Home | Tips

PowerPoint Autorun CD

To autorun a CD with a PowerPoint presentation - on a system with no PowerPoint installed, you can actually access the PowerPoint Viewer off the CD. No files are thus installed to a system - and yet the presentation will run perfectly. Be aware that this solution will be unable to show all the cool transitions and animations of PowerPoint 2002 - since the Viewer in question actually uses the PowerPoint 97 engine. There are many third party solutions and self-do articles based on the Viewer:

Sonia Coleman and Steve Hetrick have jointly developed the Autorun CD
Project Creator, now in version 2. There is a full review at Indezine:

http://www.indezine.com/products/powerpoint/addin/acdpc.html

- as well as more information at the ACDPC homepage:

http://www.soniacoleman.com/Tutorials/PowerPoint/Autorun_CD.htm

GST PowerLaunch is the third angle of the PowerPoint Autorun trinity. Surprisingly unknown, and even less publicised - find more information at
the PowerLaunch homepage - and an indezine review:

http://www.autorun-autoplay-tools.com/powerpoint.htm
http://www.indezine.com/products/powerpoint/addin/powerlaunch.html

Creating autorun CDs is half the story - no autorun CD is elegant without an
autorun splash. The best program for this chore is AutoPlay Menu Studio. You'll find a complete tutorial on Indezine - also visit the AutoPlay Menu
Studio homepage.

http://www.indezine.com/products/powerpoint/ppautorun.html
http://www.indigorose.com/

In the days of PowerPoint 97, Microsoft had a tutorial on their site to manually create PowerPoint autorun CDs. Mysteriouslyast few years, I found it finally on an old Technet CD. Here it is, in Adobe's Acrobat format:

http://www.indezine.com/products/powerpoint/addin/ppviewtechnote.pdf