Web pages inside Microsoft PowerPoint presentations

Task

Embed a web page into a PowerPoint slide so that the presenter can, without interrupting the presentation, demonstrate the site, show a video, embed a PDF document or arrange an interactive vote among listeners.

Solutions

It turned out that PowerPoint has the ability to embed a Microsoft WebBrowser ActiveX control that displays pages.
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However, this option has significant drawbacks:

• The page URL needs to be changed directly in Visual Basic.
• To start a separate control is required, for example, a button that starts a page call.
• Large pages are not loaded immediately, but there is no progress bar. Just an empty, white place. The speaker does not know if an error has occurred or is worth the wait.
• If the page is not available, a standard IE page with an error appears.
• The default page is displayed by the IE engine installed in the system. I have IE7 under Win7, pages that are not optimized for IE7 are displayed crookedly and with an error:
  
• The page does not update automatically.

Since the speaker will embed the pages himself and may not have the necessary knowledge, it is advisable to make this procedure simple.

LiveWeb add-in

Having experimented with Visual Basic, I decided to look for a ready solution for the speaker. In addition to paid options like iBrowse , I found a free add-in - LiveWeb . The description page is pretty clever, but it contains all the necessary information on installing and working with LiveWeb, which makes no sense to repeat. Supported versions of Microsof PowerPoint from 97 to 2010. Add-in is popular, and also continues to be supported by the developer. Slides are saved with the extension * .pptm (ppt + macros).

In addition to conveniently creating and changing window settings, it is important that LiveWeb updates the page every time you visit a slide.

Examples

Built-in video presentation (youtube)


Built-in SMS polling presentation


Download sample presentation (add-in required)
Download add-in for PowerPoint 97-2003
Download add-in for PowerPoint 2007/2010

Benefits add-in

• Wizard for embedding web pages in slides, setting parameters.
• Add-in shows the current page every time you view a slide
• To fix the situation with IE7, you can add a meta tag, indicating the desired version of Internet Explorer, to the desired page:
  <metahttp-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=x" >

disadvantages

• When you change the page settings, such as addresses, other settings (size and location) are changed to default, which is inconvenient.
• Not resolved problems with the progress bar and a blank page (if the site is not available).

Total

Of course, a meta tag on someone else’s page wouldn’t be inserted, a progress bar would not hurt, and the Internet is not always there. But as a ready-made solution for simple and quick insertion of sites that are compatible with IE7, the plugin has proven itself very well.

I would be glad if someone will share their decision. I would also like to find a solution for Mac.