 |
| Enhancing your PowerPoint files with Wildform Flair |
|
| |
| Top |
 |
|
| Introduction |
|
Wildform Flair is an excellent PowerPoint to Flash converter, but it is also much more. Wildform Flair lets you edit and enhance your existing PowerPoint files. This tutorial will cover how to import your PowerPoint files into Wildform Flair and convert them to Flash. In Part II we will show you how you can edit and enhance your PowerPoint files in Wildform Flair by adding animated text, video, audio, recorded on-screen activity and Flash interactivity.
Click here to download the original PowerPoint presentation we will be working with in this tutorial.
Click here to view what
the presentation will look like after we enhance
it in Wildform Flair. |
| Top |
|
|
| The benefits of converting PowerPoint to Flash |
|
There are many benefits to converting your PowerPoint projects to Flash. The key advantages are:
Flash works great on the Internet
Wildform Flair gives you easy export options so you can post your Flash files to the Web for fast, easy access.
Everyone can view Flash – your files will play anywhere
Since 99% of web browsers have a version of the Flash player already installed, your viewers will not have to download anything in order to view your presentation.
Smaller file sizes
Wildform Flair converts PowerPoint files to Flash using the smallest possible file size, so that your Flash files will likely be significantly smaller than the original PowerPoint files.
Projectors for easy CD-ROM distribution
Wildform Flair lets you export your entire project into a projector file in a single click. (Projector files contain both the player and the file to be played in one package so no other software is needed to view the content.) The projector files can then be copied to a CD-ROM so you can share your projects with others. |
| Top |
|
|
| Enhancing your PowerPoint files |
|
Return to your imported PowerPoint presentation. If the slide navigation is not visible on the left side of your screen, select View then Slide Navigation and click on the first slide. |
|
 |
|
| The slide navigation view will now appear in your program. Click on Slide 1 and delete it by selecting the Delete Slide button in the Slide navigation column. |
|
 |
|
| Slide 1 is a blank slide left over from when we started the project. |
|
 |
| Top |
|
|
| Correcting typos |
|
Editing your slides is easy in Wildform Flair.
First we will correct typo in slide 2. Click on Slide 2 in the Slide navigation view and then click on the text box on your slide. Change "Overviuw" in A Product Overview to "Overview." |
|
 |
| Top |
|
|
| Changing the design of your files (including PowerPoint templates) |
|
Being able to edit your PowerPoint files in Wildform Flair is particularly useful if you have inherited PowerPoint files from others and wish to work on them, or if you have PowerPoint templates you wish modify. Our original PowerPoint file was made with a template file that comes with PowerPoint (capsule.pot).
Now, let's change the color of the template to match the colors of Wildform logo.
Note: PowerPoint's master slide will import as your Slide Master. The Title Master slide will import as a separate slide. Any format changes made to the Slide Master will not affect PowerPoint's Title Master slide, these changes will need to be made manually.
Since we want these changes to apply to all slides in our presentation, we will make the changes on our Master Slide. Click on the Master Slide in the slide navigation view. |
|
 |
|
| Select the object your want to modify and click on the Fill Color icon in the Standard Toolbar. |
|
 |
|
The template patterns are now changed on all of the slides, except for Slide 2. This is because Slide 2 was created in PowerPoint using the Title Master instead of the regular Slide Master. Go into Slide 2 and change the color of the green shape to dark red.
Returning to our master slide, we are now going to change the blue bars to dark red. |
|
 |
|
| Another way to change the color is to right-click on the blue bar to bring up a object properties box. Select Properties -> Fill to change the color. |
|
 |
|
| Change the color to dark red. |
|
 |
|
| Let's add one last color change. Return to the large red blocks we first changed in our Master Slide. We are going to adjust the alpha (the opacity) of the color from 100% to 80%. To do this select the object and open the Object Settings window and click on the Appearance tab. At the bottom of the tab adjust the Alpha color from 100 to 80. |
|
 |
| Top |
|
|
| Importing Flash files (SWFs & FLVs) |
|
Bringing Flash files into Wildform Flair is easy. Wildform Flair imports two types of Flash files - SWF and FLV.
You can import these files in the ways covered in Part I for importing PowerPoint files:
You can drag the files directly onto Edit-Preview Stage.
You can select File>Import from the File menu.
You can click on the Import Wwizard icon in the Shortcuts tab of the Settings Window.
We are going to drag the Flash (swf) file of the Wildform logo onto the master slide and place it in the top right corner of the slide. |
|
 |
| Top |
|
|
| Adding a Link |
|
Next, since we are going to post this presentation on the web and share it with colleagues, let's add a hyperlink to the Wildform logo which links to http://www.wildform.com.
Select the Wildform logo in the Master Slide.
To add a hyperlink to the logo, open the Object tab in the Settings Window. Click on the Mouse Events tab in the Object Settings window and then click on the Add on Click box. Enter in the web address you would like to link to. We are also going to choose _blank in the Target box so that the link will open up in a new web page when the users click on the link. |
|
 |
|
| Now preview your presentation. Notice that if you click on the Wildform logo you are taken to www.wildform.com. |
| Top |
|
|
| Adding a Mouseover |
|
| You can also add other interactivity to your presentation, such as mouseovers.
To learn how to create mouseovers, please read the Adding mouse-events, mouseovers and links tutorial. |
|
| Top |
|
|
| Adding animated text |
|
Now, let's animate the words "Wildform Flair" in the opening slide (Slide 2). Since we want to animate text, we will create a new animated text effect.
To create animated text, click on the Create a Text Effect Wizard in the Shortcuts tab of the Settings Window.
|
|
|
|
For more information on using the text animator, please see our Basic Instructions for Using the Wildform Flair Flash Text Animator tutorial.
After you have created your text effect, click the "Save & Insert" button and close the Create Text Effect window.
Place the new text effect over the old title and delete the old title. Play your slide. You now have an animated text effect.
Note: if you would like to change your text effect, you may do so by selecting the effect, right clicking and selecting Edit Object to bring up the text effect window again. |
|
 |
| Top |
|
|
| Adding slides and changing animations |
|
We are now going to take Slide 3 and separate its contents into three separate slides. First, add two new slides by clicking on the Add Slide button in the Slide Navigation toolbar and add the new slides after Slide 3.
Copy the contents of Slide 3 onto the two new slides just created. To do this, select CTRL+A to select all the objects on the slide (or under the Edit menu choose Select All). You may also copy the contents by selecting Copy under the Edit menu (or control C).
There is also a copy slide option. Right-click on the slide in the navigation.
Go to the first slide you want to copy the contents to and click on the stage. Then select Paste under the Edit menu or Control V.
On the slide, after Slide 3, delete the text lines after the first two bullet points so that it looks like this: |
|
 |
|
To change the current incoming animation of the bulleted text, select the text box you want to change. Let's select the "Increase your sales" text. Open the Object tab in the Settings Window and click on the Animation tab.
The current incoming animation is FlyRight. |
|
 |
|
| Let's change the incoming animation to Fly Right Down by selecting the animation under the drop down menu and hold it for 24 frames. |
|
 |
|
Preview your slide to see the animation.
Do the same for the other new slide so that it looks like this: |
|
 |
| Top |
|
|
| Adding video |
|
Now we are going to add video to Slide 4
For more information on importing video, please see our Basic Instructions for Importing Video, & Audio into Wildform Flair.
Under the File menu select Import File and choose a video to import. The Import Video/Audio/Images window will appear. |
|
 |
|
| Select a preset. We will select 300k Broadband Video (VP6 SWF) which means that the video will be higher quality and easily viewable by users who are connecting to the internet via a broadband connection, but not easily viewed by those on a dialup (narrowband) connection. |
|
 |
|
Click the Encode & Insert button. Your video will now encode and appear on your slide. Preview your slide to play it.
One of the unique features of Wildform Flair is that it let's you animate your video just like you would any other Flash (SWF) file. The only trick is that your video cannot be set to Stream Play Mode. If you change your video to "Preload Play Mode" or "Load External File Play Mode" you can animate your video. Switching play modes is easy.
Select your video in the timeline and right-click to bring up the object tab in the Settings Window. Here you can switch your play modes. We will switch this mode to "Load External File Play Mode". This play mode supports animation and it also streams the video when played on the Internet (using Preload play mode would cause the video to preload 100% before playing). |
|
 |
|
| To animate the video, select the video, open the Object tab in the Settings Window and click on the Animation tab. Select your animations. For this video we will select the "NewsFlash" animation from the Advanced Animation category and change the number of frames of the incoming animation from 12 to 60 so that it lasts longer. |
|
 |
|
The last thing we will do on this slide is to start the "Increase your sales" text to frame 40 by dragging it on the timeline. We will also change the duration of the incoming animation from 12 to 40 frames. (To do this, open the Object Settings window and click on the Animation tab.)
On the following slide we will import three videos using a 56k (Flash 8 SWF) preset and animate them. |
|
 |
| Top |
|
|
| Recording on screen activity |
|
| We will now move to Slide 6 and change the text from this: |
|
 |
|
| to this: |
|
 |
|
We will keep our original PowerPoint animation.
Next we will record some onscreen activity and insert it into this slide. Since we want to record the activity in Slide 5, click on that slide now.
Open the Recording utility under the Tools menu.
Go to the Setup tab. |
|
 |
|
Either use the existing Filename or set your own by clicking the "Browse" button.
Check "Add timestamp to filename" if you would like the recording utility to add the current timestamp to the filename (to prevent accidental overwriting of content)
Select one of the SWF presets from the preset drop-down list. The higher the quality the better your screen capture will look, but the larger the file size will be. You may want to start off with "SWF Medium Quality" and see how it works for you. |
|
 |
|
We will use the SWF Medium Quality preset. If you do not want to capture audio, uncheck the "Capture Audio" checkbox. We will uncheck the "Capture Audio"
Go to the Encoding tab. |
|
 |
|
Make sure "Capture from screen" is the option that appears in the Video source.
Go to the Screen Tab. |
|
 |
|
Click the Set Region button. A red frame will surround your entire screen. You can now drag each side of the frame to define the region of the screen you would like to record.
We want to record only our slide that is visible so we will drag the red lines to match up to the outline of the slide. When you are done setting your region, click the OK button which is located at the top left corner of your red frame. |
|
 |
|
Check "capture mouse movements" if you want the mouse pointer to be included in the capture.
To start recording, click on the "Start" button. If you have checked the option "Go to tray on capture start" (Setup tab), the recording utility will automatically minimize.
Note: If you are using more than one monitor the screen to be recorded must be on your primary monitor.
Once you have started the recording, click on the Play Slide button to play your slide. When it is done playing stop the recording.
To stop capturing, click on the small "x" stop recording utility icon in the system tray or choose menu: Record>Stop Recording. |
|
 |
|
Your captured file will now appear on the timeline in Slide 5. Click on the captured file on the stage, cut it and go to Slide 6. Now paste the file into Slide 6.
Drag the corner of the file to make it smaller. Play your Slide 6.
Please note that scaling recordings will result in poor quality. It is best to capture at the size you want.
Wildform Flair also lets you capture audio and video, from a webcam, microphone or other audio/video device attached to your computer. These topics are covered in our Basic Device Capture tutorial. |
| Top |
|
|
| Changing slide transitions |
|
| Now I am going to change the slide transitions of my original PowerPoint file, because I want all the slide transitions to be the same. To change or apply new slide transitions in Wildform Flair, open the Slide tab in the Settings Window. |
|
 |
|
To apply the same transition and navigation attributes to all of your slides at once, select the master slide in the slide navigation view and apply the settings you would like. You may apply unique transitions and slide attributes to each slide by selecting each slide and applying the attributes you would like.
Let's change all of our transitions to Wedge and hold the transition for 20 frames. |
|
 |
|
| Click the Play Preview button to preview. |
|
 |
| Top |
|
|
| Adding a preloader |
|
Now we are going to add an automatic preloader to our project.
The Preload option allows you to program an automatic preloader into your Wildform Flair output. This is for web streaming purposes only. The purpose of using preloaders is to ensure smooth playback of larger Flash SWFs for users on slower connections. In this way, users on slower speed connections (e.g., dial up modems) can view larger Flash SWF files without buffering or the Flash SWF stopping and starting. While there is a delay while the user waits for the Flash SWF to begin playback, if you preload enough of the file, once it starts to play, it will continue to play uninterrupted until it finishes.
The preloaders have a "__% loaded" indicator that shows how much of the Flash SWF has loaded until the specified percentage has loaded and then the Flash SWF begins to play.
To add a preloader, open the Export tab in the Settings Window and click the SWF tab. Under the SWF options in this window, check the Preload box.
|
|
 |
|
There are two preload options:
Fixed: When selected this causes the Flash Player to preload a specified percentage of your Wildform Flair output prior to beginning playback. You specify the percent of the movie to load (from 1% - 100%) in the box directly to the right. The Fixed preloader works with any Flash player version 4 and higher.
Adaptive: An adaptive preloader is an "intelligent" preloader that will preload a variable amount of your Flash SWF based on the size of the Flash SWF and the viewer's internet connection speed so that the viewer can watch the Flash SWF without stops and starts - no matter what speed they are connected to the internet at.
For this project we will choose a fixed preloader and set it to 20%, which means that 20% of our Flash file will load before the project begins to play.
For more information on preloades please read the Adding a Preloader to your Project tutorial. |
| Top |
|
|
| Adding a player |
|
Finally, we are going to add a player to our project. Wildform Flair has a very useful player feature that enables you to output your Wildform Flair Flash SWF with a player automatically.
To add a player open the Project Settings window and click on the Players tab. |
|
 |
|
Check the Include player when exporting. You can either incorporate the Flash SWF and the player into a single file, or you can have two separate files in which the player will load the output. Depending on what you are trying to do, you may wish to select either one. Certain features within Wildform Flair are only available if you use the Load Movie option.
Select a player from the menu. We are going to select the player "Minimal2 A".
View skin: By clicking on this button, you can preview the player skin you have selected. In the preview mode the controls of the player will blink and may appear slightly distorted. This is normal. Once the player is created, the controls will appear correctly.
Export your project. Play your exported file to view your project in a player.
For more information on exporting your project, please see our Importing and Converting Your PowerPoint to Flash tutorial. |
| Top |
|
|
| Conclusion |
|
| We have now covered many ways to enhance your PowerPoint files in Wildform Flair. As you've seen Wildform Flair also lets you edit and enhance your existing PowerPoint files with ease. There is much more Wildform Flair can do for you; other tutorials will cover these subjects. The Wildform Flair help file also addresses these topics. |
| Top |
