Using Flash AnimationsIn PowerPoint

cathleen bellevillea bit better corporationwww.bitbetter.com

Note: This presentationrequires the Flash 4 viewer be installed on your system.Available as a free download from:www.macromedia.com

What the Heck is Flash?

vector based animation product from Macromedianative file format is Flashexports movies to animated gif, quicktime, avi in bitmapped formatexports movies to shockwave (swf) in vector format, excellent compression with antialiasinghard to learn, but not as bad as Directorgood on-line tutorial & good helpstreet price: $280 new/$120 upgrademac and windows versions, shared file format

Why use Flash & Shockwave?

Vector-based animation: looks good at any sizemuch smaller files than gifspowerpoint loops all animated gifsvery precise controls, includingbuttons, starts & stopsgif files aliased to specificbackground color--easy to change in flash

Adding Shockwave Animation

view/toolbars/visual basicclick on control toolbox button (hammer & wrench)click on more controls button (hammer & wrench)drag out placeholder for animationright-click to bring up properties of animation:– movie: enter full path: c:\windows\desktop\foo.swf– height: enter in pixels– width: enter in pixels– embed movie: true if you want movie to stay with

pres.– loop: set to true or false, true is default

Problems & Issues

must have flash 4 player installed– free download from www.macromedia.com

powerpoint plays all flash animations on top layer– no full page animations if you want text too!

important to set size in vba object propertiesresizing can cause strange things to happen, or not!slides with swf files display as all black when saved to webclick “true” to embed movie setting if you want the animations to travel with the presentation

Problems & Issues, cont.

files placed on master will play continuously from slide to slidepowerpoint can’t recognize any mouse clicks made while mouse is on top of flash objectlooped files do no reset themselves back to frame oneworkaround:

•in flash, set movie as not looping•at last frame, insert an action that goes to

frame 2•in powerpoint, set loop to false

thank you

cathy belleville & the screenbeansa bit better corporationwww.bitbetter.com