Including files automatically in Connect/Breeze Presenter...

Let say that there was a file or files that you needed to include in Presenter every time you published and you are getting tired of copying them over all the time manually. There is a simple solution that I have just found. All that you need to do is go to the directory where you have your PPT that you are going to convert and create a directory with the same name as the PPT.

For example lets say I have a presentation named "Your Road to Electronics". I would also need to have a folder named "Your Road to Electronics" in the same folder as the PPT. Once that is there, you can throw just about any file into that folder and it will be included when the PPT is published.

The best part of this is that if you have created a custom logo that replaces the standard logo in the bottom left of the presentation you don't have to manually put it in the files every time you publish. You simply have to create a "resources" directory in the example folder we created "Your Road to Electronics" and it will automatically be put into the resources folder in your published files.

You might end up with something like this in that example folder:

  \resources\logo.swf

Then when you publish it will go into the resources folder of your published files.

  \data\resources\logo.swf

If you do not put a sub-directory your files will end up in the "data" folder of your published files.

Like I have said before there are some pretty interesting features of Connect/Breeze Presenter that were never documented.

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Terry's Gravatar I've tried this technique and it doesn't seem to work. I'm using Version 6, Build 432 of Presenter.

I need to include an XML file that is read by a custom SWF but placing it in the sub directory you describe or the resources directory of that sub directory does not seem to make a difference. I know I'm in the right location because if I add an attachment to my presentation, Presenter places a copy of the file in the resources sub-directory and this file is copied to the output directory structure when I publish.

Right now, I'm forced to copy my XML file into the data/resources directory every time after I publish which is a real pain. What's worse is that although I would like to publish to the Adobe server directly from within powerpoint, I cannot do this as I have no opportunity to copy in my XML file without which, my SWF will not work.

So instead, I publish locally, copy in my XML file, zip the contents, delete the old version of the presentation on the Adobe server and then manually upload. Arghh!

Any idea why this is not working for me as you describe, it would be a real life-saver.

BTW, I've discovered that if you write a custom SWF that tries to open a file the path name is different for files published locally and on the Adobe server. The data directory becomes /default/data while the resources directory becomes /default/data/resources - thought that might be usefull for someone.
# Posted By Terry | 4/21/07 8:59 AM
jeff's Gravatar I wonder if they changed it in the new version then. I have version 5.1.269 and it works fine with all documents and xml. I was able to get it to automatically copy files into the data folder and into the data\resources folder automatically. It is a shame if they did change this.
# Posted By jeff | 4/23/07 11:14 AM
jeff's Gravatar btw, did you create the folder that had the same name as your PPT?

If I had a ppt named, my_new_test.ppt, then there would be a folder in the same directory as the powerpoint file with the name my_new_test. The directory with the PPT should look like this:

my_new_test.ppt
my_new_test.ppc
my_new_test\ or my_new_test\resources
# Posted By jeff | 4/23/07 11:18 AM
Terry's Gravatar Hi Jeff,
Yes, I absolutely have a folder with the same name as my PPT file. Just to be sure, I added an attachment to the presentation which causes Presenter to create the directory for you and it then places your attachment automatically into the resources directory you describe. Unfortunately no matter what other files I add in there manually, they do not get copied to the output.
I've spoken to a senior person at Adobe and they're looking into why the behaviour might have changed as it's an invaluable "undocumented" feature.
# Posted By Terry | 4/24/07 7:40 PM
jeff's Gravatar That is very strange indeed... I also did another test where I created an xml file named "test.xml" and put it in that folder without ever attaching it to the presentation. It was copied just fine to the published folder. This seems to be a change in the new version of Presenter from what already existed. This might be a case of where they thought they were fixing a "bug" when users actually considered it a hidden feature.
# Posted By jeff | 4/25/07 10:59 AM
Terry's Gravatar Do you have access to the new version? Perhaps you can email me a copy of the old version (I'm "terryshane" and you can reach me at gmail.com) and we could arrange to compare the two releases to see if there really is a difference in behaviour or if it's perhaps a setting at my end or your end that's causing the difference. Let me know if you would be interested. It might highlight a variation in one of the manifest files in the program directory that would solve the problem.
# Posted By Terry | 4/25/07 3:41 PM




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