Re: Can a powerpoint created on a PC with "Insert Video" links be made to run on a MAC?

From: Jim Gordon MVP (goldkey74_at_WarmerThanWarmMail.com)
Date: 02/04/05 

Date: Thu, 03 Feb 2005 22:21:28 -0500

Hi Bill,

Your CD burning software may allow you to select a file to use as an
autostart on Mac OS 9 and earlier and on Windows. It's my understanding
that in OSX this feature has been removed because it is a security risk
to allow programs to run simply by putting a disk into the drive. So
even if you chose to have an autostart file when you burned the disk OSX
will ignore the setting. Autostart is a function of the OS and the file
system, not PowerPoint.

The Mac PowerPoint player is quite old. I think the latest one is for
PowerPoint 98. It is quite possible that the player was not designed to
handle all movies, particularly any that were inserted in newer versions
of PowerPoint or use codecs that it does not have. A workaround that is
sometimes OK is to use PowerPoint 2004 to save the presentation as a
QuickTime movie and play the movie instead of the PowerPoint file.

AVI is a good choice as a common file format for video when you need to
use both Mac and Windows. PowerPoint itself does not play movies. On
MacOS it relies upon QuickTime. On Windows it uses a different player.
The AVI format is the one that works best as far as I know. If you find
an mpeg format that both QuickTime and the Windows player likes then go
ahead and use it, but I've had best results with AVI.

-Jim 

-- 
Jim Gordon
Mac MVP
MVP FAQ
<http://mvp.support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=fh;EN-US;mvpfaqs>
Bill Walter wrote:
> I have little experience with MAC and I have to visit one of the schools to
> try anything.
> 
> I have a number of PowerPoint presentations created using Office 2003 that
> contain PowerPoint slides and inserted links to video.If I take the
> presentation and do a Pack for CD I can take the CD to a MAC and if Office
> and PowerPoint are already installed on the MAC I can click on the
> PowerPoint presentation and get it to play and the video will play also.
> 
> On the PC the presentation automatically starts a menu and used the
> PowerPoint Player if the target machine does not already have a copy of
> PowerPoint installed.
> 
> On the MAC it does not autostart and even if I install the MAC PowerPoint 
> player
> the video content will not play. If the full PowerPoint is installed is
> still does not auto-start but the video content does play.
> 
> I tried one MAC that had Microsoft office installed and if I inserted the CD
> and clicked on the PowerPoint presentation the presentation would show and
> when I got to a slide that had a inserted video the video would play when
> the video picture was clicked.
> 
> On that same machine I downloaded the Microsoft
> PowerPoint player for MAC. The click was still associated with the full
> PowerPoint so I opened the PowerPoint player and selected the PowerPoint
> presentation and it displayed but when I go to a slide with an inserted
> video it would not play. Does that mean that the PowerPoint viewer cannot
> play some videos that the full PowerPoint for MAC can play or am I still
> doing something wrong?
> 
> The videos themselves will play if I click on them on the MAC so it must
> have some program  to allow the video to play. I am using AVI files because
> that seemed to be one of the only formats that was shown to be available in
> PowerPoint on both the MAC and PC. I tried MOV and although it played fine
> on the PC outside of PowerPoint it would not start from PowerPoint. I did
> not try it on the MAC because I am doing the presentation creation on the PC
> and I cannot test it on the PC with MOV files. I have not tried MPG yet.
> What specific version and parameters will insure that a MPG will play on
> both a MAC and PC from a PowerPoint slide show?
> 
> I am trying to make some educational content for a school district that has
> some schools using MAC and other schools using PC.
> 
> 1. Can I modify the CD so that it will autostart on either PC or MAC?
> 2. Can the MAC PowerPoint player play video that the full version of MAC
> PowerPoint will play?
> 3. Are there any books or articles on interchangeability of PowerPoint
> content between MAC and PC?
> 4. On the PC I have a monitor and a TV connected to the video card. When the 
> presentation plays the video plays imbedded in the slide on the Monitor, but 
> on the TV it switches from showing a copy of the slide to a full screen 
> version of the video. Can the MAC be set to go to full screen for the video 
> portion?
> 
> Bill Walter
> 
> 
> I tried one MAC that had Microsoft office installed and if I inserted the CD
> and clicked on the PowerPoint presentation the presentation would show and
> when I got to a slide that had a inserted video the video would play when
> the insert was clicked. On that same machine I downloaded the Microsoft
> PowerPoint player for MAC. The click was still associated with the full
> PowerPoint so I opened the PowerPoint player and selected the PowerPoint
> presentation and it displayed but when I go to a slide with an inserted
> video it would not play. Does that mean that the PowerPoint viewer cannot
> play some videos that the full PowerPoint for MAC can play or am I still
> doing something wrong?
> 
> The videos themselves will play if I click on them on the MAC so it must
> have some program  to allow the video to play. I am using AVI files because
> that seemed to be one of the only formats that was shown to be available in
> PowerPoint on both the MAC and PC. I tried MOV and although it played fine
> on the PC outside of PowerPoint it would not start from PowerPoint. I did
> not try it on the MAC because I am doing the presentation creation on the PC
> and I cannot test it on the PC with MOV files. I have not tried MPG yet.
> What specific version and parameters will insure that a MPG will play on
> both a MAC and PC from a PowerPoint slide show?
> 
> Bill Walter
> 
> 
>

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