Inserting PowerPoint Content into Your Web Site

Elements from a PowerPoint presentation can be easily cut and pasted from PowerPoint into FrontPage. If any of the file formats used in the presentation aren't "Web friendly," (such as a .WMF clip or file or something similar) FrontPage will translate the content as needed. In addition, there are options for translating PowerPoint files to a number of other file formats that can be more readily called from a Web site. We'll examine those options in this section.

Inserting Simple PowerPoint Elements

Any element from a PowerPoint presentation can be cut from the presentation and pasted into FrontPage.

Basic text is cut and pasted from PowerPoint the same way it is in most other Windows programs. A paste options box will let you reformat the text to match the formatting of your page.

Text blocks are added to a FrontPage Web page as layout table content. FrontPage offers a paste options button with three options for handling the text content. This can be seen in Figure 41.1.

Figure 41.1. A text block from a PowerPoint presentation is pasted to FrontPage as layout table content. Note the Paste Options box and the three options.

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The first option, Keep Source Formatting, keeps the content pasted as a layout table and makes no additional changes. The second option, Paste as an Image Tag, converts the text to an image. The third option, Microsoft Office Drawing Object, converts the text to a Microsoft Office Drawing object that can be more easily edited and transferred between other Microsoft programs if needed.

For more information on FrontPage's handling of tables and the new layout table technology, see "Using Tables," p. 189.


NOTE

If you keep source formatting, VML image files are included in the content. These images can only be viewed on the most recent browsers.


When an image is copied from a PowerPoint presentation, FrontPage treats the image as it would any other: When the page file is saved back to the Web site, FrontPage will offer the chance to change the name of the file and file type, if necessary.

TIP

Most PowerPoint images aren't usually in a Web friendly format. Make sure that any graphic content transferred is saved as either a GIF or JPEG file.


NOTE

Most content copied from a PowerPoint presentation will contain a considerable amount of metadata important to PowerPoint but not that important to your Web page. Consider cleaning some of the data from your page either by hand or using the HTML optimization tools provided with FrontPage.


For information on cleaning up FrontPage html from content of this type, see "Optimizing FrontPage's HTML," p. 549.


Inserting Entire Presentations

The PowerPoint file format is proprietary to PowerPoint. Historically, Microsoft has provided a PowerPoint player product with previous versions that let people view PowerPoint content who didn't have the main program.

Most people don't realize that Internet Explorer versions 4.0 and higher have contained a PowerPoint player inside the program. These versions of IE can easily read and play a PowerPoint presentation, which can easily be added to a FrontPage Web. Simply add the PowerPoint file to your site and link to it as you would any other file in your site. Figure 41.2 shows a PowerPoint presentation being viewed in Internet Explorer. IE will read either .PPT (the native PowerPoint file format) or .PPS (the PowerPoint Slideshow Format that allows only viewing of the slideshow without the ability to edit it) files.

Figure 41.2. A PowerPoint file can easily be added to a Web site and viewed with Internet Explorer. There is no need to edit the file in any way.

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Obviously the entire world doesn't use Internet Explorer so this approach can't be an entire solution. But for the large majority of people to use IE, there is no simpler way to let them view PowerPoint content.

TIP

If you save raw PowerPoint files to the Web for your readers to view, save the file as a .PPS instead of a .PPT. The same content is there, but it prevents readers from being able to download your entire presentation and make edits accordingly.


Creating Web Content from PowerPoint Slides

You are not limited to copying content from PowerPoint or forcing users to view PowerPoint files through Internet Explorer. You can use PowerPoint 2003 to create individual graphics of each of your slides or create Web HTML content that contains both the slide content as well as a simple navigation scheme.

Creating Graphics from PowerPoint Slides

As seen in Figure 41.3, PowerPoint 2003 provides a means to save a presentation in a number of graphic formats. The images are saved as Slide1, Slide2, and so on. No text or notes content associated with the slideshow is saved in this method.

Figure 41.3. A PowerPoint file can be saved as a number of different graphic files formats.

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You can have PowerPoint save the slides directly to a FrontPage Web site and develop Web content to call each slide as needed or let PowerPoint develop the navigation for you, as described in the next section.

TIP

If you save your presentation as graphic slides to be used in a Web site, make sure to use a Web friendly format such as JPEG or GIF. PowerPoint offers the other file format options because this tool is used for other things than producing Web content.


Creating Web Pages from PowerPoint Slides

As seen in Figure 41.4, PowerPoint offers the ability to save a presentation as a Web Page or a Single File Web Page. When the presentation is saved as a Web page, PowerPoint will save the entire presentation as a series of files within a chosen directory. When a file is saved as a Single File Web Page, the entire presentation is save into a single file browser format that is only supported by Internet Explorer 4.0 and later.

Figure 41.4. PowerPoint lets you save a presentation as a Web Page or a Single File Web Page.

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If you can't view your Single File Web Page version of your presentation in Netscape, see "Single File Web Page Option Doesn't Work on the Latest Netscape Version" in the "Troubleshooting" section at the end of this chapter.


Once a PowerPoint presentation is saved as a Web page, the content can be imported into FrontPage and quickly integrated into your Web site.

TIP

It isn't necessary to make the "import" process any more complicated than it needs to be. Have PowerPoint save directly to the Web site or simply drag the content into your FrontPage Web in one simple step. The Import option in the File menu is another way to bring content (or entire files of content) into your FrontPage Web site.




Special Edition Using Microsoft Office FrontPage 2003
Special Edition Using Microsoft Office FrontPage 2003
ISBN: 0789729547
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2003
Pages: 443

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