Publishing a Presentation on a CD or DVD


Often the computer that you use to create a presentation is not the same one that you use to show it, especially if it is a desktop computer. This is an issue whether you are showing the presentation "live," distributing it as a self-running presentation through e-mail or the Web, or creating a kiosk. As a result, the issue of transferring files from one computer to another is a very common concern.

One way to transfer a PowerPoint presentation to another computer is simply to copy the PowerPoint file using a floppy disk, writeable CD or DVD, network, or other medium. However, this method is imperfect because it assumes that the other computer has PowerPoint or the PowerPoint Viewer, as well as all of the necessary fonts, sounds, graphics (if any are linked), music files, and other elements that are needed for every part of the show. This can be a dangerous assumption.

A better way to transfer the presentation is to use the Package for CD feature in PowerPoint. This feature reads all of the linked files and associated objects, and ensures that they are transferred along with the main presentation. You can create a CD or DVD that you can then copy and mass- distribute to a wide audience, or you can send the package to any folder on any drive and then compress, or ZIP, the folder and send it to others through e-mail.

Note 

Zipping consists of creating a compressed archive file with a.zip extension. You do this by selecting files in Windows Explorer, right-clicking the selection, and choosing Send To image from book Compressed (zipped) Folder.

Caution 

Packaged versions of presentations do not include comments, revisions, or ink annotations. If you want a version that includes these items, then you need to manually copy the files to the CD or DVD.

If you have a CD or DVD drive that writes to blank discs, copying the presentation to a CD or DVD is an attractive choice. This produces a self-running disc that contains the PowerPoint Viewer application, the presentation file, and any linked files that you need for the show.

You can copy many presentation files to a single CD or DVD, not just the currently active presentation. The only limit is the capacity of the disc. Further, you can set the presentations up to run automatically one after the other, or you can specify that a menu appears so that the user can choose the presentation that runs each time they insert the CD or DVD.

Note 

The DVDs referred to in this chapter contain data files, not the type of DVD movies you could put in a DVD player hooked up to your TV.

When you copy to CD using the default settings, the file is saved in PowerPoint 97–2003 format so that it can be played with the PowerPoint Viewer that is packaged on the CD. If you do not want to include the viewer, then you can set the copy options, as described later in this chapter, to copy the presentation file as-is and omit the viewer from the disk.

Note 

CD-R stands for Compact Disc Recordable; it is a standard for writeable CDs that you can write to only once. CD-RW is Compact Disc ReWriteable, the standard for writeable CDs that you can write to multiple times. Modern drives support both CD types, and some drives also support various types of writeable DVDs.

To package the presentation on a CD or DVD - assuming that you have a CD or DVD drive that writes - follow these steps:

  1. Place a blank disc in your writeable CD or DVD drive.

  2. Open the presentation in PowerPoint to review it and make sure that it is exactly the way you want it. CD-R, DVD+R, and DVD-R discs are not rewriteable, and so if you make a mistake, you will have wasted a disc. For this reason, it is often better to package to a folder and then burn these files to a CD after testing.

  3. Choose Office image from book Publish image from book Package for CD. The Package for CD dialog box opens, as shown in Figure 22.9.

    image from book
    Figure 22.9: You can use the Package for CD feature to place all of the necessary files for the presentation on a CD, or in another location.

  4. Type a name for the CD; this name is similar to a volume label for the disc.

  5. (Optional) You can add more files to the disc layout. See the section, Including Multiple Presentations, later in this chapter, for more details.

  6. (Optional) You can set other options, as shown in the section, Setting Copy Options, later in this chapter.

  7. Click Copy to CD.

  8. If a message appears asking whether you want to package linked files, click Yes.

  9. The CD drive writes the files to the CD or DVD. It may take several minutes, depending on the size of the files, the speed of your computer, and the writing speed of the CD drive.

  10. A message appears when the files are successfully written to the disc, asking whether you want to copy the same files to another disc. Click Yes or No. If you choose No, then click Close to close the Package for CD dialog box.

Note 

If you are packaging a presentation that PowerPoint originally saved in the Web format, PowerPoint converts it back to native PowerPoint format when it copies the presentation to CD. However, standard Web files that PowerPoint did not create itself will remain MHT files.

Copying to Other Locations

If you do not have a CD or DVD writer, then you cannot directly write to a CD as shown in the preceding section. Instead, you need to package the presentation to a folder on a drive that can be accessed by a computer with a CD or DVD burner. You can then create the CD using either a third- party disc-burning program or the writing software in Windows.

Note 

If you are burning a CD using a third-party application, you should include on that CD only the contents of the folder in which you packaged the presentation, not the folder itself.

To change the package location from the CD to another location, in the Package for CD dialog box, click the Copy to Folder button. A Copy to Folder dialog box appears, as shown in Figure 22.10. Type a name for the new folder to be created, and type a path for this folder in the Location text box. When you click OK, PowerPoint automatically packages the presentation to this location.

image from book
Figure 22.10: You can package the presentation files to another location.

Caution 

When you use the Copy to Folder feature to specify a location, PowerPoint immediately copies the presentation there; it does not wait for you to click OK in the Package for CD dialog box. Therefore, if you need to add files or set options, as described in the following sections, you should do these things first.

Including Multiple Presentations

By default, PowerPoint includes the active presentation on the CD, but you can also add other presentations, up to the capacity of the disc. For example, if you have several versions of the same presentation for different audiences, you can place all of them on a single CD.

As you prepare to copy using the Package for CD dialog box, click the Add Files button. An Add Files dialog box opens. Select the additional files that you want to include by holding down the Ctrl key and selecting the files you want. Then click Open to return to the Package for CD dialog box. The list of files appears, as shown in Figure 22.11, with extra controls.

image from book
Figure 22.11: You can select multiple presentations to include on the CD, and set the order in which they should play.

If you set up the CD to play the presentations automatically (which is one of the options that is covered in the next section), the order in which they appear on the list becomes significant. Rearrange the list by clicking the Up- or Down-arrow buttons to the left of the list, and use the Remove button to remove any files that you do not need. You can then continue packaging the presentation.

EXPERT TIP 

If you make a mistake in the presentation order, or you want to include more or fewer presentations, then you are out of luck if you write directly to a disc. However, if you write to a hard-disk folder, then you can manually edit the playlist.txt file using Notepad, to modify the list of presentations that will play and the order in which they will run. Playlist.txt is a plain-text file that contains a simple list of presentation files, each one on a separate line. You can remove or rearrange these presentations, and you can add other presentations to the list. However, if you do this, you must also manually copy these presentations to the folder, along with any necessary support files. You cannot repackage to the same folder if you want to repackage the presentations through PowerPoint; you must repackage to a different folder name.

Setting Copy Options

From the Package for CD dialog box, you can click the Options button to display the Options dialog box, as shown in Figure 22.12. This dialog box contains the following options:

  • Setting the Package Type: You can choose whether to include the PowerPoint Viewer on the disc. This viewer does not play PowerPoint 2007 files, and so if you include it, your presentation files are saved as in PowerPoint 97–2003 format. If the computer on which you will show the presentations already has PowerPoint 2007, then you do not need the PowerPoint Viewer, and so you can package the presentations in their original file format. To do this, choose Archive Package as the package type.

  • Selecting How the Presentations Will Play: If you choose Viewer Package in the preceding section, then you can choose from the following play methods in the drop-down list beneath Viewer Package:

    • Play all presentations automatically in the specified order. If you choose this method, the order in which the presentations appear on the list becomes significant. (See the section "Including Multiple Presentations," earlier in this chapter.)

    • Play only the first presentation automatically. Again, this method makes the order significant. By default, the first presentation is the one that was active when you opened the dialog box to begin the packaging process.

    • Let the user select which presentation to view. This method shows a menu when the user inserts the CD. It is a nice feature if you want the user to be able to select the presentation that they want to view each time.

      Caution 

      If you are going to allow the user to make the selection, then make sure that the filenames are descriptive enough so that the user can tell what they are.

    • Don't play the CD automatically. This method completely turns off the autorun feature for the disc.

  • Specifying Support Files to Include: In the Include These Files section of the dialog box, you can use the check boxes to include linked files and/or embedded TrueType fonts. Linked files are any files, such as sounds or movies, that are not embedded in the main presentation file. You would generally want to include these files. Embedded TrueType fonts are font files that are needed to display the presentation. If the computer on which the presentation will play does not have the fonts that are used in the presentation, it will try to substitute fonts, and the presentation may not look exactly the same. Embedding fonts takes up only a little space and can save you the inconvenience of missing a font.

  • Setting Security and Privacy Options: You can assign passwords to open and modify the presentations. To do this, you enter passwords in the Password to Open Each Presentation and Password to Modify Each Presentation text boxes, as shown in Figure 22-14.

    Caution 

    These passwords apply to all presentations on the CD or DVD, and so you cannot set passwords individually through this interface. If you need individual passwords, you should use the Office image from book Save As image from book Tools image from book General command instead and specify passwords for each file.

  • Inspect Presentations for Inappropriate or Private Information: You can also select this check box, which causes the Document Inspector to run before the files are written to CD.

image from book
Figure 22.12: You can set options for copying your presentations to disc.




Microsoft PowerPoint 2007 Bible
Microsoft Powerpoint 2007 Bible
ISBN: 0470144939
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2007
Pages: 268
Authors: Faithe Wempen

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