Conversion program for .pptm PowerPoint file into flash made for Macs?

November 29, 2012 1:11 PM

I have a PowerPoint presentation with macros for sound, in a .pptm file with audio and animations for a class. My professor can't play it as is, so she wants me to convert it to a flash file format, which I thought I could do, but all the converter programs I've found need a PC, and I only have a Mac and so does my family. Naturally, my school's PCs don't allow installs, and I need to figure this out today. I have Adobe Flash, but it doesn't recognize the format, and I need to keep my audio/etc. any ideas for conversion or online viewing, etc?

I have considered asking her to download a viewer, but it seems a bit much. Even if I could find a PC to use, I'm not sure which one of the programs work well enough, but I don't know where to find a PC that allows installs. Could just start over again, but that seems a bit much....

posted by reenka to Computers & Internet (6 answers total)

Do you have Keynote 08 by any chance? It lets you export files as SWF/Flash files (later versions don't have that option), and should be able to open your pptm file. Not 100% sure if it'll handle the animations, but I've seen some pretty complex exports, so I think you'll be ok.
posted by Nonsteroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drug at 1:26 PM on November 29, 2012

There is Zamzar.com, which does it online, although I have no idea how good the output will be. You can also try this or 5 other ways.
posted by KMB at 2:02 PM on November 29, 2012

LibreOffice will save a presentation as flash; some files may not retain their formatting between Office and LibreOffice, however... you mileage may vary. I recommend installing LibreOffice as an alternate office program anyways, because it will be helpful in some circumstances.
posted by 1367 at 2:12 PM on November 29, 2012

Response by poster: No, the reason I asked here is that none of these work for .pptm files (gah). Umm, well I'm not sure about Keynote 08, but a 3 year-old program is harder to get a hold of online than you may think (nevermind the Apple Store). Ahh.
posted by reenka at 8:47 PM on November 29, 2012

Check craigslist. Around here there's someone selling it for under $20.


Worst case, could you use something like Jing (free for under 5 minutes) to record your computer's screen? Jing happens to generate SWF files, so I guess that's a plus. Really though any screen recorder can get you a standard video file which should be compatible with you school's computers.
posted by Nonsteroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drug at 7:35 AM on November 30, 2012

Have you tried using a current version of LibreOffice for this? I was able to open a .pptm file in LibreOffice 3.5 on my machine a few minutes ago, then saved it as a .swf (which then opened properly for me in Firefox).
posted by 1367 at 11:10 AM on December 1, 2012