Playing a Flash animation

Flash is an interactive multimedia format used widely on the world wide web. Some Flash media graphics that allow users to interact with the animation by moving and clicking their mouse, but Flash is also used to create animated movies. PowerPoint 2010 will allow you to play a Flash movie during your presentation just as if it were any other media clip. Flash technology is owned by adobe.com, although years ago it was developed by Shockwave. As a result, the file extension for Flash is SWF. The procedure for inserting Flash content into your presentation is exactly the same as any other video.

For more information about inserting videos into PowerPoint, please see the lesson earlier in this course. We're going to replace this logo with an animated Flash logo. Go up to the Insert tab and on the far right hand side in the Media Group, click on the Video button. If you only want to see Flash files in this dialog box, come down to where it says Video Files. Use the drop-down and choose the bottom choice, Adobe Flash Media. You'll be left with your icons with the red f. I'll click on my icon. I'll decide if I'm going to embed the file by inserting it or link to it.

I'll go ahead and choose Insert. My Flash animation lands in the middle of my screen. I'll go ahead and drag it up to the upper left-hand corner and resize it so it's smaller. I'll use my arrows on my keyboard to fine-tune the placement and I'll come down to the button to start my slideshow, and here's my animated logo. That looks great! I'll hit Escape to go back to normal view. Now, if that method of inserting your Flash file doesn't work or if you prefer to do things the hard way, there's another way you can insert Flash video as a Shockwave control object instead of as a video.

To use this technique, we need to add the Developer tab to the Ribbon. Click on the File tab and then go down and click on Options. Click on Customize Ribbon in the left hand column and under Customize the Ribbon on the right side put a check mark in front of Developer and then click OK. Now, I'm going to go down to slide 6 and we're going to put our web logo in this open space. Go to your new Developer tab right up here. In this Controls group, there's a button that says More Controls.

It has a wrench and a hammer and a dot, dot, dot on it. I'll click on it and in the list of controls that appears scroll down near the bottom and find a Shockwave Flash Object. Click on it and click OK. Now, drag on the slide where you want to draw the control, starting on the upper left hand corner and ending in the lower right. Don't worry if it's not exactly where you need it to be or not exactly the right size.

If you do need to resize the control, you can drag the sizing handles. You can pick up the box and move it where you need it to go. I have noticed that sometimes I can't resize my Flash videos after I've inserted them into this control. So if you need to specify the size, now is the time to do it. Now, let's assign our Shockwave Flash Control movie to play. I want to go over to Windows and find my Flash file. Again, it has the red f on the icon and the extension is SWF. I'll hold down the Shift key and right-click on it, which gives me different options and I have here Copy as path.

Go ahead and click on that and go back to your PowerPoint. Now, right-click on the Shockwave Object and choose Properties. You can also get the Properties through this button on the Ribbon. My Properties window is resizable. It can be tall and skinny or short and wide. I want to go to the Movie property. So, I'll click right here and then I'll right click on it and choose Paste. If your file path comes in with quotation marks, delete those. You can also set other parameters here like the Height and Width and other playback features.

I'm going to go up to the red x and close my Properties pane. And now let's play our slideshow. My Flash animation works perfectly. Now, here are some of the hardware and software considerations when working with Flash clips. You do have to have Adobe Flash Player 10.0 or higher installed on your computer. If you don't already have it, go to adobe.com/flashplayer to download and install it on your PC.

If you're having trouble with your Flash, make sure you have the most up-to-date version. PowerPoint 2010 64-bit is not compatible with the 32-bit Flash codec. As of the recording of this lesson, 64- bit Flash was in beta, so just make sure you have matching 32 or 64-bit versions of Flash and Microsoft Office. You can't apply video effects to Flash videos. This means no soft edges, glows, bevels, or other preset formatting. You may see the formatting on the container when you're in normal view, but when you play the slide and play the Flash animation, you'll see normal square edges.

In the same way, you also can't use fading or trimming capabilities. Flash videos can't be compressed when you share them. The Optimize Media Compatibility utility that you use before sharing the file with others may not work under Flash files. We'll explore Optimize Media Compatibility at length later in this course. If you're creating your presentation in PowerPoint 2010, but it may be used with PowerPoint 2007, only the method of adding the Flash through the Developer control will work, because PowerPoint 2007 doesn't recognize Flash as a native file format.

You can't just insert it as a movie. And if you export your finished PowerPoint presentation as its own movie, any Flash multimedia won't work. Also, Flash animations don't play on some mobile devices. So, if your PowerPoint presentation may be seen on a smartphone or a tablet, the Flash may not play. Flash videos were created for web delivery, so there may have a few compatibility issues when used inside PowerPoint. But Flash is commonly accepted on the internet, so it makes sense to be able to view Flash multimedia during a presentation.