How to publish a PowerPoint presentation to the Web

Putting a presentation on your Web site isn’t terribly complicated — but browser differences can pose a big gotcha. Here’s a look at the publication process and the hurdles you may encounter.

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PowerPoint can create an impressive Web site, if all conditions are just right. First, you create the presentation in PowerPoint on a local system. Then, you save the presentation to HTML format. Finally, you upload the HTML files to a Web server. But even though it seems easy, the road to Web success is riddled with potholes. That’s because a PowerPoint Web presentation works best in Internet Explorer (IE). If you can guarantee viewers will be using a recent version of IE, you’re in luck.

Note: This article is also available as a PDF download.

The basics of publishing to the Web

Publishing a presentation to the Web begins with converting the presentation to HTML as follows:

1. With the presentation open in PowerPoint, choose Save As Web Page from the File menu.
2. Using the Save In control in the resulting Save As dialog box, browse to the folder where you want to save your presentation. (If you can connect directly to the server, you can save the files to the server, which is considerably easier. But for most of us, that’s seldom an option.)
3. Change the filename, if you want.
4. From the Save As Type drop-down list, choose Single File Web Page or Standard Web Page. If you save your presentation as a standard Web page, PowerPoint will generate an HTML file and a folder that contains a number of additional files that the presentation needs. Saving your file as a single file Web page creates one file that contains everything. Don’t choose Single File Web Page unless you know what you’re doing.
5. If you want to change the page title, click the Change Title button and update the text accordingly. This is what will appear in the browser’s title bar.
6. Click Save.

The above process is easy, but often you’ll require a bit more flexibility to customize the resulting Web page(s). When this is the case, click the Publish button (in the Save As dialog box from step 1 above). The resulting Publish As Web Page, shown in Figure A, offers a number of options:

• Publish What?: Use these settings to specify exactly what goes to the Web. You can include all or a subset of slides. In addition, you can include your speaker notes. See Table A to view the many options available by clicking the Web Options button.
• Browser Support: Supporting older versions of Internet Explorer (IE) requires a larger file. There’s nothing wrong with forcing users to upgrade to see your presentation. The All Browsers Listed Above option will create a large file that’s slower to download. However, this option lets viewers see the presentation regardless of their IE version.
• Before publishing, you can also change the page title and the filename.

Figure A

Use the Publish As Web Page options to customize your Web files.

Table A

Tab	Option	Explanation	Recommended
General	Add Slide Navigation Controls	The default is to add a navigational frame to the left of the Web page.	Use only if needed.
	Show Slide Show While Browsing	The default disables browsing while running the slide show.	Use only if needed.
	Resize Graphics To Fit Browser Window	Automatically adjusts graphics.	Use if you can’t control viewer resolution.
Browsers	People Who View This Web Page Will be Using	Identify the capability browser and version.	Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.0 or later
	Allow PNG As A Graphics Format	Portable Network Graphics (PNG) requires less disk space than more common formats. Older browsers don’t support PNG.	Use only if needed.
	Rely On VML For Displaying Graphics In Browsers	Vector Markup Language (VML) describes 2D graphics in text format. Older browsers don’t support VML.	Use only if needed.
	Save An Additional Version Of The Presentation For Older Browsers	Most viewers will be able to see your presentation. This option increases the disk space required by your presentation.	Use only if needed.
	Save New Web Pages As Single File Web Pages	PowerPoint saves everything you need to run the presentation with the file, so you don’t need a support folder. Use this option when you have to distribute a presentation to others.	Only IE recognizes this format. If you know users will be using IE, you can use it. If the page is open to the public, don’t use it.
Files	Organize Supporting Files In A Folder	This default setting saves all supporting files in a single folder.	Use.
	Use Long File Names Whenever Possible	This default maintains the literal filenames.	Use.
	Update Links On Save	This default will update your links when you save changes to your presentation (if possible).	Use as required.
	Check If Office Is The Default Editor For Web Pages Created In Office	This default reviews the viewer’s default editor.	No reason to use.
Pictures	Screen Size	800 X 600 is the default setting.	This default means most page layouts will work with the lowest resolution.
Encoding	Ignore this tab unless you know what you’re doing; it allows you to modify output for browsers that support other languages.
Fonts	Ignore this tab unless you know what you’re doing; it allows you to modify output for browsers that support other languages.

Transferring your Web page to a Web server

If you have access to a Web server, you can save the presentation directly to it. However, most of us have to save the files to a local system and then move those files to a Web server. This process will be unique and specific to your ISP or your company’s intranet. Either way, you must contact the ISP or your network administrator for specific instructions. If you didn’t save the presentation as a single file, be sure you transfer all of the supporting files during this process.

You must create the same folder structure on the Web server and transfer the files exactly as they are on your local system. If you don’t, the slide show won’t work properly. This problem accounts for almost all missing graphics and broken links. All files must be in the same folder or subfolder and all files must retain the same names. Change nothing about the structure when transferring these files.

Testing

You can test the new Web page at just about any time. You don’t even have to save your presentation to view it as a Web page. For a quick preview, select Web Page Preview from PowerPoint’s File menu. PowerPoint will open the presentation, slide by slide, in your default browser. When you’re done, simply close your browser. After you publish the Web page, test the results thoroughly:

• Check for missing pages and graphics. If anything’s missing, you probably didn’t transfer all the supporting files properly.
• Test all links using a computer other than the one you used to save the presentation to a Web page. That way, if something’s linking to your computer, you’ll find the mistake. In addition, remember that links break quickly and often. Check them frequently.
• View your Web site in as many different browsers as you can.
• View your Web site using every possible resolution setting.
• View your Web site using both a Windows PC and a Mac, if possible.
• View your Web site using an operating system other than Windows, if possible.
• Test your Web site using different connections. You might want to change or even eliminate elements that slow things down.

If you’re publishing your presentation to a controlled environment where you know the operating system, browser, and resolution, you don’t have to be as thorough.

The devil’s in the details

Publishing a PowerPoint presentation to the Web seems easy enough, but you’ll seldom get what you expect. There are a number of limitations:

• Use the most recent version of IE possible. If you must support older versions of IE, consider creating additional versions of your presentation for older browsers. It’s difficult to get anything but the most basic presentation to run well on all versions of IE.
• Only IE supports the single file format. Don’t use it unless you know viewers will always be using IE.

• Don’t expect to get it right the first time. Start with the default settings, unless you know up front that a default isn’t adequate. Then, rework the presentation as needed.

PowerPoint to the Web

Although PowerPoint can transfer a presentation to the Web, the results can be disappointing. The biggest issue is the viewer’s environment. When you are sure viewers will use IE, PowerPoint Web pages are stable and effective. Unfortunately, it’s difficult to support a PowerPoint Web presentation in any browser other than IE. Public viewers may be very dissatisfied with what they see, regardless of how you hard you try to accommodate other browsers.

Break down points into individual slides

If you create presentations, you already know that simplicity and succinct language is key to an effective presentation. One way to drive this home is to reduce bulleted list to a series of slides — one slide per bullet. Then, summarize the points after reviewing all the points by including a list or chart that includes all the points. (This technique works with most any kind of list, not just bulleted lists.)

Why would you bother with several slides when one slide would do? When faced with a slide with many points, an audience tends to tune out or even read ahead — guessing what’s coming next. If you present one point per slide, your audience will grasp and retain each point better and they’ll pay closer attention.

Be sure to integrate your points into a summarizing list or graphic, after you’ve reviewed each point separately.

Office challenge: How can you fill a Word document with random text?

Formatting an empty Word template can be a challenge — you need text to see the full picture. You could copy text from another document but it might be easier to fill the document with some random text. How would you accomplish this bit of magic in Word?

Last week we asked…

“After deleting a message, how can you force Outlook to open the next message automatically?” The answer’s simple, as some of you said, if you know where to find the right setting. Sometimes — Okay, quite often — finding the right setting in Outlook is a challenge. rajan.sowri@… was the first to respond with the right setting; spin2nz responded first with all the steps to find the setting:

1. From the Tools menu, select Options.
2. Click the Preferences tab.
3. Click the E-mail Options button in the E-mail section.
4. In the Message Handling section, choose Open The Next Item from the After Moving or Deleting an Open Item option’s dropdown list.
5. Click OK twice.  

 

mhbaum@… also had the correct answer. Unfortunately, I believe Willie11 is correct about Outlook Express. If you know how to do this in Outlook Express, please share the setting. I don’t use Windows Mail, but I am looking for an answer to Willie11’s question.

Poll: How proficient are your users?

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post’s poll.

Prevent Excel from turning fractions into dates

If you don’t apply a fraction format to a cell before you enter a fraction into it, Excel will convert the fraction into a date. For example, if you enter 1/50 into a cell, Excel will convert it to Jan-50. If you then try to reformat the same cell to a fraction, Excel will convert it to 18264, the internal number that represents Jan-50. In that case, if you want Excel to recognize your cell entries as fractions, you must apply the appropriate fraction format to the cell before you enter the data.

For example, say you are importing a column of data from an Access database table that contains fractions such as 1/50, 2/70, and 30/65. You will need to format the column of cells containing the data to an appropriate fraction format before importing. Follow these steps:

1. Select the column that will contain the fractional data.
2. Right-click the selection.
3. Select Format Cells.
4. In the Number tab, under Category, select Fraction.
5. Under Type, select Up To Two Digits (21/25), then click OK.

Now, when you import the data to that column, Excel will format each entry as a fraction. Keep in mind that if the data contained fractions such as 30/750, you would select Up To Three Digits (312/943) in Step 5. If you wanted to display your data as fractions over 100 (for example, 30/65 displayed as 46/100), you would select As Hundreds (30/100) in Step 5.

If you won’t be using the fractions in calculations, you can prevent Excel from changing your entries to dates by applying the Text format to the cell before you enter the data. In that case, in Step 4 select Text under the Category list and then click OK.

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Back up Outlook’s AutoComplete list

Outlook keeps almost all of your data in a special personal folder file (.pst). That includes the AutoComplete list. That’s the list that pops up when you start typing someone’s name or address in a new message. This list is a special tool that Outlook stores in a separate file. It’s easy to take for granted — until it stops working correctly, or isn’t available at all.

Making a backup is easy; finding the file is the hard part. To find the Outlook file that contains your AutoComplete list, do the following:

1. Close Outlook.
2. Open Windows Explorer and enter the following address in the Address control: %appdata%\Microsoft\Outlook. Windows Explorer will update to the appropriate Outlook folder.
3. Right-click the Outlook.nk2 file. It may have another name, but there should be only one file with the .nk2 extension.
4. Select Copy from the resulting submenu. From there, you can copy the file to an external drive, USB drive, or CD — wherever you store your backup copies. If you copy the file to another folder on the same local drive, be sure to rename it to avoid problems.

If you have to restore the file, use the same method to find the right Outlook folder and then write over the existing .nk2 file, if it’s still there.

Number report records in Access

Numbering records in a report can be helpful to the reader. You could add an AutoNumber field to the underlying recordset, but that’s unnecessary and could have some unexpected results. If the report is based on a single table that already has an AutoNumber field, don’t depend on it either. Depending on how the underlying query or report filters records, there’s no guarantee the AutoNumber values will consecutively number your report’s records correctly. In fact, it’s almost a sure bet that they won’t! To consecutively number records in a report, do the following:

1. Open the report in Design view.
2. Add a text box to the Detail section, where you want the number to appear — usually, that’s just to the left of the record.   
3. With the text box selected, click Properties to open the control’s properties sheet.
4. Enter the expression =1 as the Control Source property.
5. Change the Running Sum property to Over All. If you’re numbering records in a grouped report and you want to number each group separately, choose Over Group.

Office challenge: After deleting a message, how can you force Outlook to open the next message automatically?

When you delete or move an open message, Outlook returns to the Inbox by default. How can you get Outlook to open the next message for you instead?

Last week we asked…

“How can you force Excel to open a specific workbook?” You guys gave some terrific answers! Like nikki.e.vaughan, my favorite way to open a specific workbook is to double-click the workbook file instead of launching Excel. You can even create a shortcut for the file and save it to your Desktop, making access quick and easy! In Windows Explorer, right-click the Workbook in question and choose Create Shortcut from the resulting submenu. Windows will create the shortcut in the same directory. Right-click the shortcut (Windows will automatically select it for you), choose Send To, and then select Desktop. Then, simply double-click the shortcut on the Desktop to launch both Excel and the workbook. It couldn’t be easier!

However, there’s more than one to skin this cat…

• PiGuy314 reminded us that you can configure Excel to open all files in a specific directory by choosing Options from the Tools menu, clicking the General Tab, and specifying a directory using the At Startup Open All Files In option. Whether you store one or several workbooks in the directory, Excel will open them when you launch. Be careful when you choose this option as Excel will attempt to open all files, not just Excel workbooks. In addition, it’ll cycle through any subfolders as well.
• Mihamil suggested saving workbook files in the XLSTART directory — another excellent solution.
• Mhbaum suggested using the Run command, which is a great tool that I forget about.

Printing multiple slides on a single page

Cam Howey, one of our Canadian members, recently reminded me that it’s easy to print multiple slides on a single piece of paper. The default is one slide per one sheet of paper, but as Cam reminded me, doing so isn’t economical or efficient, and it certainly isn’t green. Instead, unless you have a specific reason for doing otherwise, print multiple slides on a single sheet of paper as follows:

1. From the File menu, choose Print.
2. Click the Properties button (for the printer).
3. Every printer is different, but you should find a Pages Per Sheet option on a Layout tab (or something similar).

4. Choose the appropriate number of pages per sheet. Within this context, one page equals one PowerPoint slide. Most likely, your printer’s properties page will update a sample page, so you can get an idea of how well the multiple slides will work on a single sheet.
5. Click OK twice to print the slides, accordingly.

Be quick to cancel the print task if the first page doesn’t suit your needs. You might need to experiment a bit before you get just the right mix. As you can imagine, the more slides you print to one sheet, the smaller the images will be. You can use these multiple slide pages to document or review a presentation, and you’ll save paper.

All of the Office applications offer this printing capability. Knowing it exists is the key — and that the printer, not Office, determines where you’ll find the option.

Create a quick org chart in PowerPoint

When you need an easy way to illustrate a simple hierarchy, consider building an org chart directly on a PowerPoint slide. Here’s a look at how to use some basic diagramming tools so you can pull this together in a hurry.

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When you’re assembling a presentation to deliver news or information about the structure of your company, an org chart can help you convey the big picture. If that structure is vast or labyrinthine, you might be better served by creating a chart in Visio or some other dedicated diagramming tool. But if the structure is relatively flat (or lends itself to being split into discrete modules, which can be placed on a series of slides), you can quickly put something together within PowerPoint. The tools and options are straightforward, and the chart you create will blend in with the formatting of the presentation, saving you from having to modify a mismatched chart created outside PowerPoint.

Note: This article is also available as a PDF download.

The basics

PowerPoint lets you define the org chart structure according to four roles. At the top, you have a leader. Below the leader are his or her subordinates (who may in turn have subordinates of their own). People who appear on the same tier as a subordinate are coworkers. You’ll also find a spot for assistants, who branch off from the person they’re assisting. Figure A shows this scheme in its most rudimentary form.

Figure A

The process of creating this type of org chart really just boils down to adding and arranging shapes that represent the relationships of employees. To demonstrate, let’s create a simple chart. Then, we’ll consider various ways to tweak it. Start by creating a slide for the org chart:

1. Press Ctrl + M to insert a new slide.
2. Choose Format | Slide Layout to display the Slide Layout pane, if necessary.
3. Under Content Layouts, click on the Title And Content option.
4. Click Insert Diagram Or Organization Chart in the icon that appears in the middle of the new slide. PowerPoint will open the dialog box shown in Figure B. (Note: You can also access this dialog box regardless of slide layout by going to Insert | Diagram or clicking the Insert Diagram Or Organization Chart button on the Drawing toolbar.)

Figure B

Organization Chart is the default option, so just click OK. PowerPoint will insert a diagram on the slide and display the Organization Chart toolbar, as shown in Figure C. You’ll notice the chart is surrounded by a dotted gray border, which defines the chart area (or canvas). You can drag a handle on this border to change the dimensions of the area. By default, PowerPoint will resize the chart contents accordingly. You can also double-click on the canvas border to open the Format Organization Chart dialog box.

Figure C

After you’ve inserted a chart, the basic tasks required to set it up consist of adding shapes, adding names or labels to each shape, and setting the layout and formatting of the chart elements so they’re attractive (or at least easy to read and understand).

Adding shapes

Adding shapes is simply a matter of selecting an existing shape, clicking Insert Shape on the Organization Chart toolbar, and choosing the appropriate position. You can also right-click on a shape and choose the position from a shortcut menu.

In Figure D, for example, we selected a subordinate and clicked Insert Shape. As you can see, our choices are to insert a subordinate, a coworker, or an assistant. Figure E shows what happened when we inserted a subordinate: The new shape was added beneath the original one, and all the shapes were scaled to make room for the addition.

Figure D

Figure E

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Working with shapes

The shapes in an org chart are really just AutoShapes, which you can work with in various ways:

• If you click on a shape and see a hatch-mark border, you can add, edit, or format text inside the shape.
• To modify the shape itself (or add associated shapes to it), click on the border to display several small gray dots around it.
• To select multiple shapes for modification, hold down Shift as you click on each one. (There are other selection options, which we’ll look at shortly.)
• To quickly open the Format AutoShape dialog box, double-click on a shape.

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Adding text

Adding a name or label within a shape is just like inserting text in any other AutoShape (or text box). Click inside the shape and type the desired text. You can also apply text formatting using the usual means. For instance, you could select the CEO’s name in the top shape and click the Bold button to make it stand out a little more.

Adjusting the layout

Once you have all the shapes in your chart, you can adjust the layout if necessary. The default Standard layout we’ve looked at in the previous examples may be fine. But if the chart is too crowded or you want to change how groups are represented, you can experiment with the Layout options. In Figure F, for instance, we have a lot of subordinates reporting to a couple of managers, making the structure hard to discern. To improve things, we clicked on the shape for one manager and selected Right Hanging from the Layout drop-down list on the Organization Chart toolbar. Then we did the same thing for the second manager. As Figure G shows, this vertical arrangement does a better job of showing who’s grouped under whom.

Figure F

Figure G

You can explore the Layout options to find what works best for you. One additional note here: The AutoLayout option (on the Layout drop-down list) is enabled by default. If you need to manually build or change chart elements — such as adding a second leader at the top of the hierarchy — you can deselect this option. With AutoLayout turned off, you’ll be working with AutoShapes freehand rather than being constrained by any diagramming rules. Just bear in mind that if you reactivate AutoLayout for this chart, things will snap back into the configuration the tool thinks is best, and you’ll lose your customized structure.

Formatting the chart

The easiest way to format your org chart is to let PowerPoint do it. Just click within the chart and then click Autoformat on the Organization Chart toolbar. PowerPoint will open a gallery of formatting options for you to choose from. Most of the styles adapt to the color scheme of your presentation. For example, Figure H shows how the Gradient option looks for a slide with a dark red color scheme. If you later apply a different color scheme or design template, PowerPoint will change the chart colors to match.

Figure H

If you’d rather manually format your org chart, you can work with the elements as you would any other AutoShapes — select them and apply the desired formatting. We mentioned earlier that you can hold down Shift and click to select multiple items. But a more logical scenario would be to apply the same formatting to particular items in the same category — for instance, all the shapes at a certain level, all of one manager’s reports, or all the assistants.

PowerPoint makes that process easy. Let’s say you want Bev Greene and all her reports to be, well, green. Select the shape for Bev and click Select on the Organization Chart toolbar. Choose Branch to select all of Bev’s subordinates, as shown in Figure I. (Choosing Branch would also select Bev’s assistants, if she had any.) You can then click Fill Color on the Drawing toolbar and choose green, as we’ve done in Figure J.

Figure I

Figure J

Wrap up

We’ve covered a lot of territory here, introducing the various options. But in actual practice, you can probably throw together a chart in far less time than it took to read this article. And don’t forget that you can parcel out your structure across multiple slides to keep things manageable. Just create a separate chart for each business unit, division, department, or team — whatever makes sense for your presentation. If you use Autoformat, you won’t have to worry about consistent appearance from one chart to the next.

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