play powerpoint

NoBullMan

Hi,
I need to be able to show a set of powerpoint slides on my site when a link or button is clicked. I don't want the file to be downloaded (which will require the user to have powerpoint or a viewer installed), just play it.
Can someone tell me if it is possible?

Thanks.

Weedpacket

NoBullMan wrote:
Can someone tell me if it is possible?

I can.

Oh, you want to know if it's possible?
Yes.

Oh, you want to know how to do it?
Using the appropriate MIME type in the Content-Type: header you can tell the client what sort of file you're serving. The browser can then decide what it needs to do with it. Of course, to play a Powerpoint presentation will require the user to have Powerpoint or some sort of viewer installed with which to play it.

etully

Man WP, I love your sense of humor. Seriously - you say all the things I want to say.

To the OP, since you expressly stated that you don't want to assume that the user has PP installed, then you have to deliver the slides in a format that the user's browser can likely display. So you have two options: First, you can convert your PP slides to some more common format like HTML, PDF, GIF, or even Flash ahead of time. This way, the user is able to click, click, click their way through the presentation. The other thing you can do is to develop some sort of converter that works automagically. That is, you simply upload your PP presentation. When the user clicks on the converter script, it reads the presentation and builds the HTML, PDF, GIF, or even Flash files on the fly.

The first option is easier to build but requires extra effort from you every time you add a new PP presentation to your site.

The second option is harder to build but makes it extremely easy for you to add any number of new presentations - you simply upload them.

As for how to do it, Microsoft has made a fortune making their formats closed and hard to extract data... so, um, good luck with that.

NoBullMan

Thanks etully.
I think for now I stick with your first suggestion since from what you are saying, because of the closed format of PP, it is not an easy task to create the converter (impossible for me at my level of php knowledge). If you know of any article that describes the how-to, I would appreciate a link or two.

Thanks to WP too for his humerous reply.

Weedpacket

To do the conversion that etully suggests you may find that Powerpoint has some sort of "Export" functionality to save a presentation in a more widely-recognised format. I know OpenOffice does (which, incidentally, can read Powerpoint presentation files).