Can I reference and external file for my text content? (PP 2007)

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Guest

Hi There,

I work for an institution that Is putting up flat LCD screens around the
place, and I am responsible for creating a system so that the screens display
information that can be updated by a number of people.

Rather than purchase/develop a new backened system, I am interested to know
if I can acheive the result I want using powerpoint and access (or even
excel).

I want to have a powerpoint running on a computer that outputs to the
screens. Within this powerpoint there is going to be a generic looping slide
show with various information about the institution which will remain static
and unchanged for a very long time.

However certain aspects of the powerpoint I want updated a few times a
week.. for example an "important announcments" page.

I want to know if powerpoint 2007 can reference external files for its text
content. I would love to have a spreadsheet/xml file/text document that
others can simply update with unformatted text, which powerpoint then calls
upon, formats and slots into place.

I hope you can understand what I am trying to acheive here and do appreciate
any input

Thanks

-Tom
 
Tom,

Yes, this can be done, however...

PowerPoint doesn't do well in long running/looping presentations and will
tend to "die" in a day or two. (Sometimes less than a say depending on a
number of factors.) Also, unless you are willing to use some VBA code, you
must restart the presentation to update any changes you made in the linked
text/content.


Austin Myers
MS PowerPoint MVP Team

Provider of PFCPro, PFCMedia and PFCExpress
www.playsforcertain.com
 
Hi Austin,

Thanks for your reply. In regards to the long running death, I don't think
this will be a huge problem as the presentation will be running for no more
than 8 hours (business hours) a day... and to restart this once or twice
throughout the day shouldn't be much of an inconvienice, however thankyou
for the heads up!

Also, the restart once the content has been updated will also be no problem.

So, with that aside could you please point me in the right direction on how
to go about this?

Much appreciated

-Tom
 
As you are going to want to link to the external data, I would suggest using
the "Insert > Object > From File feature. During the insert process make
certain "Show as Icon" is NOT checked. Once inserted on the slide as an ole
linked object simply place and size as desired. This is probably the
easiest method and should do the trick for you.

How I like doing something like this is to have a folder where ALL linked
documents are kept along with the presentation. I then have an exact copy
on the PC where I will make my changes. Once the changes are made I simply
copy the entire folder to the machine where its being ran and then restart
the presentation.

Austin Myers
MS PowerPoint MVP Team

Provider of PFCPro, PFCMedia and PFCExpress
www.playsforcertain.com
 
Great, thankyou both for the guidance.

I have done some experimenting and it seems like having the main powerpoint
referencing other power points for each "module" is the best bet.

What I was hoping, was to have a plain rich text file, and have a text field
in powerpoint that could grab its content from the plain text, and format it
accordingly to whatever font settings I set up. It's probably a little beyond
powerpoint. I was considering doing this in Flash as it is what I am trained
in, but it seemed a little overkill.

Anyway, thanks again and feel free to fire any more information you think of
at me.

-Tom



Echo S said:
You might want to take a look at PPTMerge. http://www.pptools.com/index.html

--
Echo [MS PPT MVP] http://www.echosvoice.com
What's new in PowerPoint 2007? http://www.echosvoice.com/2007.htm
(New!) The PowerPoint 2007 Complete Makeover Kit http://tinyurl.com/2qzlpl
Fixing PowerPoint Annoyances
http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/powerpointannoy/index.html
PPTLive! Oct 28-31, New Orleans http://www.pptlive.com

TomLewis said:
Hi Austin,

Thanks for your reply. In regards to the long running death, I don't think
this will be a huge problem as the presentation will be running for no
more
than 8 hours (business hours) a day... and to restart this once or twice
throughout the day shouldn't be much of an inconvienice, however thankyou
for the heads up!

Also, the restart once the content has been updated will also be no
problem.

So, with that aside could you please point me in the right direction on
how
to go about this?

Much appreciated

-Tom
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
What I was hoping, was to have a plain rich text file, and have a text
field
in powerpoint that could grab its content from the plain text, and format
it
accordingly to whatever font settings I set up. It's probably a little
beyond
powerpoint. I was considering doing this in Flash as it is what I am
trained
in, but it seemed a little overkill.
Click to expand...

That's what PPTMerge does.

--
Echo [MS PPT MVP] http://www.echosvoice.com
What's new in PowerPoint 2007? http://www.echosvoice.com/2007.htm
(New!) The PowerPoint 2007 Complete Makeover Kit http://tinyurl.com/2qzlpl
Fixing PowerPoint Annoyances
http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/powerpointannoy/index.html
PPTLive! Oct 28-31, New Orleans http://www.pptlive.com
 
Is it possible to insert another powerpoint presentation as an object, and
have the slides automatically progress within the object? So say I had two
powerpoint presentations that both progressed through each slide after 5
seconds, can I add them both as objects into a single powerpoint, and have
them both run at the same time?

-Tom
 
I'm not sure exactly what you're asking here, but see
http://www.awesomebackgrounds.com/powerpointlinking.htm for instructions on
inserting slides as objects and animating the object.

--
Echo [MS PPT MVP] http://www.echosvoice.com
What's new in PowerPoint 2007? http://www.echosvoice.com/2007.htm
(New!) The PowerPoint 2007 Complete Makeover Kit http://tinyurl.com/2qzlpl
Fixing PowerPoint Annoyances
http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/powerpointannoy/index.html
PPTLive! Oct 28-31, New Orleans http://www.pptlive.com
 
I work for an institution that Is putting up flat LCD screens around the
place, and I am responsible for creating a system so that the screens display
information that can be updated by a number of people.
Click to expand...

A couple of our PPT2HTML customers have done something like this using an
html-based presentation. With the right combination of settings, the
presentation can autoadvance and loop.

Any number of PCs can be playing the same set of HTML files and should, I think,
reload any updated files when they get to them, meaning that the content on any
page could be updated on the fly.

(By the way, Echo mentioned PPTools Merge; while it'll let you generate a PPT
file from external data, it won't update on the fly, so may not be quite what
you want; on the other hand, if you don't mind stopping the loop once in a
while, merging in the new data, then starting the loop again, Merge might work
nicely).

See the PPTools link below for more info on Merge and PPT2HTML.
Both have fully functional demos you can test, and I'll be happy to help you
work out how to use either in your application. steve at-sign pptools dot com
 
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