Working with multimedia files in PowerPoint
My first two developer articles for PowerPoint are now available on the Office Developer Center:
How PowerPoint 2003 Plays Multimedia Files in a Presentation
The title pretty much say it all. The first article should actually be of interest to more than just PowerPoint developers. It explains how PowerPoint 2002 and 2003 decide which Microsoft media technology to use to play a given multimedia file, and includes some advice on how to help ensure PowerPoint plays your sound and movie files as you want, whether on your machine or somewhere else. I’ve seen questions about this issue come up a lot in the newsgroups, so hopefully this article provides some answers. And while it’s published on MSDN, it should be understandable and useful to anyone who uses multimedia files with PowerPoint; there’s not a single line of code in it, I promise.
Adding Multimedia to a PowerPoint 2003 Presentation
The second article is more firmly aimed at a developer audience. It covers how to programmatically insert audio and video into PowerPoint presentations, and the advantages of inserting the files as media object, as opposed to OLE objects.
I’m really happy with how these turned out. Give ‘em a read, and let me know what you think.