* How can I convert my presentation into a format viewable everywhere? *
To resolve the issue of being sure to have a presentation that will not give you troubles when run on different computers from yours, the first easy solution I suggest is to save your presentation in HTML format, that is, as a set of Web pages.
The purpose of doing this, is that your new presentation file will now be openable by any popular browser (e.g. Internet Explorer or Netscape) all over the world, even though the computer where you'll run the presentation may not have PowerPoint installed.
Let see how we can convert our PowerPoint presentation into HTML in a simple step-by-step sequence:
1) Open the presentation you want to convert to HTML
2) Go to the File menu, and choose "Save as a Web Page"
3) Assign a name to this new file and choose a location where to save it (I would suggest the desktop or directly a floppy disk, in case you want to bring it with you)
4) Click on the Save button.
What you will obtain is a new folder that contains all the necessary files that will display your presentation on any browser. The file you will need to open to display the first slide is called slide0001.htm, and double-clicking on that one will start your presentation under Internet Explorer or Netscape.
*TIP*
In order to run your presentation from Internet Explorer in full screen mode, without displaying those crowded toolbars, press F11!
PROS!!!:
- You can publish the new presentation on the Web
- You can bring this presentation with you all over the world, being sure that you will find anywhere a computer with a browser installed
- You can easily send the presentation by mail to a colleague in almost any country in the world, and s/he will be able to open it with the browser
CONS¡¡¡:
- The html file won't keep some of your transitions and most of the animation effects, but you will find in this same newsletter a way to work around this
- If you have used a lot of different images (especially in bitmap format), the new file will be bigger in size. Especially if you have been using pseudo-animation effects (see later) the html file will create as many different slides as your images are, thus increasing the overall file size requirements.
This solution works best in situations where you want to create a backup presentation format readable anywhere. Since this approach may create a lot of files, it might not work best if you have limited storage space, like on floppy disk, and have a large image-rich presentation.
You can read this article in the original issue of MasterView.
