Showing a PowerPoint file in your blog

<b>This article is about options for showing the contents of a PowerPoint file inside your blog.</b> <br /><br /><div style="clear: both;"></div><a name="more"></a><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgC0JKx8J_goOP7h0-zEu6zOqCkdMon1o6d3FhptlDa4aolSifD3JU6mblq_VHq56nsfG4Md6G0Tyqn9WcCO4AJFSyrmYPfKUcGMs8rPKWtd1dHHAeks1YGnSiw9JUzSGlhRDfz5O8gGbo/s1600/show-powerpoint-slideshow-contents-inside-blog-post.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="148" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgC0JKx8J_goOP7h0-zEu6zOqCkdMon1o6d3FhptlDa4aolSifD3JU6mblq_VHq56nsfG4Md6G0Tyqn9WcCO4AJFSyrmYPfKUcGMs8rPKWtd1dHHAeks1YGnSiw9JUzSGlhRDfz5O8gGbo/s320/show-powerpoint-slideshow-contents-inside-blog-post.png" width="320" /></a></div><span style="background-color: white;">Previously I've described how to </span><a href="http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.com/2010/07/coverting-ms-word-documents-to-blogger.html" style="background-color: white;">load content from MS Word to your blog</a><span style="background-color: white;">.</span><br /><br />But some people have material in PowerPoint (or other presentation software) files, that they want to show in their blog.   So far, I've identified three options for doing this.<br /><br />These approaches should work on any PowerPoint formatted presentation, no matter what tool it was prepared with - except of course if it was Google Docs in which case you go straight to option 2.<br /><br /><br /><h2>Option 1: Each slide as an image</h2><span style="background-color: white;">Follow these steps:</span><br /><ul><li>In PowerPoint, choose <b>Save-as</b>, and choose an <b>image format</b> (eg .png).   </li><li>When the system asks if you want <b>all slides</b> or just the current one, choose All.</li><li><b>Upload all the image files</b> that were created to your blog - it's your choice whether you put them all in the same post, or one-per-post.<br />I usually upload them firstly to <a href="http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.com/2010/01/what-is-picasa-very-basic-introduction.html">Picasa web albums</a> or another picture-hosting service, and then just link from my blog to there)</li></ul><br />At first, I thought that this was a backward approach.  But recently I wrote an article based on a presentation that I gave several years ago.   After trying various ways of displaying the presentation and  the article, I realised that I was trying to find a way to include all the comments that I made when I used the presentation face-to-face.  To do this, I needed to show each slide individually, so I used this option because it gives full control over what commentary goes with each picture.<br /><br /><br /><h2>Option 2: Convert to a Google Docs Presentation</h2>This is described in detail in<b>  </b><a href="http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.com/2010/05/showing-powerpoint-presentation-in-your.html">Using Google Docs's publish-and-embed option</a> <span style="background-color: white;">- I believe it's better than trying to use Google Web-elements, because it achieves much the same thing, and takes one piece (web-elements) out of the equation.</span><br /><br /><br /><h2>Option 3 Copy and Paste</h2><a href="http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.com/2010/05/writing-posts-for-blogger-in-ms-word.html">As with MS Word</a>, copy-and-paste from PowerPoint to Blogger is NOT recommended, because the PowerPoint content can have all sorts of extra HTML codes attached to it, and these can cause negative effects in your blog.<br /><br />But you may want to copy-and-paste, either because you don't want the content as images, or because you want other things like presenter notes etc that are not stored in the presentation slides.<br /><br />To do this, you need to:<br /><ul><li><b>Copy</b> from PowerPoint, </li><li><b>Paste</b> into a text-editor (eg Notepad in Microsoft Windows) </li><li><b>Copy</b> again from the text-editor</li><li><b>Paste</b> into your blog.</li></ul><br />An alternative may be to export the presentation as an <b>outline</b> (ie rich-text or RTF format), and then <a href="http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.com/2010/07/coverting-ms-word-documents-to-blogger.html">convert it via Google Docs</a> in the same way that you would for a Word document.   You would need to test this to check if it brings in the items that are stored outside of the slides.<br /><br /><br /><h2>Option 4   Use a slideshow host</h2>Another approach would be to set up on account on SlideShare or a similar service that allows you to upload slideshows and gives you code that you can <a href="http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.com/2010/10/putting-html-code-from-third-party-into.html" target="_blank">add to your blog in the usual way</a>, which embeds the slideshow in your blog.   <br /><br />I haven't tried this one out myself, but in theory at least it should work.<br /><br /><br /><br /><hr /><h2>Related Articles</h2><a href="http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.com/2010/05/showing-powerpoint-presentation-in-your.html">Showing a PowerPoint presentation as a slideshow in your blog</a><br /><br /><a href="http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.com/2010/07/coverting-ms-word-documents-to-blogger.html">Converting from MS Word to Blogger, via Google Docs</a><br /><br /><a href="http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.com/2010/01/file-sharing-hosts.html">File hosting options - places to keep your files on-line</a><br /><br /><a href="http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.com/2010/10/tools-for-applying-copyright-protection.html">Tools for applying copyright protection to your blog</a><br /><br /><a href="http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.com/2010/10/putting-html-code-from-third-party-into.html" target="_blank">Putting embed code from an outside service into your blog</a><br />.

Showing a PowerPoint file in your blog

This article is about options for showing the contents of a PowerPoint file inside your blog. Previously I've described how to load con...

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How to put pictures into unusual shapes, using PowerPoint

<b>This article explains how to put a picture that is one shape (a "square peg") inside an image of another shape (a "round hole" - or star, elipse, octagon, etc) - using Microsoft PowerPoint.</b><br /><div style="clear: both;"></div><br /><i>Original title:   How to put a square peg into a round hole - in pictures</i><br /><br /><a name="more"></a><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh905xNm2k6OXJXyAO7KeD-NGidGUYnz2QbsESHACpGa-o2vk8Xu7HPtnrAAGDAV1t0uyoLuwxvnrQ6AIb33niHxqgAiMa_0j5th4xRbVa3_2VR6s2s7_S1FGWj0kvunXEfLzkFAAUp1nbG/s433/square-wooden-clothes-peg-photo-rectangle-two-rounded-corners.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img alt="Wooden clothes peg in a customized rectangle with rounded corners." border="0" height="141" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh905xNm2k6OXJXyAO7KeD-NGidGUYnz2QbsESHACpGa-o2vk8Xu7HPtnrAAGDAV1t0uyoLuwxvnrQ6AIb33niHxqgAiMa_0j5th4xRbVa3_2VR6s2s7_S1FGWj0kvunXEfLzkFAAUp1nbG/s200/square-wooden-clothes-peg-photo-rectangle-two-rounded-corners.png" title="Based on a work by Loadmaster (David R. Tribble) This image was made by Loadmaster (David R. Tribble) Email the author: David R. Tribble Also see my personal gallery at Google Picasa (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) or GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)], via Wikimedia Commons" width="200" /></a></div>Recently, I've been using PowerPoint to make the <a href="http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.com/2011/07/postsnippet-and-postthumbnail-tools-for.html">thumbnail image</a> for my posts. This means that I own the copyright of the pictures, so can share them without worrying about <a href="http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.com/2010/10/copyright-blogs-and-bloggers.html">copyright issues</a>.<br /><br />One approach I've used is to find an interesting copyright-free picture that is related to the theme of the post, and then put it inside a shape that adds some visual interest or has some words along side it.  Another thing that I'm going to try is using multiple pictures in this way to make a more-interesting-than-usual collage.<br /><br /><br /><br /><h2>How to put a picture inside a shape</h2><i>NB PowerPoint commands are based on Office 2007 and 2010 - but the same principles most-likely apply in other versions where the commands may be slightly different.</i><br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUo5s7zHxEg99CH1qwvEluMVEaZS-k22-cq8208JP8jb88YvdZzsrEdtCwH-8wAUnGRX8CH_QXrTFvl4UsNmZQB3V4YuHqK1fCvpmPb2KrwHpidUSB2ti9JI3AWKpErR_5S57RFN1xA2AG/s286/image-file-types-supported-by-PowerPoint-2007.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUo5s7zHxEg99CH1qwvEluMVEaZS-k22-cq8208JP8jb88YvdZzsrEdtCwH-8wAUnGRX8CH_QXrTFvl4UsNmZQB3V4YuHqK1fCvpmPb2KrwHpidUSB2ti9JI3AWKpErR_5S57RFN1xA2AG/s286/image-file-types-supported-by-PowerPoint-2007.png" /></a></div>1   Get your <b>image file</b>, and save it somewhere on your computer.<br /><br />A wide range of picture-file formats are supported by PowerPoint:  in the 2007 version this includes as shown in this list: <br /><div style="clear: both;"></div><br />2     In PowerPoint, <b>make a blank side</b> (Home > Layout > Blank)<br /><br />3     Then <b>add a shape</b> (Insert > Shapes, click on the shape you want)<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitM3jm-9SBrQIc4cHEWmvHCBvNkjjr-xJc3ALvUw7NtqmiRRJDri7uvoaeqjtk2-OGIiGyPIND4v6G7zZnd3Ry4na2FDKX6OnqGoX_HR8Oj3a5On80gxlUp50Mw6_8JeqIRf19nGLFHDNX/s424/Powerpoint-insert-shape-default-format.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="308" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitM3jm-9SBrQIc4cHEWmvHCBvNkjjr-xJc3ALvUw7NtqmiRRJDri7uvoaeqjtk2-OGIiGyPIND4v6G7zZnd3Ry4na2FDKX6OnqGoX_HR8Oj3a5On80gxlUp50Mw6_8JeqIRf19nGLFHDNX/s400/Powerpoint-insert-shape-default-format.png" width="400" /></a></div><br /><br />Intially, the shape with have the fill-colour and border that are the current default values. But you can change this, which is what we are going to do.<br /><br /><br />4    Right-click on the shape, and choose <b>Format Shape</b> from the pop-up menu<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMZXDzewD38hiHET8ZsG9Px25efGoBcmZqwNY8zAr_Gsz_vKcuXOaKk2V99tRokWtO6s5Ul-4rClILE26786rpN6z0lNnSa2i_y-n4O0sKWl_lIueKEUanxqoByXjPPNIsnEhYljx2OWjR/s640/Shape-format-right-click-menu-PowerPoint.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="500" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMZXDzewD38hiHET8ZsG9Px25efGoBcmZqwNY8zAr_Gsz_vKcuXOaKk2V99tRokWtO6s5Ul-4rClILE26786rpN6z0lNnSa2i_y-n4O0sKWl_lIueKEUanxqoByXjPPNIsnEhYljx2OWjR/s640/Shape-format-right-click-menu-PowerPoint.png" width="640" /></a></div><br /><br /><br />5    In the Fill tab, choose <b>Picture or Texture Fill</b>, then click the <b>File button</b> and navigate to the image file you got in step 1, and click OK.<br /><br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtdSHARuKJ-j-848WBXJCqKWd1mbyg9ZPS27bXkJGKAPQFu0wfFFL-CSeOkcKtlKrCJ7XSYtZkBcAOBlubXda7OPFpNkaqTf-ZxZiwiOQrIrgO2P_hFZHUPWJdPCsGcKr6f-GZiS1eT1NU/s720/drag-format-menu-away-from-edited-image-to-see-progress.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="406" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtdSHARuKJ-j-848WBXJCqKWd1mbyg9ZPS27bXkJGKAPQFu0wfFFL-CSeOkcKtlKrCJ7XSYtZkBcAOBlubXda7OPFpNkaqTf-ZxZiwiOQrIrgO2P_hFZHUPWJdPCsGcKr6f-GZiS1eT1NU/s640/drag-format-menu-away-from-edited-image-to-see-progress.png" width="640" /></a></div><br /><br /><br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6d8IVy-mT0J9_t3ApeT3b9gaCvm-48z6BbBSDMwwcYEpe_2OMA9RjTli8plDdADvLNWfcVe79EsYLJkdL1Ydzt1261vr0jXuJCb94CQmQlnkDio6w1gJfd6IkWGn_0M0Mr8vrPASSAil9/s291/control-position-of-image-in-PowerPoint-shape-offset-buttons.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6d8IVy-mT0J9_t3ApeT3b9gaCvm-48z6BbBSDMwwcYEpe_2OMA9RjTli8plDdADvLNWfcVe79EsYLJkdL1Ydzt1261vr0jXuJCb94CQmQlnkDio6w1gJfd6IkWGn_0M0Mr8vrPASSAil9/s291/control-position-of-image-in-PowerPoint-shape-offset-buttons.png" /></a></div>6   Make sure that the portion of the picture that you want to show is in the picture:  to start with the shape is centered on the middle of the picture. <br /><br />Change this <b>using the Offsets to move the shape</b> to the left or right over the image.   You can make the offsets positive or negative as shown.<br /><div style="clear: both;"></div><br />You can monitor the results of different settings in PowerPoints slide thumbnails (on the left hand side, if you have it showing), or by dragging the pop-up menu to a different place in the screen so that you can see the shape itself.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtdSHARuKJ-j-848WBXJCqKWd1mbyg9ZPS27bXkJGKAPQFu0wfFFL-CSeOkcKtlKrCJ7XSYtZkBcAOBlubXda7OPFpNkaqTf-ZxZiwiOQrIrgO2P_hFZHUPWJdPCsGcKr6f-GZiS1eT1NU/s720/drag-format-menu-away-from-edited-image-to-see-progress.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="406" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtdSHARuKJ-j-848WBXJCqKWd1mbyg9ZPS27bXkJGKAPQFu0wfFFL-CSeOkcKtlKrCJ7XSYtZkBcAOBlubXda7OPFpNkaqTf-ZxZiwiOQrIrgO2P_hFZHUPWJdPCsGcKr6f-GZiS1eT1NU/s640/drag-format-menu-away-from-edited-image-to-see-progress.png" width="640" /></a></div><br /><br /><br /><b>Job Done</b> - at this point, you have an image that is cropped to the shape that you chose - now you just have to <b>put it into your blog</b>.<br /><br /><br /><br /><h2>Using the picture</h2>There are (at least) three ways to get the shape-cropped-picture from PowerPoint into your blog.<br /><br />I usually <b>copy the item from PowerPoint, and then paste it into a picture edito</b>r (Paintbrush etc), manually.   This is an old-fashioned approacb - but it lets me adjust the size and position of the image, and save it (usually a .png) with a file-name that describes the image really well which is good for mating the blog come up in search results (SEO).   The this picture can be <a href="http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.com/2010/01/inserting-picture-into-blog-post.html">inserted into a post just like any other picture</a>.<br /><br />Another option is to choose <b>File > Save As from Powerpoint</b>, and choose to <b>save the slides in an image format</b>, eg JPEG which can also be <a href="http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.com/2010/01/inserting-picture-into-blog-post.html">inserted into a post in the usual way.</a>  You are likely to be asked whether to put all the slides in one image, or to make one image per slide. Usually, it would be best to make one image per slide - but I don't use this method because the image that is created is the size of the whole slide, rather than just the pictures on it.<br /><br />A third option is to <a href="http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.com/2010/05/showing-powerpoint-presentation-in-your.html">display the PowerPoint file as a slideshow</a>. This isn't something that I'd do for only one shaped image, but may be relevant in some situations.<br /><br /><br /><h2>Adjusting the size and quality of the picture</h2><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglE-z1CMrV6Gl9GN_YG5kMrexorybmggmO7S_ik6xNRpVjn7D_fE7kD_Of31gKdwMXIkEj8QCn2Jss0LaMspFHwjPEQA2TTs63HHmN-YSZON6nFZhuc6di4XWj3AgwRv2SdC9ZL9Gc7zKu/s432/small-and-large-size-shapes-showing-same-proportiong-of-background-picure-displayed.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglE-z1CMrV6Gl9GN_YG5kMrexorybmggmO7S_ik6xNRpVjn7D_fE7kD_Of31gKdwMXIkEj8QCn2Jss0LaMspFHwjPEQA2TTs63HHmN-YSZON6nFZhuc6di4XWj3AgwRv2SdC9ZL9Gc7zKu/s320/small-and-large-size-shapes-showing-same-proportiong-of-background-picure-displayed.png" width="205" /></a></div>One thing that you don't have any control of inside PowerPoint is the zoom level of the inserted picture.<br /><br />If you make the shape larger, it doesn't show a larger proportion of the picture. Instead, it just shows the existing picture in a larger size, as you can see in the slides shown here.<br /><br />I suspect that if you want to zoom in to a particular area of the image file, the only approach is to <b>edit the picture in another tool, crop out the bit that you do not want to show, </b>and only keep the part that you want to include inside your shape.<br /><br />However PowerPoint does have some limited control over the contrast and brightness of the picture, from the Picture tab of the Format Shape window.<br /><br /><div style="clear: both;"></div><br /><h2>Can you do this in other tools?  Why PowerPoint?</h2>Yes, you can.<br /><br />Photoshop, and similar commercial tools  certainly have features like this, and I'm certain that GIMP (like a public-domain, less powerful version of Photoshop) and Inkscape (another public-domain image program which is more focussed on scalable-vector-graphics and objects than on pixels) also have these features.<br /><br />So why use PowerPoint?   In short, <b>many people have access</b> to it already.   It's also <b>very easy to learn</b>, compared to the other packages, and what you learn is likely to apply to lots of tasks and not just in making pictures for your blog.<br /><br /><br /><br /><hr /><h2>Related Articles:</h2><br /><a href="http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.com/2010/01/inserting-picture-into-blog-post.html">Putting a picture into a blog-post</a><br /><br /><a href="http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.com/2011/07/postsnippet-and-postthumbnail-tools-for.html">Post.thumbnail and post.summary - ways of describing blog posts</a><br /><br /><a href="http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.com/2010/05/showing-powerpoint-presentation-in-your.html">Showing a PowerPoint slideshow in Blogger</a><br /><br class="Apple-interchange-newline" /> <a href="http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.com/2010/10/copyright-blogs-and-bloggers.html">Copyright, blogs and Blogger/Google</a>

How to put pictures into unusual shapes, using PowerPoint

This article explains how to put a picture that is one shape (a "square peg") inside an image of another shape (a "round hole...

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Adobe Presenter 9- Using the Drag & Drop Feature

<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">With the release of Adobe Presenter 9 comes the Drag and Drop feature which gives developers a way to create interactive drag and drop questions to a quiz. The Drag and Drop feature is intuitive and allows you to create a number of different types of questions that can include both text and pictures. In the Halloween example, I created a simple Drag and Drop quiz called the Candy Challenge that allows the user to match a picture of the candy bar with the name of the candy. In the screencast below you will see just how easy it is to create a Drag and Drop question in Adobe Presenter 9.</span><br /><br /><!-- copy and paste. Modify height and width if desired. --> <object data="http://content.screencast.com/users/AssistiveTek/folders/Snagit/media/f1423f1f-f97e-4b5a-b0a5-6bd666882721/scplayer.swf" height="383" id="scPlayer" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="650"><param name="movie" value="http://content.screencast.com/users/AssistiveTek/folders/Snagit/media/f1423f1f-f97e-4b5a-b0a5-6bd666882721/scplayer.swf" /><param name="quality" value="high" /><param name="bgcolor" value="#FFFFFF" /><param name="flashVars" value="thumb=http://content.screencast.com/users/AssistiveTek/folders/Snagit/media/f1423f1f-f97e-4b5a-b0a5-6bd666882721/FirstFrame.jpg&containerwidth=1366&containerheight=766&xmp=sc.xmp&content=http://content.screencast.com/users/AssistiveTek/folders/Snagit/media/f1423f1f-f97e-4b5a-b0a5-6bd666882721/11.02.2013-17.25.mp4&blurover=false" /><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true" /><param name="scale" value="showall" /><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always" /><param name="base" value="http://content.screencast.com/users/AssistiveTek/folders/Snagit/media/f1423f1f-f97e-4b5a-b0a5-6bd666882721/" /><iframe type="text/html" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" style="overflow:hidden;" src="http://www.screencast.com/users/AssistiveTek/folders/Snagit/media/f1423f1f-f97e-4b5a-b0a5-6bd666882721/embed" height="383" width="650" ></iframe></object><br /><br /><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">To actually try the Candy Challenge click on the <a href="https://assistivetek.adobeconnect.com/halloween/" target="_blank">link</a>. </span></b></div>

Adobe Presenter 9- Using the Drag & Drop Feature

With the release of Adobe Presenter 9 comes the Drag and Drop feature which gives developers a way to create interactive drag and drop quest...

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