How to import a Flash Player compatible (SWF) file into PowerPoint.

By following these simple steps, you will be up and running in no time at all and impressing your audience with your talents!

1. Open up your PowerPoint presentation. Select the page into which you want to insert the animation.

2. Go to View - Toolbars - Control Toolbox (figure 1) - you will then get an option box on your screen (figure 2).

Figure 1

3. In the control toolbox, click on the icon that looks like a little hammer, and select "Shockwave Flash Object" (figure 2) from the list.

Figure 2

4. On your page, drag a square in the place where you want the animation to appear.

5. After you have drawn your animation box, you will see something similar to figure 3 - a transparent box with 6 white dots representing the 4 corners as well as the top and bottom of the animation.

Figure 3

6. At this point, you need to edit the properties, e.g. the size etc, of your SWF file. To do this, right-click on the box with an X through it (this is your animation), select Properties from the menu (figure 4), and the properties menu will pop up.

Figure 4

7. To add your SWF file, in the Properties menu, double click on (Custom) at the top of the menu as in figure 5.

Figure 5

8. A Properties Pages menu will now appear, this is where you enter the path to your SWF file. In the example we have chosen PING as our animation and it is located in the root of drive C:, so in the Movie URL we entered C:\ping.swf. 

9. Also within the Properties Pages menu, be sure to tick the 'Embed Movie' box as well otherwise the animation will not display correctly when the presentation is moved to another location.

10. Finally, save and run your slide show in presentation view.