Support for web authors

PowerPoint and the web

On this page:

• In short
• What's the problem?
• Recommended solutions

In short

There are accessibility problems with using the 'save as web page' option in PowerPoint 2000 and PowerPoint XP, as they both automatically uses frames when creating the web page. 

What's the problem

PowerPoint 98 had a function to save your PowerPoint presentation as a web page that could be easily viewed in any browser. Unfortunately this feature was changed for PowerPoint 2000 and versions above. You still have the option to save your presentation as a web page, however it is now saved as a frames based web page. There is no way to change the feature so that it doesn't use frames. The Guidelines for accessible web design on the University website give very clear information about why NOT to use frames.

Recommended solutions

There are three options:

• Save the presentation as a series of HTML files that link to each other
• Link directly to the PowerPoint presentation from an HTML file 
• Save the presentation as a PDF file and link from an HTML file 
• Use a service such as Slideshare

As an HTML file:

• First open the website that you want the presentation to be on, and open a new blank page, or create a template for the presentation.

• Return to PowerPoint. With your presentation open, switch to SLIDE SORTER VIEW. (VIEW/Slide Sorter) This will give a thumbnail image of each of the slides in your presentation. (Make sure the view size is set to 100% using the drop down menu, before proceeding).

• Right click on the first slide and select copy. 

• Return to your blank web page and select paste.

• Open up another blank web page, and then return to PowerPoint.

• Right click on the next slide and paste as above. Repeat this process until you have copied all of the slides in the presentation on to blank web pages in your website.

• When you copy/paste the PowerPoint slide into your web page it is pasted as a .jpg image file. It is important to remember to add alternative text to the image. 

  • right click on the image and select Picture Properties

  • type the alternative text in to the Alternative Representation/Text box.

• Save each web page with an easily recognised name such as slide1.htm, slide2.htm etc.

• When you save each of the web pages you will be prompted to save the embedded file within the web page. The embedded file is the image of the slide that you have copied onto the web page. The pop up box gives you a file name and folder where the file is going to be saved, there are various option that you can change:

  • rename - clicking on this button highlights the name of the file so you can change it to a more obvious name, eg slide1.jpg

  • change folder - browse to a new location to save the file, eg images folder

  • set action - leave as default - Save

• Add hyperlinks to each page to take you to the next/previous slides. A link to the beginning of the presentation from the last slide would also be a good idea. 

  • the links could be an image such as an arrow or simple text hyperlinks such as:

     <<Previous slide    |    Next slide>>    

• Add any other information as necessary to each of the web pages, such as:

  • shared Borders

  • university Logo

  • name of department/centre

  • title of presentation

  • contact details

• Save each of the pages and check your presentation in your browser.

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To create a template for a PowerPoint presentation in FrontPage

• Open a blank web page

• Add to this page any shared borders and contact information.

• Format the style of the page as you want it to appear.

  • add the text for the links to the previous/next slide 

• Save the page as something like: presentation-template.htm 

• Open the template.htm file in place of the blank web page in the notes above. Paste the presentation slide on to the page and then save the page as a different name:

  • file/Save As

  • slide1.htm (e.g.)

• Open the template.htm file again and paste the second slide into it, saving as a different name again. Repeat this process until you have pasted all the slides in the presentation.

• Once all of the slides are completed you can go through and add the links to the previous/next slides.

A very simple sample template is available to help make your presentation available on the web. Left click on the sample template to view it. Right click and select 'Save Target/Link As' to save the template to your own web directory.

Pros and Cons

Pros

• most reliable

• looks good

• very small size files that will load in most browsers

• easy to give extra information on the page at the same time

Cons

• most time consuming, particularly if your presentation is very large

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As a PowerPoint file:

You can also create a link to a copy of the PowerPoint presentation:

• You will need to import the presentation into your website. 

  • to do this first open your website with FrontPage and then in Folders view select the folder where you want to save the presentation. 

  • select FILE/Import.  

  • in the pop up window select Add file.  

  • change to the directory where your presentation is saved and select Open. A copy of your presentation will then be imported to the selected folder.

• To create a link to the Presentation:

  • open the web page where the link to the presentation is to go.  

  • type the text for the link and highlight it. Select the hyperlink icon from the toolbar or click with the right mouse button on the text and select hyperlink from the menu.  

  • select the presentation from the folder where it is saved, click OK.

Pros and Cons

Pros

• looks nice

Cons

• dependent on users having relevant programs installed on their machine

• some browsers will not open up PowerPoint files from the web, therefore a warning would need to be added to the link. Instructions could be given to save the PowerPoint file to the users hard drive (right click/ File/ Save As). However many users will not have permission to download documents to the machine they are using.

• huge file size

• can't easily add any other information to the pages

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As a PDF File

• You will need to have the full version of Adobe Acrobat installed on your machine. This is available from the University help desk. The default Adobe Acrobat installation in Windows includes a macro - Adobe PDFMaker - that allows you to create Adobe PDF files quickly and easily from within Microsoft Office applications. PDFMaker works with Microsoft Word 97, Word 2000, Word XP, Excel 97, Excel 2000, Excel XP, PowerPoint 97, PowerPoint 2000 and PowerPoint XP and is installed automatically if you have the Microsoft Office application on your system. 

• Open up your presentation in PowerPoint.  

• Click on the PDFMaker Macro icon on the tool bar . This automatically converts a copy of your presentation into a PDF file.

  • if this macro does not appear on the toolbar, select VIEW/Toolbars and click on PDFMaker. This will add the PDFMaker toolbar to your other toolbars at the top of the screen.

• You will then need to import the PDF file into your website:

  • to do this first open your website with FrontPage and then in Folders view select the folder where you want to save the PDF file. 

  • select FILE/Import.  

  • in the pop up window select Add file.  

  • change to the directory where your PDF file is saved and select Open. A copy of your PDF file will then be imported to the selected folder.

• To create a link to the PDF file:

  • open the web page where the link to the presentation is to go.  

  • type the text for the link and highlight it. Select the hyperlink icon from the toolbar or click with the right mouse button on the text and select hyperlink from the menu.  

  • select the presentation from the folder where it is saved, click OK.

Pros and Cons

Pros

• fairly small file size
• very quick and easy to convert to PDF

Cons

• dependant on you having the full version of Adobe Acrobat installed on your machine
• dependant on users having Acrobat Reader on their machine to read the file.  It is possible to provide a link to the Adobe website so users can download a copy of the Acrobat Reader to their machine, however, many users will not have permission to download any programs on to the machine they are using.

Use a service such as Slideshare

This external service allows you to publish your presentations, either publicly or with restricted access, in a variety of formats. The 2009 Institutional Web Management Workshop, hosted at Essex, used Slideshare to publish a range of presentations.

• Further information is available from Slideshare.