run consecutive powerpoint presentations automatically from a remote

Question

My firm presents seminars. Each seminar runs for three days, and each contains multiple PowerPoint presentations for each day.

Our presenters have minimal technical expertise. When they’re presenting, they use a very basic remote that can forward and advance slides or switch to a black screen. That’s it.

When they get to the end of the first PowerPoint presentation, they do not want to have to walk over to the laptop, close the show, and open the next one. This needs to happen seamlessly. And for many years, it has. Older versions of PowerPoint had an option called “Package for CD” which would bundle all of the presentations into a single folder (along with any embedded audio and video files – there are lots of those). The folder would also contain an EXE of PowerPoint Viewer, and a .BAT file containing the file names of all of the shows. So all we’d have to do is run the BAT file, and each PPT file would play sequentially.

However PPT 2010 no longer bundles multiple files together. I tried to come up with a BAT file that calls for the PPT exe to run, and then lists each file, with a command line switch to run in slideshow mode. And it works… some of the time. And then some of the time it comes with a “can’t read file” error.

In a nutshell – we need a way to run a series of PPT files in slideshow mode, so that one file opens and then at the end of the file it opens the next one, without needing to press any buttons or touch the laptop.

This is the text of the BAT file I created that works intermittently:

"C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office\Office14\POWERPNT.EXE" /S 00Intro.pptx 01Legal.pptx 02pers.pptx

Any help would be appreciated.

Answer 1

When they get to the end of the first PowerPoint presentation, they do not want to have to walk over to the laptop, close the show, and open the next one. This needs to happen seamlessly.

SlideDog (http://slidedog.com) does exactly this.

1. You add Powerpoints to a playlist
2. SlideDog loads them up
3. SlideDog will seamlessly switch to the next PPT in line when on the last slide of the current PPT and you click next on your remote.

SlideDog currently supports Office 2010 PowerPoint and PowerPoint Viewer 2010

Disclaimer: I am one of the creators of SlideDog.

Answer 2

I haven't tested this. I assume that the ppt thingy ignores your 2nd and 3rd param. The docs didn't say anything about processing more than one file on the arg list.

Try this:

START /WAIT POWERPNT.EXE" /S 00Intro.pptx 
START /WAIT POWERPNT.EXE" /S 01Legal.pptx 

(use the relevant SET PATH=%PATH%;c:/prog .... or full path names as appropriate)

The user will have to close powerpoint before the batch file will open the next.

Answer 3

Slick way of getting all presentations into one presentation with individual templates:

1. Under New Slides, click reuse slides, choose the presentation.

To keep formatting:

1. Create new master slider anywhere on presentation.
2. Save the design template of the presentation you want to transfer slides from.
3. Highlight transferred slides and go to design - browse for saved design template.

Happy to answer any questions.

Answer 4

Do not put your code to BAT file, but to shortcut: "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office\Office14\POWERPNT.EXE" /S " ¤full path to file¤\00Intro.pptx" "¤full path to file¤\01Legal.pptx" "¤full path to file¤\02pers.pptx" Or create Task for Task Scheduler (if you want run it in automatic mode: Run: "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office\Office14\POWERPNT.EXE" Parameters: /S " ¤full path to file¤\00Intro.pptx" "¤full path to file¤\01Legal.pptx" "¤full path to file¤\02pers.pptx" Both cases were succesfully tested under Win 8.1 / Office 2010

In my case: "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office\Office14\POWERPNT.EXE" /S "D:\Publications\CAD.pptx" "D:\Publications\showmustgoon.pptx"