Microsoft Office Reference Guide

Mar 26, 2004

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We've covered podcasts from PowerPoint before, but now there are slideshow hosting services that let you synchronize audio with the uploaded PowerPoint. I will warn you, however, that they are not for the faint of heart (or the impatient).

Creating a video from PowerPoint and uploading it to YouTube might be a better move in many ways, but YouTube limits a video to ten minutes and puts you into an interface with unpredictable content.

I've also covered a few PowerPoint to Flash tools, like Wildform, that also promise synching audio (narration) but I wanted to stick with native PowerPoint online.

So I decided to try Slideshare.net. You can use Audacity to synch PowerPoint to audio for SlideShare and it will create an MP3 file that you can get hosted online and synch to your show.

You but as we have seen in numerous updates, you can also use Camtasia to capture the PowerPoint with video and then export the audio file as an MP3 as well — that's what we'll do here.

Figure 1

Your best bet is to choose the MP3 file format for web playback.

Figure 2

You'll need to save the PowerPoint in 2003 format if you're using Office 2007, and then you can upload it to Slideshare.

Figure 3

With the presentation uploaded, you can click to edit it and link it to the MP3 file — which needs to be on a server somewhere where you can access it.

Figure 4

After several attempts at other podcast audio hosts, I chose one which is free and easy — Switchpod — and uploaded my MP3

Figure 5

In SlideShare I linked to the MP3 file.

Figure 6

This opened the synchronization window where you can line up your audio with the slides.

Figure 7

I actually hit a glitch here and decided to attempt a synch by playing the audio through Media Player after my upload did not work in the synch utility of SlideShare.

Figure 8

After synchronization, the "slidecast" replaces the uploaded and edited presentation and can be played with the synched audio...

Figure 9

Maybe... I will tell you that after trying several podcast hosts I did not get this to work quite right and contacted SlideShare.

Extra Step Required

It turned out that as good a tool as Camtasia is for creating a video and MP3 of a PowerPoint presentation, it uses a proprietary codec that did not quite work with SlideShare's servers.

This necessitate an additional step of converting the MP3 file one more time before uploading it to SlideShare.

I found to my pleasant surprise that right-clicking the audio file gave me a convert option.

Figure 10

This is the least Vista could do, since its version of Sound Recorder is so inferior to previous versions. I changed the options to mono for output and converted the file.

Figure 11

The new file was placed in my Music folder in Vista — I right-clicked and changed its name to enable another upload to SwitchPod.

Figure 12

Now, after uploading the newly encoded audio file, my Synch Utility Window in Slideshare looked much better — I could see the audio levels clearly and it played fine.

I had written down the timings before uploading the new file, and was able to easily go through and re-set them in the window.

Figure 13

I was able to go through and resynch the audio until the end — where I noticed another slight glitch — SlideShare had made my The End panel white for some reason — probably a problem with my "compatible" PowerPoint 2003 file output from 2007.

I would live with that.

Figure 14

I now had a working SlideShare slide cast — to view and listen to it go to — link.

Figure 15

So the process works, albeit a bit convoluted but I can credit SlideShare tech support with being responsive and confirming the codec problem with the MP3 file generated by Camtasia.

If I were a newbie I might try to use Audacity instead; but Camtasia does provide a synched audio file — you just need to take an extra step to convert it. And as an extra hint, before leaving Camtasia (or returning to the saved project file) can let you note and write down the timings for the audio that you can then use in SlideShare.

SlideShare is the most mature tool for posting presentations online, but another intriguing tool that is still more or less in development, SlideRocket, can create a slide show online and then present it or share it with the community.

There is no question that PowerPoint is headed online in one form or another and these are early incarnations. If you want to share your opus with others on the web using SlideShare, these are the steps that will make it work.

InformIT Articles and Sample Chapters

Making a PowerPoint Movie (not just for the Mac anymore)

Camatasia 5.0: An Upgrade Worth the Effort

Books and eBooks

YouTube 4 You

Solving the PowerPoint Predicament: Using Digital Media for Effective Communication

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