PowerPoint Presentation Compiler

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M@tty
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PowerPoint Presentation Compiler

#1 Post by M@tty »

My mother has some PowerPoint presentations she wants to be able to take to work and show her colleages. PowerPoint isn't installed, and there is quite limited access on the computers (no registry access and other restrictions).

Apparently (I don't use PowerPoint myself so I don't know) older versions of PowerPoint had a feature to export the slideshow to a compiled stand-alone executable, but 2003 (the version she now uses) does not, apparently.

Well I need a program, preferably portable but that isn't essential as the program will be run at home not at work, that takes in PowerPoint 2003 presentations and compiles them into stand-alone applications that don't touch the registry.

At first I thought portable PowerPoint + Presentation bundled together, but she doesn't want the original contents of the presentation to be modifiable.

I'm crap at Googling :mrgreen:, what I did manage to find was a program that converts to Flash files, this isn't acceptable as she wants single-exe files that will run the presentation (:roll:), so does anybody here know of such a program? Preferably free, or available via download for a small fee.

Thanks, M@tty

Yucca
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#2 Post by Yucca »

M@tty,

I think what your mom needs is available in PowerPoint 2003. Look at this link for instructions on creating a self-executing PowerPoint presentation that can run without installed PowerPoint:

http://www.indezine.com/products/powerp ... t2exe.html

HTH.

Yucca

M@tty
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#3 Post by M@tty »

Hi Yucca and thanks for the response.

In my browsing I did end up on the site you linked, the reason why I did not show that straight away to my mom is because of this line:
PowerPoint stores all required content including the presentation, linked files, Viewer and two text files (autorun.inf and play.bat) within a folder you choose.
Sounds to me essentially the same as my idea, to bundle together the presentation with a portable PowerPoint Viewer. She doesn't want the actual presentation to be held on the CD in the same format as it originally was, as that can be copied to hard drive and opened with PowerPoint and edited - she does not want this.

As I don't have PowerPoint I can't test wether or not I'm correct in my assumption, but that's why I came here to ask if there are any programs to compile to a single EXE.

Yucca
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#4 Post by Yucca »

M@tty,

Sorry, I should have read your initial post more carefully. I did not realize why you needed to compile all the files into a single executable.

You can set a password before using the "Package for CD" approach, but that won't solve your problem -- because she would have to give the people the password to open the presentation for viewing, and with the password, they could also edit it.

The only solution I know off-hand to prevent editing the presentation would be to "print" it to a pdf (encrypted if desired) printer driver as color slides and then distribute the presentation as a pdf file. That looks pretty good, but not all of the transitions and animations will be preserved in the transfer to pdf. If she uses a lot of custom animations, that may not work well -- but, heck, why not try it and see how it looks? The advantage, of course, is that virtually everyone has a pdf reader and that it works across platforms (not just on Windows).

I'll keep thinking and let you know if I find a better solution.

HTH,

Yucca

Yucca
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#5 Post by Yucca »

M@tty,

OK, I found an ingenious and very simple solution for "locking" PowerPoint files at:
http://www.msfn.org/board/lock-powerpoint-t53948.html . Look for the post by LeeAndrew at Apr 25 2007, 03:18 AM. (In Windows, the files are PPT rather than PPS files, but the rest of those instructions are fine.)

I tried this and it works great to "lock" the presentation to prevent editing. The concept is that the inserted PowerPoint file will not be available on the remote computer and therefore will not be able to be opened for editing -- only for viewing!

Then you could use "Package for CD" to make the "locked" presentation portable, so that it can be run without an installed version of PowerPoint.

HTH,

Yucca

M@tty
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#6 Post by M@tty »

Thanks for the finds Yucca!

I shall present them and see what she says. :)

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grannyGeek
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#7 Post by grannyGeek »

If you only need a converter for a short period of time, I saw on Softpedia a 30-day trial download for
PowerPoint-Slide-Show-Converter, $49 US to buy.

http://www.softpedia.com/get/Office-too ... rter.shtml

supposedly it converts the powerpoint file to a self-executing slide show / exe. Never used it, just passing on the link.

( powerpoint is really the devil's workshop, ask me how much time gets wasted in my office by playing with powerpoint ;-) )

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Queue
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#8 Post by Queue »

If the PowerPoint-to-Flash converter makes acceptable flash versions out of the powerpoint files, you can then package the resulting flash file as a stand-alone executable. I can dig up the utility I use and upload it here if that interests you at all. Again though, this is assuming the generated flash file is actually of acceptable quality and interactivity.

Queue

M@tty
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#9 Post by M@tty »

Ahh grannyGeek that seems to be the sort of thing she is after. Like I said, "preferably free" but she doesn't mind paying a small amount. $49 US is like... £25 GBP right? That's nothing really.

So thanks everybody for the suggestions.

Yucca
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#10 Post by Yucca »

M@tty,

I agree with Granny that converting to flash is a good way to go -- but you said in your initial post that your mother didn't want to use flash.

Anyway, if flash is acceptable, there is at least one free and portable solution. Go to http://winpenpack.com and grab the current portable version of X-OpenOffice. (The portable version of OpenOffice on John Haller's site is not for the current version, but it would probably work well too.)

Start X-OpenOffice and load the PowerPoint program with it. (It will load in OpenOffice's Impress, a PowerPoint clone.) Then just File/Export to Macromedia flash.

See if that works for your mother. It's quick, portable and free. I expect the paid converters like the one Granny suggested may be better at preserving slide transitions and other custom animations, but OpenOffice does provide a free and portable alternative.

Good luck. Please let us know what you decide and how it works.

Yucca

M@tty
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#11 Post by M@tty »

I don't think there is any flash involved Yucca, grannyGeek suggested a program that the description goes like this:
PowerPoint Slide Show Converter turns a presentation created with Microsoft PowerPoint into a self-running slide show application (executable file) or a screen saver that can be copied to any computer and will run on Windows without requiring any additional program files.
Sounds like exactly what she is looking for. I will certainly return to this topic to tell you what she decides to go with and how well it works.

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andreas
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#12 Post by andreas »

Also download trial version of at Presentation To Video Converter
It's a PowerPoint converter & burner
http://www.download.com/Presentation-to ... ?tag=lst-1

Yucca
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#13 Post by Yucca »

Matty,

I just found what looks like a simple way to password-protect a PowerPoint file that allows viewing but not editing unless the user has the password.

See this link:
http://roobaroo.net/2006/08/01/lock-pow ... ng-edited/ .

I tested this by opening a PowerPoint file, password-protecting it for modification only, and then packaging it for CD (PowerPoint 2003 Viewer).

This worked flawlessly. The Viewer opened the presentation for viewing without any problem. When I tried to open the actual presentation file in the packaged folder, it asked me for a password or otherwise allowed me to open it for read only.

By the way, when I tried to open the password-protected PowerPoint file in OpenOffice (to see if I could override the protection), it would not open even for reading.

What did your mother decide? Did you find a solution?

Happy New Year,

Yucca

M@tty
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#14 Post by M@tty »

Thanks for your continued suggestions!

She did indeed purchase the program grannyGeek suggested and as best I can tell, she seems happy with it.

Sorry for not replying back in the thread, I had forgotten about it. :oops:

And a belated happy new year to you too! Matty

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