SWF embedded in PowerPoint 2003--works once, but if closed and re-opened does not play

Question

I create SWFs using Flash CS4. I can embed them fine and tney work, but if I save and close the presentation, they don't play when it is re-opened.

However, if I manually change the "Playing" property to "True" they play. Unfortunately, if I save and re-open the presentation "Playing" is always false.

Any suggestions?

Answer 1

I ended up using a Visual Basic for Applications solution with this code, which should be adaptable to other people's uses if anyone reads this qustion later:

Sub OnSlideShowPageChange()
    If ActivePresentation.Slides(ActivePresentation.SlideShowWindow.View.CurrentShowPosition).Name = "Countdown" Then
        Dim obj As ShockwaveFlash
        Set obj = ActivePresentation.Slides("Countdown").Shapes("Timer1").OLEFormat.Object
        obj.Playing = True
        obj.Rewind
        obj.Play
    End If

    If ActivePresentation.Slides(ActivePresentation.SlideShowWindow.View.CurrentShowPosition).Name = "Countdown2" Then
        Dim obj2 As ShockwaveFlash
        Set obj2 = Nothing
        Set obj2 = ActivePresentation.Slides("Countdown2").Shapes("Timer2").OLEFormat.Object
        obj2.Left = -999
        MsgBox ("Its x position is now " & obj2.Left)
    End If

End Sub

I named two slides which had Flash movies on them as "Countdown" and "Countdown2" and the two movies as "Timer1" and "Timer2". The code below resets the critical properties of those movies when the specified slides are entered.