I run a photography website, www.lanimilbus.com, and I created a Powerpoint slideshow presentation of 90 photo highlights from 2006; it has a total of 92 slides and runs for approximately 7 minutes and 20 seconds. It also has a 7 minute instrumental mp3 that plays automatically in the background while the viewer watches the slideshow. Now that I've created it, however, how can I host it on my website so that other people on different computers can view it?
I've hosted the entire folder already (including the 90 pictures, the mp3 track and the slideshow itself) on my website here: http://lanimilbus.com/2006%20Powerpoint and the actual Powerpoint file itself can be downloaded directly from this url: http://www.lanimilbus.com/2006%20Powerpoint/2006photos.ppt
However, when I go onto a different computer and download the Powerpoint, it saves it as a file to my computer, and when I double click it it opens up in Powerpoint to be edited and whatnot, and doesn't play automatically; so that's my first issue. I'm not sure if it's possible, but what I'd like to have happen is for people to click a link or save a file, open it, and have it fill the screen and play like a MPG or Flash movie or something, not to have it open in Powerpoint as an edit-able project.
My second issue is, even when I do save the Powerpoint on a different computer, open it, then play it as a slideshow like I would on my normal computer, everything works fine, but the mp3 doesn't play at all. How can I fix this?
I know there's a way to accomplish what I'm trying to accomplish; I've certainly gotten plenty of e-mails with attachments to virtual Christmas cards or slideshows and whatnot that open and play, music and everything, without having to open them up in Powerpoint first.
So, could anyone help me or give me some advice? It'd be much appreciated. Thanks in advance,

-Alec

(Moderator edit: post moved to more appropriate forum. jgweed)

It sounds like you want them to view a slide show presentation in their browser, right? Have you consudered an HTML alternative?

Well, either browser or powerpoint or powerpoint viewer, which ever one works. I did manage to solve the problem of it only being able to run by someone downloading it, opening it in editing mode and clicking the button to make it run, by changing the extension from PPT to PPS. So now, when clicked or downloaded, it opens and runs all by itself without the viewer having to do anything, but I still have the same problem of the music not playing on other computers. Other than that though, it works fine. Is there anything I can do to make the music automatically play along with the slideshow on other people's computers like it does on mine?
Also, here is the link to the new self-running Powerpoint, for anybody who wants to test it out: http://www.lanimilbus.com/2006%20Powerpoint/2006photos.pps

Look at this website http://www.slideshare.net/

I haven't used it myself, but it looks promising.

Lanimilbus >> check your PM box

Had a look at your query and below are the results, not sure if it's what your looking for but you can download from my site.

1) the amended powerpoint
2) standalone presentation

Hope this helps.

I would be tempted to try and produce this in a different medium. Maybe in flash or simular as this is a huge file to download over the net. If you used flash you could use a image pre-loader to help keep the download speed up.

I think I got it!
Bear with me now, as it gets a little hairy.

First, open the PPT file in Powerpoint.

Then, Click on File-->Save as Webpage

In the Save As box, change the Save As Type field to Web Page (*.htm, *.html)

Click Save. This might take a while to complete, so be patient!

Go to the location you saved the file, you will see the file plus a folder sharing it's name plus _files. Something like this: 2006photos.htm 2006photos_files

Go to the _files folder and find the file named fullscreen.htm. Open it in Notepad and you'll see something very much like this:


Add the following code between the </script> and the </head> tags:



So it should look like this:


Make sure to copy the powerpointmusic.mp3 file into the _files folder too!

Now, upload the whole shabang to your website, making sure to keep the reletive folder locations the same, and then your users can link to the 2006photos.htm file for an in-browser slideshow (after they load the page, they'll need to press the Slideshow button for the full-screen effect with music.


Let me know if something doesn't make sense!

EDIT: Oh, and it olny completely works in IE 5 or higher.

Check out Microsoft Photo Story 3

Maybe I missed the connection, but wht does that have to do with powerpoint?

It's an alternative to using PowerPoint.

Sorry for the delay in responding!

Amazing Andrew;
I followed all those steps and everything went smoothly, but when I go to publish the whole thing to the web, Frontpage doesn't seem to recognize the "2006photos_files" folder. It recognizes the "2006photos.htm" file which is now in the main "2006 Powerpoint" folder, but not the folder that comes with it. I tried restarting my computer, refreshing Powerpoint and doing just about everything else I can think of to get it to recognize that folder so that it will upload, but I've had no luck at all. I've moved them completely out and back in again, I've uploaded the entire 2006 Powerpoint folder twice, but the "2006photos_files" folder never seems to get uploaded in the process. Frontpage recognizes that it exists when I go to File - Open and browse to it, and it will open the files inside of it, but when I go to Publish Web, it's the same thing every time; the folder never appears, and though the "2006photos.htm" file uploads successfully, it won't work because its folder doesn't get uploaded along with it. Does anyone know of anything that I could do about this?

Today (Saturday, March 31st) is the deadline for when this is supposed to be on my website, so any prompt help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks,

-Alec

You use Frontpage to upload your files to your webserver right? I've never used Frontpage for that, I can't be much help there. Does your server company allow other programs (they should). I use SmartFTP to upload my stuff. If you can, use that program to upload your files. You may need to create the 2006photos_files folder on the server before you can upload.

The "amended powerpoint" file downloads fine and goes through the slideshow normally without any problems, but there still isn't any music. It gives an error message saying "Powerpoint was unable to locate the linked multimedia file C:\Documents and Settings\Jim\Desktop\powerpointmusic.mp3."
The standalone presentation also opens and runs fine on its own in either Powerpoint Viewer or Internet Explorer, but again, there's no music.

Also, I did manage to eventually get the 2006photos_files folder up on my website, and the powerpoint as a .htm file does work in Internet Explorer, and the music DOES play, but in between slides the entire screen turns to a blank white, then the next slide appears for a fraction of a second, then the screen turns white again and then the next slide appears for a split second and then it turns white again and so on.

So, I'm still not really sure what to do. I'd like to create the same presentation with a different program if possible, but the aforementioned Microsoft Photo Story 3 only works with Windows XP (I have Windows 98) and I'm not interested in spending money on an entirely new program just to create the same slideshow.

I guess what I'm looking for is a way to make a .pps file that people can download, open in Powerpoint Viewer (it will run on its own) and have the music automatically play in the background. The problem seems to be that unless the mp3 file is on their computer already, downloaded in a specific location (i.e. C:\Documents and Settings\Jim\Desktop\powerpointmusic.mp3) it won't be able to be located and therefore won't play. Is there some way that hasn't been discussed yet of merging the mp3 file with a .pps presentation so that no matter what computer a person views it on, the mp3 will play automatically along with the slideshow?

MP3 files will always be linked in powerpoint, but wav files can be directly embedded. If you converted the music to wav, you should be able to do it. One problem though: when I converted the music as a test, the wav file was 10 times larger than the mp3

Yeah, same here. I converted it into a .WAV file and not only did it go from being 5.04MB to 93.1MB, but the .WAV file afterwards skipped every 2 seconds and was a jumbled mess to listen to. Maybe that's just the software that I used to convert it with though, I don't know. So, does this mean there's no way to convert it to a .WAV file and have it remain under 10MB and be roughly the same audio quality as it was before? I know with .AVI movie files there are shrinking programs which will take a 600MB file and shrink the filesize to around 75MB without changing the quality too much, but I don't know of any for .WAV audio files.

Firstly my appologies regarding the edited powerpoint, totally forgot about linked objects!

Anyhow, I have since re-edited the powerpoint and uploaded it, hopefully it will be working with the sound file embedded.

The only problem that may arise is that I resampled the original sound file and its attributes are now:

File type: *.wav
Format: Microsoft ADPCM
Attributes: 11,025kHz 4 Bit Mono

The obvious downside to the new format is that it's in mono, but this has greatly reduced the size of the sound file to around 2meg. The total file download size is around 16MB.

Hope this helps!!

Your new PowerPoint show (*.pps) can be found here

Worked for me. But kind of a hefty download.

I agree with Amazing Andrew, many people won't want to wait for ages to download the file even if they have broardband/adsl etc. Perhaps try using another medium to display your images:

1) convert your powerpoint to an avi - look here
2) Try using a program like Microsoft PhotoStory - look here (PhotoStory saves the file as a wmv) + its free
3) Create a flash photo album - google results here.

Alternatively have a look at this link thought it's right up your street, convert your PowerPoint to Flash you can either host the files from you webspace or offer the user the choice to download and run locally on their computer. The downside is that its not free but the file size is just over 9MB!

Takes around 45 secs to download over my ADSL connection (260kb/sec)