How to embed a swf file in excel/word?

Question

It may not be a programming question but i would like to know how to embed a swf file in excel/word?

Answer 1

Using Office XP, Excel or Word

From the 'View' menu select 'Toolbars' and tick the 'Control Toolbox'

On the 'Control Toolbox' toolbar click on the 'More controls' icon

A list of controls will be displayed. Scroll down until you find the 'Shockwave Flash Object' and then click on it.

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Excel

This should change your cursor to a crosshair. Move to the area on the worksheet where you want to inset the 'Shockwave Flash Object'.
Left click, hold and drag to create a box of the required size.

Word

Word will automatically insert the control where the cursor is.
It's size can be set by dragging the edges or via it's 'Properties'

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Next right click on the control you have just inserted and select 'Properties'.

Set the following properties

• Autoload = True
• EmbedMovie = True
• Enabled = True
• Loop = True
• Playing = True
• Visible = True
• Movie = c:\flash.swf (Change this to the location of your .swf file)

Close the 'Properties' control

Save the file.

Close the file.

Reopen the file.

The .swf file should start playing automatically.

Answer 2

In Office 2007 (in previous versions I guess it's pretty much the same):

"Insert" tab > Object > Flash Document

Answer 3

I noticed, when I tried it, that the swf object displays well enough for me - save, re-open, display.

The swf file in my docx was on my C:\, I right-clicked the swf object > properties > "Movie" : "Full_File_Path.swf". As above, I found that 'EmbedMovie' and 'Enabled' options weren't available in my version of Word 2007 (standard issue, legit version), though 'Embed' is, I toggled it to 'true'.

Therefore, when I sent the docx file around the office - nothing showed up! (shaaaame)

So, following on from this question, is there a way to actually embed the file for those who don't have access to my C:\?

I tried dropping the .swf file on our shared work network, and that dutifully showed up and wowed people - but what if the network's down, or someone is out of the office...

Just curious I suppose, but it's a neat trick so far!

[EDIT] Not sure if this is sane or not, but when I went to re-try the above, I now see that 'EmbedMovie' IS available, but 'Embed' is not, 'Enabled' is still unavailable.

[2nd EDIT] Ok, after a bit more testing, I found that switching back to DOC to embed the swf did so correctly. As a side-effect, the swf stuck on 'first frame' (mostly scripted swf though, so 'first frame' might be inaccurate). I had a few other people try to open my iterative tests:

User 1: 'DOC embedded swf' - displays an 'image', or possibly the swf stuck on frame 1, if swf not available from the file path used during creation.

User 2: 'DOC embedded swf' - displays and runs all scripts if swf available from file path used during creation (in our case a shared drive, a URL like youtube video would cut the mustard, too).

User 3: 'DOCX embedded swf' - displays blank box if swf not available from the file path used during creation (like a shared drive versus C:)

User 4: 'DOCX embedded swf' - displays and runs all scripts if swf available from file path used during creation.

Hope this helps someone/anyone!