Inserting a Flash movie in PowerPoint 2003 and 2007 wasn’t very straightforward, but you could certainly do it. In 2007, go to the Developer tab on the ribbon (enable the tab in the Options, if necessary) and click the More Tools icon 
. From the pop-up that appears, choose the Shockwave Flash Object. 
Draw a box on the slide, then use the Properties panel to set the file name of the movie.
PowerPoint 2010 either makes this easier or makes it impossible, depending on whether you’re using the 32 or 64-bit version of Office.
The problem is that even though 64-bit Windows has been around for several years, the Adobe Flash player is only a 32-bit plug-in. Office 2007 and older are also 32-bit, so for those applications, the plug-in isn’t a problem.
But Office 2010 is the first suite from Microsoft that comes in x32 and x64 versions. With the x32 version, you can simply go to PowerPoint’s Insert tab and click the Video button 
to insert a Flash object.
The problem is if you have the x64 version of PowerPoint, the video button won’t let you insert a Flash object, and neither will the Controls window in the Developer tab. You just can’t do it.
Keep in mind that if you have the 64-bit version of Windows 7 or Vista, you can still have the 32-bit version of Office, in which case you can still insert Flash movies. You’ll miss the plug-in only if you’re using the 64-bit version of Office, and that requires 64-bit Windows.
2 thoughts on “Insert Flash in PowerPoint 2010? Maybe.”
[…] Christmas present from Adobe December 25th, 2010 Back in June, I posted that if you're running the 64-bit version of Microsoft Office, you couldn't insert Flash movies, […]
Update to this post: Adobe has released a beta of a 64-bit version of the Flash player, called Adobe Square. If you’re using the 64-bit version of Microsoft Office, you’ll want to download it. There’s more info on my Christmas Day 2010 post.
Comments are closed.