PORTABILITY OF PRESENTATIONS

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[aka: Inserting video clips onto PowerPoint presentations]
(This section is excerpted from Austin Myers’s article regarding Microsoft PowerPoint and Multimedia.  Mr. Myers is a Microsoft PowerPoint expert.  For his complete article, visit http://www.rdpslides.com/pptfaq/FAQ00099.htm).

[Here at RIC, User Support Services suggests to save the file as an mpeg1 format so it can be easily inserted into your PowerPoint presentation. Please note:  you must have both the video clips that you have included in your PowerPoint presentation as well as your PowerPoint presentation in the same CD or storage media that you will be using to open your file. When you show your PowerPoint presentation, the path where you have stored your video clip (for example, in a CD so the path could be from the D drive which is usually the CD drive in your computer, and could read as D:\Course\Intro to Universe) should be familiar and easily accessible, as the file that you inserted in your PowerPoint presentation is only a link to the video clip that’s in your CD or storage media.]

I’ve included this section as many users ask why their presentation works on one machine and not another.  As you can see from all the above information it isn’t so much a PowerPoint problem as it is an environment (Windows Setup) problem. We simply have no way of knowing in advance how the receiving user has his/her machine setup.

What can be done to maximize success in transporting presentations?

Don’t create a presentation with critical timing on a fast machine and expect it to work the same way on lesser machines.  If you have a video playing, don’t add to the computers workload by having other animations happening at the same time.  It’s also a good practice to place a couple of seconds between slide transitions and the start of a video.

Use Multimedia file formats that are likely to be found on most machines.  For video this is the AVI format using the Cinepak codec or the (preferred) MPEG format. For audio use the Microsoft wav format.  I can hear the grumbling already about quality and file size.  Folks, if you want to distribute the presentation to others you have to use the lowest common denominator.  Remember, a big file that plays properly is a lot better than a small file that doesn’t play at all.

Be certain that you include any multimedia files along with the presentation.  Because Microsoft uses the word “Insert” we tend to think the file has been inserted into the presentation.  Unfortunately this isn’t true, the Multimedia file has been “linked” to the presentation and it is called when needed.  PowerPoint expects to find the file in the same place it was originally linked from.