University of Nebraska - Lincoln Communications and Information Technology

Inserting Macromedia Flash Animations (*.swf) into PowerPoint to play during a slide show

NOTE: This tip is for versions 97 and 2000.

1. Go to the slide (in Slide View) where you want to insert the Flash animation.

2. If the Control Toolbox is not already visible, go to the View menu, and select Toolbars > Control Toolbox.

3. Click on the More Controls button (looks like a hammer and wrench) in the Control Toolbox. Select "Shockwave Flash Object" from the drop-down list, and then draw the control object on your slide. The Shockwave Flash Object ActiveX control now appears on your slide (may look like a white box with an X in it).

4. To make the Shockwave Flash control play your Flash Animation file, start by right-clicking on the Shockwave Flash control object, and then select "Properties" from the shortcut menu.

5. In the Properties dialog box, select the "Movie" property. In its Value box, type the complete Uniform Resource Locator (URL) or local drive path to the *.swf file that you want to play back. It is best to have a copy of this file in the same folder as your PowerPoint file.

6. Next, set the "Playing" property to True. Close the Properties dialog box.

7. Save the PowerPoint file.

8. Run the show and the Flash animation should now run. NOTE: If you want to run the slide show again and the flash animation doesn't run, close the file and reopen it. If the Flash animation still doesn't play, open the Properties window again and look at the "Playing" property. If it says False, select Playing, then click on the down arrow and change the Playing property to True.

Items to be aware of when inserting Flash Animation:

  • Because the link to the *.swf file is within an ActiveX control, the "Pack and Go" feature cannot pack the Flash Animation file. If you plan to use the slide show with this animation on another computer, you need to move the animation file separately, and update the path to the file on the local computer within the properties of the control. Another option is to have the animation file available on a common network share or Web server.
  • PowerPoint cannot recognize any mouse clicks on top of a Flash object, so don't make the Flash object the full size of the slide -- you'll need some area available if you want to click to the next slide.
  • Files placed on a master will play continually from slide to slide to create an animated background (but that can get distracting).

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 Last updated March 24, 2004