Using PowerPoint 2007 to play an audio book

D

David

I am creating a PowerPoint show to be used by a developmently delayed person
to communicate using a touch screen laptop. I am using pictures in the slides
that automatically advance and when she sees what she want to communicate,
she touches the screen. I use the Action Settings dialog box to play a sound
file when she touches the picture.

My problem: I would like to allow her to listen to an audio book when she
touches a picture of a book. It has to play even while the slide show
proceeds. I can get Windows Media Player to open using the Run Program option
on the Action Settings dialog box. However, no option seems to allow simply
begin playing last file. If you specify a specific wma file, it always plays
that file and never goes to the next chapter file in the book. If you use the
/playlist option, it always restarts at the first file in the playlist.

I need it to resume at the last played chapter file and continue through the
book. A simple "open media player and play" does not seem to be available.
It works if you click the Play button on the Media Player after it appears
from touching the PowerPoint slide, but she does not have the fine motor
skills to touch such a small point on the screen and her cognitive abilities
is limited to a touch once action.

I used to be a pretty good VBA coder back in the day, which seems to what is
indicated to use the Windows player sdk, but coding in Office 2007 leaves me
gasping. Any help would be appreciated.

Her computer is Windows7 using the PowerPoint Viewer.

Thanks in advance.
 
G

Glenna Shaw

I suggest converting the chapter files to wav files and using them as the
sound file for the slide transition. The sound file will play until another
sound plays and will replay if you go back to the slide. If you keep your
book chapters on separate slides, it should work well. And you could create
custom shows for each book. You won't be able to use VBA with the viewer.

I'm not quite sure exactly what you're trying to accomplish, but I'm
confident I could help you do it with a little more information. If you
could send an example to glennashaw [at] hotmail [dot] com I'd be happy to
take a look and see what I can do. I'd also need the sound file.

Glenna
 

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