Flash Movies with a Trasparent Background that work in PowerPoint?

[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

[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.

[Xhris]

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.

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?

[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

[Xhris]

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

[Anders 205]

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.

[Xhris]

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

[Xhris]

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

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

[Anders 205]

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

[Xhris]

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).