Flash Movies with a Trasparent Background that work in PowerPoint?

When I put a SWF into Powerpoint as an Active X control, I can get the movie to play, but there is no transparent background.

Does anyone have any experience/knowledge on how to get a transparent SWF created in Xara 3D to display properly?

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Acitive X instructions:

FTHIS TEXT FROM: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/po...CL100626991033
FIf you have an animated graphic that was created with Macromedia Flash® and saved as a Shockwave® file (.swf file extension), you should be able to play it in a PowerPoint presentation using a specific ActiveX control and the Macromedia Flash Player. To run the Flash file, you add an ActiveX control to the PowerPoint slide and create a link from it to the Flash file. You also have the option of embedding the file in the presentation.
FImportant
FThe ActiveX control, called Shockwave Flash Object, must be "registered" on your computer for you to play the Flash file within PowerPoint. If it is registered, it will appear in the list of controls opened from the Control Toolbox (detailed in the steps below). If it is not registered, download the latest version of the Macromedia Flash Player from the Macromedia Web site; this will register the control on your computer.
FOlder versions of the Shockwave Flash Object may be registered on your computer. To guarantee that complex animations run properly, we recommend that you install the latest version of the Macromedia Flash Player.
FTo play a Flash file in your presentation, follow these steps:
FInstall the Macromedia Flash Player on your computer.
FIn normal view in PowerPoint, display the slide on which you want to play the animation.
FOn the View menu, point to Toolbars, and then click Control Toolbox.
FIn the ControlToolbox, click More Controls (the button with the hammer and wrench icon).
FIn the list, scroll down and click Shockwave Flash Object, then drag on the slide to draw the control. You can resize the control at any point by dragging the sizing handles if you need to adjust it to the size of the animation.
FRight-click the Shockwave Flash Object, and then click Properties.
FOn the Alphabetic tab, click the Movie property.
FIn the value column (the blank cell next to Movie), type the full drive path including the file name (for example, C\:My Documents\MyFile.swf) or Uniform Resource Locator (URL) to the Flash file that you want to play.
FTo set specific options for how the animation plays, do the following, and when you're done, close the Properties dialog box:
«Make sure the Playing property is set to True. This plays the file automatically when the slide is displayed. If the Flash file has a Start/Rewind control built into it, the Playing setting can be set to False.
«If you don't want the animation to play repeatedly, in the Loop property, select False (click the cell to get a down arrow, click the arrow, and select False).
«To embed the Flash file so you can pass this presentation on to others, in the EmbedMovie property, click True. (In order for the Flash file to run, however, the Shockwave Flash Object control must be registered on any computer that runs this presentation.)
FTo run the animation: With the slide displayed in normal view, click the Slide Show button in the lower left of the PowerPoint window (or press F5, or, on the Slide Show menu, click View Show).
FTo exit the slide show and return to normal view, press ESC.

I've been using a lot of Flash in my PowerPoint stuff lately. I find that if you select your background, then use flat 100% transparency, then convert to Flash. This works pretty well, especially if the background is roughly similar to the one on which it will be going. (Transparent black on a white background sometimes looks like a wall that needs to be cleaned.)

Of course this only works when you make your own Flash...LOL

I have also tried using the same background for my animation that I am using for the PowerPoint slide, making it appear virtually seamless.

My third option is to simply put a decorative frame around the animation. Sometimes, you need a particular background for the animtion to work with the theme, but you might not want this to cover the whole screen!
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Will

Will, 100% transparent background; that is one I have'nt thought of. I will give'r a try. Thanks.

By the way in the PowerPoint Shockwave Control properties, there is a "background" field. I tried change the default digit have been able to alter the background display of the flash movie BUT I didn't find a value for transparency. Have you messed with this at all?

"Messed with it" is about right. I've found it to be easier to do it the other way around. The function in PowerPoint is OK for animations made by others, since you can't control the source.

Since I use almost exclusively my own animations, it is easier to do up front.
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Will

Sorry guys for not viewing this thread until now. To have swf objects play with a transparent background setup in PP you do in the same manner as with html coding. It's the attribute WMode that controls background transparency.

In PP toolbox Shockwave Flash Object set WMode to Transparent. Leave the attribute Background empty.

Hope it helps!

Cheers, Anders

THANK YOU, ANDERS.

I will give this a try.

Sincerely, John

I thought I was very late on this one and that you had got to it by now. Well, better late than never, as they say.

Perhaps I ought to add a little bit more about the attributes and the control parameter values for you.

Possible values for flash player ActiveX control parameters: Play (True, False); Loop (True, False); Quality (Best, High, AutoHigh, AutoLow, Low); BgColor (nnnnnn - the RGB color in hexadecimal form); Scale (ShowAll, NoBorder, ExactFit); Salign (l, t, r, b, tl, tr, bl, br); Base ( . or base directory or URL); Menu (True, False); WMode (Window, Opaque /=no WMode=default/, Transparent);

The "Opaque" mode is set by default (=no WMode). In this mode, DHTML flyouts (like menu bars, ad banners, whatever) can be placed on top of the Flash element.

The regular WMode "Window" does not support this and would place the Flash clip on top of the DHTML elements unasked. This mode might playback your Flash clip slightly faster.

The "Transparent" mode requires Flash Player 6 or later (minimum "6,0,0,0" as version string by default). This will result in a slower playback, but it looks great as you can place your Flash elements virtually over every (D)HTML background. -- Since summer 2006, this is working for virtually any reasonably modern browser in Windows and MacOS (MSIE 5.5+, Mozilla 1+, of course all Firefox's, Opera 8+, as well as Safari). However I have not yet been able to get transparent mode work in any Linux browser (Mozilla, Firefox, Konqueror or Opera). I am not certain of which versions of PowerPoint that fully support the Transparent WMode.

Ciao, Anders

I fail to get wmode transparency to process in PowerPoint. I think that a Flash movie's transparency is done in the HTML that embeds it in the page rather than the SWF itself, so you may struggle to take it into PowerPoint.

I'd like to check it out how (and if!!!) the Flash Ready Power Plugs have made it. There's a hefty price tag on those Power Plugs but I'll try to, one way or the other, sneek in under their hoods to find out. This Flash transparency wmode option in PowerPoint (available in parameter properties, but not working) is intriguing me now! Read about those PowerPlugs at PowerPlugs for PowerPoint.

Anders

Hiya guys! I have put up the question to Microsoft MVPs about the non functional transparency mode for SWG objects in PowerPoint. I have a couple of minutes ago received a response from MVP Shyam Pillai, saying, "The transparency mode is not supported in PowerPoint."

On my question if it wouldn't be appropriate that PowerPoint developers removed the WMode "Transparent" parameter option in SchockwaveFlash properties > Custom > Property Pages > Window Mode for the reason that the presence of this option creates nothing but confusion for PowerPoint document producers, the answer is that the transparency mode option is to be removed in PowerPoint upgrades. (My personal view: why not instead supporting it in upgrades?). In HTML the SWG object transparency mode works intentionally.

Please pardon me, guys, for earlier have been giving awry advice on the subject.

Cheers, Anders

Anders,

Thanks for all the background investigation. I should have thought Shyam.

I met him a few years back at a PowerPoint Live conference. He is one smart individual. I use his Animation Carbon plugin for PowerPoint.

Regards, John

Nothing at all, John! I feel it to be an obligation to dig into the subject when my suggestion was failing to comply, mislead by the transparency window mode parameter option present and readily available for SWF objects in PowerPoint. Imagine all flashers' (oops!) confusion in their PowerPoint deployments, well aware that *.png alpha channel and *.gif transparenices being flawlessly supported. I am not prepared to give it up, quite yet. I intend to try with scripted HTML off-line solutions, alternatively with iframe coding.

I have not had the priviledge to, so far, personally meet with Shyam Pillai, the MS MVP with renowned expertise in PowerPoint, Excel, Word, and more, applications. You are familiar with his plug-ins, actually called add-ins in the PowerPoint environment, but perhaps other PowerPoint fans would like to make themselves acquainted with them at PowerPoint add-ins. His Flashback Rewind add-in is a must-have!

Thank you for bringing up the subject, John. Have a good day!

Cheers, Anders

Transparent SWF objects in PowerPoint!

Hi John, and you other Flash cats! I have experimented a bit with having transparent SWF objects in PowerPoint. I have put a little something together for simple demo purpose.

This PowerPoint Show demo, attached, is rendering a HTML embedded SWF object with transparent background. The SWF object contains exclusively vector text shapes without background and is rendered on top of a bitmapped image.

The HTML can be placed locally for off-line presentations or server-side located for on-line presentations. In the demo the HTML is ftp'd to the server to avoid attaching all containing files in this thread. You can open the source to see the coding (it's IE6 optimized) by right-clicking the HTML file (outside the SWF object) and select "View Source".

I will intend to streamline the coding/scripting for exclusive PowerPoint usage. The result is anyhow that, for sure, transparent SWF objetcs can play in PowerPoint Show off-line and on-line! With a HTML workaround.

Have fun! Cheers, Anders
(Uh-oh! The .pps file will not attach in this thread!)
I will try to url it here:
SWFTransparencyHTMLRemote.pps
It's available. Right-click and select "Save Target As..." to your HD and play the .pps in your PowerPoint Viewer.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Anders 205

Transparent SWF objects in PowerPoint!

Hi John, and you other Flash cats! I have experimented a bit with having transparent SWF objects in PowerPoint. I have put a little something together for simple demo purpose.

This PowerPoint Show demo, attached, is rendering a HTML embedded SWF object with transparent background. The SWF object contains exclusively vector text shapes without background and is rendered on top of a bitmapped image.

The HTML can be placed locally for off-line presentations or server-side located for on-line presentations. In the demo the HTML is ftp'd to the server to avoid attaching all containing files in this thread. You can open the source to see the coding (it's IE6 optimized) by right-clicking the HTML file (outside the SWF object) and select "View Source".

I will intend to streamline the coding/scripting for exclusive PowerPoint usage. The result is anyhow that, for sure, transparent SWF objetcs can play in PowerPoint Show off-line and on-line! With a HTML workaround.

Have fun! Cheers, Anders
(Uh-oh! The .pps file will not attach in this thread!)
I will try to url it here:
SWFTransparencyHTMLRemote.pps
It's available. Right-click and select "Save Target As..." to your HD and play the .pps in your PowerPoint Viewer.

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Unfortunately, the pps file shows nothing of value on the second page (just a white background with orange horizontal stripes across the top and bottom). Please could you be more specific (e.g. provide a step-by-step recipe) for allowing the html transparent swf workaround?

Please excuse me, Xhris, for not being able to respond to your queries earlier. To proceed I need to ask you a couple of questions about your resources available.

1. Which is your standard browser? (The demo html setup is optimized for IE6+.)
2. Is "Allow ActiveX content to run on this computer" enabled in your Advanced IE settings?
3. Is "Run ActiveX controls and plugin programs" enabled in your IE Security settings?
4. Is "Run scripts on ActiveX controls" enabled in your IE Security settings?
5. Is "Allow windows to display by script without restrictions" in your IE Security settings?

Anders

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Anders 205

Please excuse me, Xhris, for not being able to respond to your queries earlier. To proceed I need to ask you a couple of questions about your resources available.

1. Which is your standard browser? (The demo html setup is optimized for IE6+.)
2. Is "Allow ActiveX content to run on this computer" enabled in your Advanced IE settings?
3. Is "Run ActiveX controls and plugin programs" enabled in your IE Security settings?
4. Is "Run scripts on ActiveX controls" enabled in your IE Security settings?
5. Is "Allow windows to display by script without restrictions" in your IE Security settings?

Anders

---

1. I use Firefox mainly, but occasionally IE7
2-5. Yes as far as I can tell.

thanks

Good morning, Xhris! In this sample the html is Win IE6+ coded and will display in PowerPoint viewer correctly, provided that your PP is accepting html page display, which it normally does, and all IE browser settings are Ok for the purpose. So happens at my end and I have checked it with another user. In Firefox the html will display, but not correctly positioned due to conventional MS CSS element positioning used in this very sample.

May I suggest that you go through your IE settings one more time? When the html page will display correctly in PP the IE browser is well set.
Have a pleasant day.

Anders.

Hi Anders,

Unfortunately, I still can't get it to work. I've attached an image of the half million options available to me in IE. Please could you help me identify which option(s) are not set correctly?

What is more important for me however, is to know a recipe for displaying a html file in PowerPoint. Is this something you could provide? (I'm not sure how ActiveX works, or whether it is even necessary; is this something you could also comment on?)

My ultimate objective is to be able to display a multi-level flash animation created in Xara (see my flash tutorial) in Powerpoint. Displaying such a file in a browser requires the relevant (level 0) html file to be opened in the browser. If in the process of learning h ow to do this I can also learn how to retain flash transparency, then I'll be double happy.

thanks

Xhris

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Xhris

...My ultimate objective is to be able to display a multi-level flash animation created in Xara (see my flash tutorial) in Powerpoint...

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Oh, this is actually easy enough; just put the level 0 flash file in PP as a SW object.

Hello Xhris! I have been long gone during a period abroad and I ask you to kindly excuse me for not attending this forum and your post until now.

You are asking about how to display/insert a html page i PowerPoint. It is quite an easy method and efficient after having the Shyam Pillai's LiveWeb add-in installed to PowerPoint. Will be added to the dropdown menu to just click insert "Web Page". Also recommended is the add-in FlashBack to automatically rewind Flash movies in PowerPoint. Please find the download page here:

Scroll down on the web page http://skp.mvps.org/download.htm to find

-- LiveWeb - add-in to insert web pages and update real-time i PowerPoint.
-- FlashBack - add-in to rewind Flash movies i PowerPoint automatically.

I have gone through your settings and some of your current settings are standing out being erroneous for your purposes and need to be adjusted.

Internet Options

Accessibility
check Reset text size to medium för new windows and tabs
uncheck Reset text to medium while zooming

Browsing
check Close unused folders in History and Favorites
check Disable script debugging (Other)
check Display a notification about every script error
check Notify when downloads complete
uncheck Reuse windows for launching shortcuts
uncheck Use passive FTP (for firewall and DSL modem compatibitlity

HTTP 1.1 settings
Are you really using proxy connections? If not, uncheck. If yes, keep checked

Security
check Allow active content from CDs to run on my computer
check Do not save encrypted pages to disk
check Empty Temporary Internet Files folder when browser is closed (Important! Always clean your TIF folder before closing your computer. Use the SuperCleaner app regularly. Highly recommended!)

Security Settings - Internet Zone

ActiveX controls and plug-ins
Disable Allow previously unused ActiveX controls
Disable Automatic prompting for ActiveX controls
Enable Display video and animation on a web page that... (here you have a major error in your current settings!)
Disable Initialize and script ActiveX controls not marked as safe for scripting

Miscellaneous
Enable Allow websites to open windows without address or status bar
Enable programs and files in an IFRAME

Scripting
Enable Allow status bar updates via script


And, finally and needless to say. You do have have latest updates to your OP and IE7 install, don't you? How about the latest version of Flash Player?

Good luck, Xhris! Please tell if your adjusted settings will display the html in PowerPoint as intended. I don't think you need further guidance with the coding and additonal remote scripting to the html in order to include the .swf with transparent bg because you do possess all the knowledge required to do so. If, however, by any chance, you need further assistance I will gladly be at your disposal to help you out to the best of my ability.

Cheers, Anders

Hi Anders,

Thanks for the detailed response. After resetting the settings, your pps file wasn't working still. I installed the two recommended addins, and I realised that in PowerPoint, the tools-macro-security setting was set to high not medium and this was preventing the addins from working. After changing this, your pps worked.

The webpage addin allows quick insertion of any webpage (eg www.xara.com) into a PowerPoint presentation, which is very impressive. Am I right in thinking that you got the transparent flash working by loading it up via the webpage and not actually putting a flash object directly into PowerPoint? If so, I'm still not sure how you got the flash to be transparent. If you make a transparent flash file and load it via the webpage feature in powerpoint, is the transparency transferred through, unlike if you insert a shockwave flash object? If so, then would this mean I need to have the html file like those I talk about for layered flash files in my flash tutorial document (in my signature) locally on my computer to load in via the PowerPoint web addin? (These are rhetorical questions to be honest, as I'm short of time). I'll edit this post later if i get it to work with a clear and simple recipe of how to add transparent flash files to PowerPoint).

Ok, I'm still missing something. In PowerPoint, I insert a webpage using the webpage insertion utility, and set the URL to the location of an html file on my computer which is made using the html code that Xara gives for the flash animation previews. The result is that the flash animation plays in the html object in PowerPoint. However, I'm still missing something; I can’t get the background of the html object to be transparent.

I think what would be helpful would be if you could post all the files you used to create your .pps file, so that I can construct it myself using the components. This will help me identify what is different in my approach.


edit:
I think after some further playing around that my expectations may be a bit high. I was expecting a solution where an object showing a swf (whether it be a SW flash object, or a html object loading a swf) would have a completely transparent background so that any other objects on the PowerPoint slide underneath would be visible. In other words, like having a transparent photo overlaid on top of another object, allowing the bottom object to be seen. Is this possible?

Dear Xhris! I was glad this morning reading your two latest posts telling that you finally made a home run displaying my html in your PowerPoint Viewer after tweaking your PP Editor.

Your queries and requests.
Q1: How to get the background transparent in the html?
Q2: How to render a transparent .swf in html on top of other objects in PowerPoint?
Q3: Can I have the files generating the html inserted in the .pps?

A1: First condition--The transparency mode is not supported in PowerPoint. Second condition--Inserting html with transparent mode .swf in PowerPoint is a work around and bypassing/overriding the PowerPoint transparency restriction. Transparency mode is coded in html object/embed parameters with "wmode=transparent". See source code in the html file. You have access to the html source directly from my .pps with the second page rendered. You rightclick on the yellow background not more and not less than 1 cm above the image and the SwfObject and select "show source" (do not rightclick on the image or on the SwfObject for the desired purpose!). Read in the source how the wmode parameters are written in two places (object and embed parameters).

A2: A html with .swf in transparent wmode is rendered on top of other objects in .pps. A html page can be body coded with transparent background (as for iFrames) but PowerPoint will not accept it. You simply insert the other objects in the html page instead of on the PowerPoint slide page background. Set the size of the html with css as a container with the SwfObject placed topmost to required size, also with css, in the html container. That is how my .pps sample with html page insertion is made. The html has a .jpg object and the text .swf rendered on top of it. You can, however, produce a html page with a SwfObject set to "exactFit" width and height, positioned with coordinates x=0px, y=0px, and reduce your html invisible page border to match the SwfObject exact size and move it to preferred placement on the PowerPont slide page. Doing that you will display a transparent mode .swf on top of other objects on the slide page.

A3: I will gladly hand over the requested files to you. There are two set of files. #1 The preload html files (which you do not need actually when loading a small amount of relatively low-weight files. It is the preload page you see initially when navigating to the second slide page in my .pps file. #2 When content is adequately loaded the preload page will redirect to the main html page, including the SwfObject, by script calling.

Rightclick on links below and select "Save Target As..." to download to you computer.

Preload html and content
PreNewShow10.htm
blue.gif
red.gif

Main html and content
NewShow10.htm
newshow10.css
groucho2.jpg
iefix.js
TxtNewShow10.swf

Comments to the files above:
--The head "NewShow" in the .swf file is vector produced in XtremePro, saved to .wmf format and imported to Swish. The rest of the text and red underlining is produced and animated in Swish together with the imported .wmf file, and finally saved as .swf to a predetermined width and height.

--The remotely placed iefix.js is required to render a SwfObject eliminating the "dreaded gray box" in IE6+.

--The stylesheet css is optimized for IE6+ and will not position objects correctly in Firefox (unfortunate for Firefox lovers!).

--Html pages and their content may be server-side located for on-line viewing and presentations, or placed client-side locally together with your .pps file for off-line auditorial in-house presentations.

--I produce html pages in Notepad exclusively and never use conventional webpage editors.

Enjoy experimenting! If anything unclear in the above, please don't hesitate to holler!

Cheers, Anders

Hi Anders. Thanks again for the detailed reply. Last night I did what you recommend in A1-A2. I realised that while this allows a transparent flash object over a bitmap say, like in your demonstration, it's no different in practice (visual result) to just having the bitmap included in the flash file itself. What I was after was a flash-showing object that was flexible and transparent and could be used in conjunction (overlaid) with other all the other PowerPoint features. This isn't possible and appears to be a limitation of PowerPoint. I've realised that searching for workarounds to this by focusing on transparent swfs using a HTML object was a red herring. In other words, putting all objects in a HTML object on the slide isn't a work around, because that HTML object is itself not transparent and thus cannot be used in conjunction with underlying objects etc. in PowerPoint. This is a shame, but in terms of design, can be worked around to an extent to provide only minor limitations in what I would like to do in PP. One good thing I learned though is how to insert a webpage into a PP presentation.

Hi Xhris! As you rightfully conclude, unsupported transparency mode in PowerPoint is a significant limitation to all the other features offered with the application. A html page may have a complete Flash page buildup in transparency wmode, or static elements plus one, and more, SwfObjects stacked in a html markup, to be inserted as a PP slide page. A html body background is, however, always opaque as browser standard (default color: white) and cannot be made transparent with neither chroma filters, alpha opacity filters nor when inserted in an iFrame with a background set for transparency allowance. A resizable html page including a transparency mode SwfObject can sit on top of, or partially covering, bitmaps or other static objects which are inserted in a PP slide page, but the html body background cannot be made transparent. Not for the unsupported transparency in PP, but because of OP and browser standard restricting it.

Good luck with html insertions in PowerPoint. Perhaps something radically new may evolve from your work!

Cheers, Anders

Well, it's not a big deal really. I still produced a really (relatively) visually stunning presentation recently. Thanks for all your input.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Anders 205

Nothing at all, John! I feel it to be an obligation to dig into the subject when my suggestion was failing to comply, mislead by the transparency window mode parameter option present and readily available for SWF objects in PowerPoint. Imagine all flashers' (oops!) confusion in their PowerPoint deployments, well aware that *.png alpha channel and *.gif transparenices being flawlessly supported. I am not prepared to give it up, quite yet. I intend to try with scripted HTML off-line solutions, alternatively with iframe coding.

I have not had the priviledge to, so far, personally meet with Shyam Pillai, the MS MVP with renowned expertise in PowerPoint, Excel, Word, and more, applications. You are familiar with his plug-ins, actually called add-ins in the PowerPoint environment, but perhaps other PowerPoint fans would like to make themselves acquainted with them at PowerPoint add-ins. His Flashback Rewind add-in is a must-have!

Thank you for bringing up the subject, John. Have a good day!

Cheers, Anders

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Hello Xhris -
Did you everstreamline the coding for exclusive PowerPoint for a transparent SWF objetcs to play in PowerPoint without the HTML workaround?

I don't think anyone ever got true transparent swfs working in powerpoint; PP just doesn't support it. I make use of multi-level Flash animations if necessary to have one flash animation play over and independently of another (these are outlined in my Flash tutorial on my website (link in my signature)). Hopefully PP will allow transparent flash animations like html in the future.

Flash Movies with a Trasparent Background that work in PowerPoint? Did you ever find a solution?

Thanks. I'll check it out.