Supercharge your PowerPoint productivity with
Supercharge your PPT Productivity with PPTools - Click here to learn more.

Proud member of

PPTools

Image Export converts PowerPoint slides to high-quality images.

PPT2HTML exports HTML even from PowerPoint 2010 and 2013, gives you full control of PowerPoint HTML output, helps meet Section 508 accessibility requirements

Merge Excel data into PowerPoint presentations to create certificates, awards presentations, personalized presentations and more

Resize your presentations quickly and without distortion

Language Selector switches the text in your presentation from one language to another

FixLinks prevents broken links when you distribute PowerPoint presentations

Shape Styles brings styles to PowerPoint. Apply complex formatting with a single click.

Send a presentation that opens automatically in email

Can I email a presentation that starts automatically when the recipient opens the email?

Rename the presentation file to give it a PPS instead of PPT extension (or open it in PowerPoint and save it as a PowerPoint Show instead of Presentation) and attach it to the email.

That was the good news. Now here's the discouraging part:

IF all those conditions are met, then maybe, just maybe, it might work. In other words, don't bet the farm on this one.

Oh, and IF they have Outlook Express, use the PowerPoint Viewer 2003 and have applied Windows XP Service Pack 2, they won't be able to start the presentation from within Outlook at all. They'll have to know how to use one of the workarounds described here."

Whenever you attach files to email, the body of the email should explain who you are, what's in the attachment and why the recipient might want to risk opening it; these days, nearly anything from anybody might contain a virus, so opening attachments really is a risk.

But wait ... there's more

You'll also need to include any linked files. And even if the presentation starts ok, then links may not work.

Sounds/Movies don't play, images disappear or links break when I move or email a presentation

Note that some email programs (Eudora, for example) put downloaded files into a single folder, others don't (Outlook). This can cause linking problems. MVP Sonia Coleman explains it thus:

Outlook Express makes you tell it where to save a file attachment. If there are multiple files you can select them all, right click and choose "Save all". That way they all go to the same folder. Of course, if you right click on a single file and select "Open", it will be opened from your Temp folder and the links will be broken. I think that the best thing is to send the files attached to an E-mail which says in the body, "Save all of the attached files, either to a single folder on your hard drive or to your Desktop. Then locate file xxxxxxxx.PPS and double click on it to run my wonderful presentation."

Depending on the user's Outlook or Outlook Express security settings, they may not be able to save attached files at all.

And you thought this was gonna be easy, huh?

Another approach

Put the PPT file up on your web site and send a link by email. Or if your PPT includes lots of linked files, zip up the PPT and all the linked files into one ZIP file and send a link to that. This has several advantages.


Did this solve your problem? If so, please consider supporting the PPT FAQ with a small PayPal donation.
Page copy protected against web site content infringement by Copyscape Contents © 1995 - 2022 Stephen Rindsberg, Rindsberg Photography, Inc. and members of the MS PowerPoint MVP team. You may link to this page but any form of unauthorized reproduction of this page's contents is expressly forbidden.

Supercharge your PPT Productivity with PPTools

content authoring & site maintenance by
Friday, the automatic faq maker (logo)
Friday - The Automatic FAQ Maker

Send a presentation that opens automatically in email
http://www.pptfaq.com/FAQ00341_Send_a_presentation_that_opens_automatically_in_email.htm
Last update 07 June, 2011
Created: