Do you have Microsoft Office 2000 installed on your computer? According to the statistics you'd be an individualist if you did not. The stats also tell us that if you're involved in the trailblazing field of Web based-learning then you're probably using PowerPoint as your professional presentation package. Have you ever wished that you could transport those nifty presentations that you've spent time developing to the Web? Well the good news is that this can be easily done. PowerPoint has an inbuilt capability to do just that and I'll show you how to do it here in 4 easy steps. I have found that being able to publish my PowerPoint classroom slides extremely useful in F2F teaching alone. If students have missed a class and subsequently request a set of notes, I simply direct them to my website. In terms of on-the-fly content development/management however, it is in online training delivery that the benefits of this PowerPoint functionality truly shine.

Requirements:
Microsoft PowerPoint 2000
PowerPoint presentation
Publishing space on a web server
A firewall-free Internet connection
Internet Explorer 4+

Time:
20 minutes

Level:
Intermediate

Step One: Getting Ready and Previewing Your Site

Begin by loading the PowerPoint presentation that you wish to publish on the Web by double clicking on its icon. Since you are going to publish your presentation, now is a good time to go over your slides to check that your content is exactly how you want it. Also, have a peek and see what your presentation is going to look like to your web site visitors:

Go to the File menu and select Web Page Preview.

Your default Web browser loads a framed web site, listing the titles of all your slides in the left side frame. The main window displays the first presentation slide. This is true WYSWYG, folks! What you see in the Web browser is exactly what you'll eventually see on the World Wide Web.

If there is anything that you'd like to edit, just go back to PowerPoint, make your changes and hit the above File menu command again to view how your updated presentation looks. When you're totally happy with the way everything looks, you're ready to make a local backup copy of your presentation web site.

Step Two: Backup Copy on Your Local Computer

In the File menu select Save as Web Page

The Save As dialog box will prompt you for a location (i.e. where you'd like your web site saved). Choose a location that you can easily find, such as the Desktop. There are quite a few advanced options that you can choose here, but we'll leave these for now and just accept the defaults by clicking "OK".

That's it. You're done! PowerPoint has completed all the hard work for you and saved the entire presentation as an HTML document to your Desktop, complete with a folder that contains all the associated files that will be needed. If you're the curious type, by all means have a little snoop around in this folder. You'll see all manner of image, Javascript and XML goodies. You now have a fully functioning backup of your mini Web site on your desktop. Pretty exciting, eh? But we want to publish the presentation on the World Wide Web. So let's keep going.

Step Three: Uploading to Remote Server

This is an easy step as long as you have the FTP address of your ISP's web server handy, as well as your username and password. (Remember that if you're behind a firewall, you will probably not be able to proceed beyond this point). Your host's FTP address is either a number (such as 203.234.1.32) or an address such as ftp.domain.au or similar. Check this out with the provider of your web space. Armed with your server details, you're now ready to return to PowerPoint.

In the File menu select Save as Web Page again.

This time we're going to save to a remote host and select our location accordingly. While this location may geographically be halfway around the world, saving your site is really no different from saving files to your hard drive. Near the top of the dialogue box you'll see a Save In dropdown box.

Select FTP Locations from this dropdown box.

If you haven't accessed your remote Web server before you're now given the opportunity to Add and Modify FTP Locations. This is where you should enter the server details mentioned above. Fill in the server name, user name and password (undo the user radio button if it is greyed out), select the Add button and click "OK".

Now select the FTP site you've just defined from the dropdown box. The file/directory structure of the remote host will load inside the dialogue box. This allows you to choose a directory or location for your PowerPoint website on the remote server. Chose one and click Save. Your modem will now show signs of activity as your files are transferred to the remote host. Depending on the speed of your Internet connection and the size of your presentation this may take a few minutes.

Step Four: View it on the Web

Now that your presentation is published, it's time to view it on the Web. It's advisable to test your new content before sending its address to friends and associates. Using your Web browser, enter the URL of the remote server, followed by the directory path to where you've just uploaded your content. It should look something like this: www.yourserver.com.au/directory/file.htm . Make sure that you've used forward slashes and not backslashes and that you've typed in the correct location.

Your web-published PowerPoint presentation should now appear. Now how EASY was that?