUND in Flash and make it your lower-most layer by
dragging it below of all your layers.
4) Paste the image by choosing Paste from Edit menu.
5) Prevent modifications to this layer by locking it (use the lock!).

My PowerPoint presentation includes objects with associated actions (e.g. a

button to visit an URL )

1) Select the object in your Flash Movie and convert it into a Button symbol.
2) Add the necessary ActionScript lines to do it. For example, add the GetURL();
function to launch a browser window.

My PowerPoint presentation includes animations.

1) Convert object to symbols.

2) Animate objects using Flash capabilities.

I want to add my voice to the slides, how can I do it?

1) Actually it is very easy, but you must master some basics Flash concepts, going
beyond the scope of this tutorial. It takes several steps and will require a new
tutorial. Contact me at eduherna@entelchile.net if you need more information!

Steps needed are:

• Put every PowerPoint Slide in a different scene (not different frames, but
scenes).
• Add voice for a particular slide as sound stream for that scene.
• When a user moves to a new slide, make sure you execute StopAllSound
before reproducing the voice for the new slide.
• Adjust your navigation bar to “jump” to previous and next scene and not
to previous and next frame.
• Remember Flash will start downloading the voice as soon as the user
displays the slide, creating an streaming media sensation!.