Autorun CD for PC and MAC?

[Guest]

My artist girlfriend is looking to produce a digital CV to send to
prospective clients. I created a snazzy powerpoint presentation allowing the
user to look at different aspects of her work, with each thumbnail being
linked to the full picture, as well as choosing to view her contact details,
education, etc. Therefore the presentation runs more like a web-page than an
actual presentation. I also created my own autorun file and successfully
packagedthe CD. My question is - will this CD work on MACs too? Many of her
clients may be using MACs so the CD must run on both MAC and PC. It was
created in Powerpoint 2002 using Windows XP and used the powerpoint 2003
viewer on the CD. If not, is there some software I can (cheaply) acquire
which will allow me to do this?

Regards,

niall

 

[Guest]

See: http://www.rdpslides.com/pptfaq/FAQ00281.htm

 

[Guest]

Sorry for being a bit thick, but I'm STILL not sure if it's possible to do...
Looking through some stuff from that very useful link, Glenna, I came across
this:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=KB;en-us;297467

which states that powerpoint cannot support self-running presentations. Yet
I wrote an autorun.inf file to enable this (with information also from the
microsoft website). does this mean that file would not have the same effect
on a MAC? It is imperative the presentation autoruns on both mac and pc.

Sorry, but I'm confused! My current understanding is that the CD will
autorun on PC and should run on MAC provided I watch my fonts and filenames.
But I don't know whether it will autorun on MAC or not. Do I need to unpack
the Powerpoint viewer for MAC to the CD as well as the viewer for windows? Is
this possible? Further, I know links to external objects may fail on a MAC,
but will links to other parts of the powerpoint document still work?

 

[Guest]

The viewer will be your biggest problem. The PC and MAC don't use the same
viewer. Your best bet is an autorun program that allows them to choose
PC/MAC.
Maybe an HTML file with links. Then jump to separate folders to run the
appropriate Viewer and presentation.

 

[Guest]

What autorun program can you recommend? Or how would I create a html file
with links? Through powerpoint? Would the links still work cross-platform?

Thanks for alll your help so far

 

[Guest]

Ok, I went looking and found this:

http://www.ezau.com/latest/articles/autorun.shtml

--
Thanks,
Glenna Shaw
Microsoft PowerPoint MVP Team
http://www.pptmagic.com

 

[Steve Rindsberg]

Sorry for being a bit thick, but I'm STILL not sure if it's possible to do...
Looking through some stuff from that very useful link, Glenna, I came across
this:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=KB;en-us;297467

which states that powerpoint cannot support self-running presentations.

It does say that, but it doesn't really define what they mean by that. <g>
I think what they meant was that PPT can't create *stand-alone* presentations
... that is, one nice packaged file that runs on its own.

You need the viewer or a copy of PPT to play PPT files. And you knew that
already. Let's ignore that line then.

I wrote an autorun.inf file to enable this (with information also from the
microsoft website). does this mean that file would not have the same effect
on a MAC?

No. Macs don't use Autorun.inf files and even if they did, they can't use
Windows executable files (in this case, the viewer and its support files).
There's also a "cultural" difference. Windows users, most of them, expect a CD
to autorun and do whatever it's supposed to do as soon as it's inserted. That's
not expected (or usually even welcome) on the Mac. More commonly, the CD mounts
and "opens" so the user can see the files in it, leaving it up to them to run
the program or not.

Sorry, but I'm confused! My current understanding is that the CD will
autorun on PC and should run on MAC provided I watch my fonts and filenames.
But I don't know whether it will autorun on MAC or not. Do I need to unpack
the Powerpoint viewer for MAC to the CD as well as the viewer for windows? Is
this possible? Further, I know links to external objects may fail on a MAC,
but will links to other parts of the powerpoint document still work?

See above for some of the answers. Links within the PPT file should be fine.

To create a dual-platform CD, you'll probably need to create it as a hybrid CD,
one that has both Mac and PC file systems on it. As far as I know, that can
only be done on Mac. You might want to ask in Public.Mac.Office.PowerPoint
about this as well. The serious Mac users hang out there.

 

[Guest]

And a more appropriate link: http://www.rdpslides.com/pptfaq/FAQ00037.htm
--
Thanks,
Glenna Shaw
Microsoft PowerPoint MVP Team
http://www.pptmagic.com