How to Navigate the Web
Without Using a Net
by Jim Endicott
The first time I went whitewater rafting was nearly my last. The "expert" advice my friends and I received before we set out was very bad, and the spring water runoff was very high. Trust me, this is not a good combination. Little did we know that the next four hours would stretch our skills (and friendships) to the limit.
When we seek out adventures such as whitewater rafting, roller coasters and the like, we're intentionally trying to get the adrenaline pumping. The one place we don't want that kind of white-knuckle experience, however, is during our presentations. There, we like everything to be as predictable as possible, with no surprises or unexpected twists.
And yet, there are still some foolish souls around who insist on attempting the presentation equivalent of a high-wire act without a net. I'm talking about people who, in an attempt to provide fresh and exciting experiences for their audiences, attempt live Internet connections to demonstrate their Web sites.
In a recent seminar, I asked who in my audience had seen someone attempt to log on to an Internet site during a presentation. In of a room of 200, 12 hands went up quickly. I then asked how many presenters made it work successfully? Only one hand remained.
You don't have to be a daredevil to demonstrate a Web site, though. Following are a few options for leveraging PowerPoint to visit portions of your Web site without leaving the comfort of your laptop computer. Skeptical? Read on.
Disconnecting your connection
The only way we can avoid the unpredictability of heavy Internet-server traffic or a bad phone connection is to avoid logging on in the first place. Our options for avoiding it fall into a couple of categories:
· Use static screens pasted into PowerPoint.
· Download the HTML files from your Web site to your laptop's hard disk and tell your browser to look for the Web pages there. In a presentation, the experience for the audience is identical to that of an actual jump to the Internet.
Static screens
1. Paste Web pages to PowerPoint slides.
Probably the easiest way to demonstrate a portion of your Web site is to open the specific pages you want to show with your browser, hit the PRINT SCREEN button and PASTE the full screen into PowerPoint. Repeating this process in consecutive PowerPoint slides is a fairly respectable way to imitate a basic Internet experience.
2. Make an invisible link button.
For that extra flavor of realism, use the ACTION SETTINGS option in PowerPoint to create an invisible button over the screen image to make it appear as though you've clicked to another page. Add a WIPE DOWN slide transition and your demonstration is complete.
Browser-lead demo
For a more realistic tour of a small portion of your Web site, however, the following steps can capture the experience much more convincingly. They won't work for every Web site, but they will for most.
1. What you need on your hard disk.
Web pages consist of HTML files (typically coded as .htm or .html files), which represent the embedded programming structure of each screen. The individual images on each page are separate graphics files (typically GIFs or JPGs) that are connected to each page by the coded information that resides in each HTML file. For this reason, make sure you copy and place on your hard disk any pages (and corresponding graphic images) you want to view. For larger Web sites, you will only want to include a subset of the pages on the actual site.
2. Getting your Web pages to your laptop computer.
The easiest way to get your pages and graphic files is to take your Web administrator out to lunch and ask for them. (If you can get the files, save them to their own folder on your hard disk and jump to Step 3.) There will be a collection of .htm or .html files, along with the graphic images that support them (.gif, .jpg).
If you haven't got a clue who the keeper of those files might be, there's another option to consider: using your browser to download the files yourself. (Be aware that more steps are added if you take this route.)
Following are directions for downloading HTML files using the two most popular browsers, Microsoft Internet Explorer and Netscape Navigator.
Internet Explorer
Internet Explorer does not provide a page editor. My advice is go to Netscape's
site (www.netscape.com/download/index.html)
and download the entire Netscape Communicator package, which includes the page
editor you'll need (Composer). Be prepared for a wait, though — it's a 16MB
download.
Netscape Navigator 4.x
a. Launch Netscape Communicator.
b. Go to the Web page(s) you want to download.
c. From the FILE menu, select EDIT PAGE. (This activates Netscape Composer.)
d. Select FILE, then sAVE AS (enter a page name of your choosing.)
e. Choose the destination folder on your hard disk that will hold your Web files
and select sAVE.
f. The Web pages and required GIF or JPG files will be saved to the designated
folder.
g. Repeat this process for each page, noting the name you've given each page.
h. You will need to come back to the saved files and repeat the EDIT PAGE steps
to redo the page links to the new page names. In Netscape, select the first page
you're visiting, then select FILE, EDIT PAGE and highlight the text or icon you
want to be your live link. Select the LINK icon, select the LINK tab and CHOOSE
FILE to point to the page you want to link with. Repeat this for each page.
(This step is necessary because the original HTML page names were changed when
you downloaded them.)
3. Launching your browser from inside PowerPoint 97.
Now you need a clever way to launch your Web browser within PowerPoint and direct it to the "Web site" on your hard disk. Here's how to set it up.
a. To emulate a "real" Web experience, launch your browser and hit the PRINT SCREEN button on your keyboard. A bitmap version of everything on your screen has been saved to the clipboard. Back in your PowerPoint presentation, PASTE the image. It fills the screen, so you'll crop it down to the browser navigation bar.
b. Right-mouse-click on the image and select SHOW PICTURE BAR. Using the cropping tool, grab the bottom resize handle and crop the image down to the navigation bar. Make a white box covering up the current "http://" navigation information so you can make your own animated version.
c. Using your PowerPoint text tool, type in your URL address, resize and place that text in the white navigation window and animate the address in, a letter at a time, to emulate someone typing it in.
4. Redirecting your browser to find hard-disk-resident files.
In PowerPoint, click on the bitmap image of the browser navigation. Select INSERT, then HYPERLINK. (Note that this option will not show up if the art you selected has a grouped element). In the hyperlink window you will see an option LINK TO FILE OR URL. Using the browse button, locate the first HTML file you want to show up when you initiate the hyperlink. The path you've selected will be shown in the box below.
The stage is now set to take your audience on a visit to your "Web site." When you reach the screen in your PowerPoint 97 presentation that contains the hyperlink, the Web address will appear (automatically or on your mouse-click). Click on the browser image to initiate the hyperlink and your Web browser will launch onscreen and seek out the startup page on your hard disk. Now you can navigate just as you would if you were actually on the Internet. Keep your selections simple and on a pre-determined demo path. Any click on a Web link that's not supported by a page will give you an error message. Practice your navigation until you've got it down cold. When you're done, simply select FILE CLOSE and you will return to your PowerPoint presentation.
Maybe you enjoy the thrill of getting out on the leading edge of technology during your presentations. I happen to like my challenges in other places. If I can reduce my chances of crashing and burning during a presentation, I'll do it. Then I can spend more of my mental energy on things like ... making sure I have something meaningful to say.
Jim Endicott is owner/manager of Distinction, a business communications company that provides creative and consulting support services. Jim assists business professionals in enhancing the content, tools and techniques related to effective presenting.
Originally published in the October 1998 issue of Presentations magazine. If you would like a copy of this issue contact the Circulation Department at 800.707.7749 or nswanson@lakewoodpub.com