Running a series of presentations without using a playlist

[John Finch]

We currently display a series of powerpoint presentations on TV
screens throughout our building. Various people create the
presentations and save them in a central location. There is a playlist
file which they then have to add/amend their presentation to, and this
will allow the powerpoint viewer to loop through all the
presentations.

This works OK, however the playlist is often edited incorrectly,
(wrong filename etc) and this causes the whole show to crash. It has
got so bad that it will crash several times a week.

We need to find a tool that will either play all presentations in a
folder, rather than require the creation of a playlist, or a way to
automatically change these presentations to a video stream. The latter
would be a better solution as we could also stream this to people's
desktops via our Intranet, however I suspect intervention would be
required to perform the conversion.

If anyone knows of a simple way we can save a powerpoint presentation
to a folder and have that automatically play, We'd be most grateful.

 

[TAJ Simmons]

John,

This works OK, however the playlist is often edited incorrectly,
(wrong filename etc) and this causes the whole show to crash. It has
got so bad that it will crash several times a week.

How about some kind of user testing before making the playlist a 'live' file?

I was going to suggest using this method of "linking"....but if the users can't get the filenames right, then it's not
going to work
http://www.powerpointbackgrounds.com/powerpointlinking.htm

What about keeping the filenames the same all the time....(just a thought)

playlist.lst

pres01.ppt
pres02.ppt
pres03.ppt
pres04.ppt


Cheers
TAJ Simmons
microsoft powerpoint mvp

awesome - powerpoint backgrounds,
free powerpoint templates, tutorials, hints and tips etc
http://www.powerpointbackgrounds.com

 

[Kurt]

Hi John,
I'm currently working on a program that 'scans' a folder for a presentation.
It's nearly finished.
If you are interested please contact me at my email address. Remove the word
NOSPAM from it.
Regards,
Kurt

 

[Steve Rindsberg]

Creating a playlist from a set of files in a folder would be simple enough.
At its simplest, a BAT file containing:

DIR /B *.ppt > playlist.lst

might be all you need.

DIR /B /O *.ppt > playlist.lst

would list them in date order, oldest first.

The trickier bit would be starting/stopping the ongoing show so the new list
can take effect.

You might be able to make this happen N times a day automatically using the
Windows Scheduler or the like. Or just have somebody restart the show every
morning?

We currently display a series of powerpoint presentations on TV
screens throughout our building. Various people create the
presentations and save them in a central location. There is a playlist
file which they then have to add/amend their presentation to, and this
will allow the powerpoint viewer to loop through all the
presentations.

This works OK, however the playlist is often edited incorrectly,
(wrong filename etc) and this causes the whole show to crash. It has
got so bad that it will crash several times a week.

We need to find a tool that will either play all presentations in a
folder, rather than require the creation of a playlist, or a way to
automatically change these presentations to a video stream. The latter
would be a better solution as we could also stream this to people's
desktops via our Intranet, however I suspect intervention would be
required to perform the conversion.

If anyone knows of a simple way we can save a powerpoint presentation
to a folder and have that automatically play, We'd be most grateful.

--
Steve Rindsberg, PPT MVP
PPT FAQ: www.pptfaq.com
PPTools: www.pptools.com
================================================
Featured Presenter, PowerPoint Live 2004
October 10-13, San Diego, CA www.PowerPointLive.com
================================================