TechNote (Archived)

Using Flash movies in PowerPoint

Note: June 2008. The following information is provided for historical reference. Use of the Adobe Flash Player ActiveX control as an embedded control inside other Windows applications is not a planned feature of Flash Player, is not tested by Adobe during the development process, and is not supported by Adobe Technical Support. Issues with these techniques should be discussed on the Adobe Support Forums with other developers.

Using Adobe Flash SWF in PowerPoint

Integrating a Flash SWF inside PowerPoint allows vector animation and interactivity to be added to a PowerPoint presentation. The information provided in this TechNote was tested with the Office 2000 version of Microsoft PowerPoint. Earlier and later versions may vary from the steps shown here.

Can it be done?

When viewing Flash content in Windows using Internet Explorer, Flash Player content is played using an ActiveX control. ActiveX is a Microsoft technology consisting of 'controls' that sit on top of a Windows subsystem called COM (Component Object Model). For detailed information on ActiveX controls see Microsoft's ActiveX pages. All other browsers and platforms use the Flash Player Plugin, which use the parent browser's plugin support rather than Microsoft's COM system.

ActiveX controls are used to extend the abilities of Windows and Internet Explorer, adding features such as video playback, audio and Flash playback. Each control handles a specific type of functionality. When a control is needed for a certain type of playback, it is automatically downloaded from a secure location, the control installs itself, and then becomes available to Windows. This allows Windows to acquire new functionality by adding a small binary file, without reinstalling or restarting the operating system.

The advantage of ActiveX controls is that although they are generally downloaded and used in Internet Explorer, once they exist on your system any Windows application that understands COM can use the controls to extend their applications.

One use of this technology is embedding a functional ActiveX controlled Flash movie inside a PowerPoint presentation.

Requiring the ActiveX control

Note: Using Flash in PowerPoint requires the Flash ActiveX control to be installed on the machine which will be viewing the PowerPoint content. If that machine is using Internet Explorer 4 or higher and Internet Explorer can view Flash content then the ActiveX control is installed.

If there is any doubt if the Flash control is present it's best to uninstall existing controls and reinstall. See How to remove the Flash Player ActiveX Control (TechNote tn_12727) for more information. After uninstalling the control, use Internet Explorer to go to http://www.adobe.com/ and automatically install the most recent version of the control.

Embedding the Flash content in PowerPoint

Once you've considered the handling of the ActiveX control you can add the Flash content to PowerPoint.

Open PowerPoint.
Choose View > Toolbars > Control Toolbox. This will open the ActiveX Control toolbar.
At the bottom of the Control Toolbox there is an "other controls" icon.

Select this icon to open the list of ActiveX controls installed on your machine.
Choose "Shockwave Flash Object" from the list of controls:
Choosing Shockwave Flash Object from the list of controls will change the cursor to a crosshair. Move the cursor over the slide. Click and drag to define the area the Flash movie will play in. The Flash movie can take up as much of the screen as you wish.
After creating the Flash "window", right-click on the window. Choose "Properties" from the pop-up to open the Flash object control properties.
Choose "..." to the right of 'Custom' . This opens the Page Properties dialog for the Flash control.
In the Page Properties dialog enter the path or URL to the SWF you wish to use. If the SWF is in the same directory as the PowerPoint file just enter the SWF name. The SWF can also be at any valid URL network address.

The remainder of the items in the dialog are described in Chapter 13 of 'Using Flash' under Publishing & Exporting.
Click OK in the Property Pages. Now view the slideshow. The Flash content will play just as it does in the Flash player.

Additional Information

Again, Adobe Technical Support cannot advise on this procedure. If you have problems using Flash SWF files in PowerPoint, we recommend posting questions to the Adobe Support Forums.