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Web Screen Saver 2008SE

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Web Screen Saver 2008SE

Use a PowerPoint slide show as a screensaver

The PowerPoint slide show format is useful because you can set timing for each individual slide.
Doing this, the slide show will run by itself with automatic timings.
Also, PowerPoint is a powerful tool that can be used by any person in your organization.
So, with PowerPoint, information is easy to update and publish.

With Web Screen Saver, you can retrieve a PowerPoint slide show from a file or web server and use it as a screensaver.

When this file is updated on the server, Web Screen Saver automatically retrieves the newer version and displays it.

To display a PowerPoint presentation, you need either to install Microsoft PowerPoint or Microsoft PowerPoint Viewer on the computer.

Prepare a .PPS file with PowerPoint

Take a PowerPoint file and prepare the file by recording display time for every slide.
Select "Rehearse Timings" from the "Slide show" menu in PowerPoint and select a delay for each slide.

Set slide show options in "Slide show" menu, "Set up show" item:
Do not check the "Browsed at a kiosk (full screen)" check box.
Uncheck the "Loop continuously until 'Esc'" option.
Click OK to validate.

Also, to make PowerPoint automatically quit when the last slide has been displayed, select the "Options" item in the "Tools" menu.
In the "View" tab, "Slide Show" pane, uncheck the "End with black slide" option to quit PowerPoint after the last slide of each slide show. Click OK.

Save the slide show as a .pps file and store it on a web server that can be reached by every user.

Use a .PPS file in Web Screen Saver

Then, update your Web Screen Saver settings: in the Configuration dialog box, switch to the Pages tab.
Open the Properties dialog box and point to the PowerPoint file you just stored on a web server.
For instance:

http://www.web-screen-saver.com/samples/wss.pps

Check the "Create a local copy of this page or file" option.
The path and file name of the copy are then displayed in the dialog box.
Make sure the "Run as a separate process" option is checked.
With this option, Web Screen Saver will launch PowerPoint in a slide show mode on the retrieved file.

Check the "Display until separate process ends" check box. With this option checked, the software will wait for the end of the separate process before displaying the next page or file in the page loop.

Set a maximal display time for the PowerPoint slide show. What you type here should be greater or equal than the sum of all slides timings.

The PowerPoint slide show will be displayed until its end or for the maximum delay specified. When the slide show ends, Web Screen Saver will move to the next page or file in the page list. If this is the single .PPS file in the presentation, Web Screen Saver will request a newer version of the .PPS file on the web server, if there is any.

Click OK to close the Properties dialog box, and OK again to close the Configuration dialog box.

When Web Screen Saver will be launched, the page will be downloaded and stored locally in the Windows temporary path.

Update the .PPS file through the network

When the .pps file is updated on the server, the software automatically retrieves the newer version and always displays up-to-date information.

This feature is available even if you create a local copy of the .PPS file.

Therefore, you get a screensaver with automatic content update from a central repository.

Try it!

Click here to run a sample.

Enter the address of a PowerPoint slideshow (.pps file) located on the web or on a file server:

Display .PPS files from a given directory

You can use Web Screen Saver to display all .pps files from a given directory:
in the Configuration dialog box, select the Pages tab.
Click on the "Insert" button to open the "Properties" dialog box.
In the "Properties" dialog box, type the path of the directory containing PowerPoint files followed by a "*.pps" file mask.
For instance:

c:\pps\*.pps

Make sure the "Run as a separate process" option is checked. Doing this, Web Screen Saver will launch Microsoft PowerPoint instead of displaying the slide show embedded in Internet Explorer which is not working very well.

Also, check the "Display until separate process ends" option to ensure Microsoft PowerPoint automatically quits at the end of each slide show.

If you want to display files stored in sub-directories, check the "Include sub-directories" check box.

Display .PPS files downloaded from a web folder

Web Screen Saver is able to download PowerPoint .pps files from a web site and display these files using Microsoft PowerPoint or PowerPoint viewer.

For instance, if you have an undefined count of .pps files located on a web server, like the following folder:

http://www.vaugouin.com/pps/

You can include the following properties in the page loop of Web Screen Saver:

With these settings, Web Screen Saver will automatically retrieve the list of files stored in the given folder of the web server.

Each file will be downloaded and displayed using the default application based on file extension.

Because the web folder contains links to .pps files but also links to sort the file list on different fields, it is necessary to exclude these links through the "Exclude" tab:

Also, because the content of the web folder may change and some files can appear or disappear, you need to set a minimum size for a file to be downloaded through the Update tab:

For instance, set a minimum size of 10000 characters minimum to avoid handling of a not found (error 404) error page as a valid .pps file. The value set here should be greater than the actual size of an error page.

Click here to run this sample.

PowerPoint or PowerPoint viewer?

If you are using Microsoft Office 2000, you should know about a referenced bug in the Microsoft knowledge base:
PPT2000: Screen saver is reset to None after you run .PPS or Use /s switch (Q264926)

Solutions:

• Install Microsoft Office 2000 Service Pack 2 or a newer version of Microsoft Office.
• Or use Microsoft PowerPoint Viewer (PPView97.exe) instead of Microsoft PowerPoint to display .pps files. This program is able to display PowerPoint 97, 2000, XP or 2003 files.

Hide main window

If you get a black empty screen instead of the PowerPoint presentation, you should check the "Hide main window when a separate process is launched" option in the "Layout" tab.

With this option enabled, the Web Screen Saver main window becomes invisible when PowerPoint is launched. So, the PowerPoint window cannot be hidden by the screensaver black main window.

However, the Windows desktop will be visible between PPS files if the screensaver is not password protected.