Displaying a PowerPoint presentation in a SharePoint web part

By: Almoustapha Cisse | Updated: 2011-01-19 | Comments | Related: > Sharepoint Design

Problem

There is a need to publish a presentation (PowerPoint) across the organization and prevent employees from downloading versions of that presentation as employees were keeping older versions of the presentation locally. The presentation is timed and contains animations and videos.

Solution

This solution publishes the presentation as a Web Page and integrates it with SharePoint.

Notes: According to the requirements, the navigation controls and the speaker notes should be disabled and the presentation should run automatically with slide animation.

Step 1: Publish the presentation as a Web Page (locally)

(In PowerPoint) From the Menu > Save as > Choose Single File Web Page (instead of Web Page)
Click Publish.to change the publishing properties > Uncheck Display speaker notes
Click Web Options > Uncheck Add slide navigation controls > Check Show slide animation while browsing

(You may also review the remaining properties like setting the browser version under Target Browsers to fulfill your requirements.)

Step 2: Upload the Web version (.mht) into a SharePoint library

Go to the document library > Click Browse to select the file (Web version) > Click OK

Step 3: Create a new Web Part page

Click Site Actions, then Create
Choose Full Page, Vertical or a desired layout template
Click Create

Step 4: Add the Page Viewer Web Part to the page

Click Site Actions > Edit Page
Click Add a Web Part
From the Web Part gallery, select Page Viewer Web Part > Click Add

Step 5: Configure the URL to the Web presentation in the Page Viewer Web Part

Open a new browser and go to the library where you have initially uploaded the Web presentation > Right click on the name of the presentation and click Copy Shortcut to copy the URL
Switch to the Page Viewer Web Part in Edit Mode > Paste the copied link into the Link box by right clicking in the box and selecting Paste.
Expand the Appearance section > change the Height and enter a size (i.e. 650 pixels) to fit the presentation.

Note: the size may need to be adjusted based on your screen resolution.

At your convenience, you may hide the Web Part title by choosing None under Chrome Type
Click OK
Exit Design View and watch the presentation (see figure bellow).

Conclusion

This is a simple way for publishing presentations in SharePoint from an end-user prospective. (There is certainly a more sophisticated way to build an application for running presentations in SharePoint using Silverlight.)