Web-Based Tool for PowerPoint

According to Ellen, Microsoft PowerPoint is a presentation program that helps us create presentations slides and then present it on the computer or projection screen. Nowadays, the use of Microsoft PowerPoint in universities is increasing dramatically. Almost every lecturers and students use presentation slides for teaching and learning. Lecturers can create a presentation slide easily with important notes inside the slide without have to print out the notes for students. Furthermore, lecturers can share their presentation slides to the students by upload the slides to the E-Learning. Students can download and read it or share it with others. Problem arises when some of the lecturers or students want to share or reuse some learning object such as picture, video or sound inside the PowerPoint slides. They have to search and view each of the PowerPoint slides in order to locate the learning objects. Hence, a web based tool, Learning Object Extraction for Microsoft PowerPoint is one of the method to solve this issue.

Learning Object Extraction for Microsoft PowerPoint is a web based tool which the users have to access to internet in order to use the tool. This tool can extract various format of PowerPoint such as ppt, pptx, ppsx, pptm. Futhermore, this tool can extract learning object with various format such as jpg, png, gif, flv, wmv, mov, mp3, wma /.wav.

Problem Background

Microsoft PowerPoint is widely used in schools and universities. PowerPoint slides that had created were used by lecturers or students for teaching and learning. It is difficult for users to share or reuse a particular learning object that in format of Microsoft PowerPoint. As a result, users have to search and view each of the presentation slides in order to share or reuse the materials. In addition, most of the users have to store the whole presentation slides in order to save a particular learning object. This make the users faced some difficulties to reuse or share the learning object such as a picture or video. Hence, a complete tool needs to be develops in order to overcome these issues.

Purpose

The purpose of this project is to develop a web based tool that will extract the learning object that in various formats from Microsoft PowerPoint presentation slides.

Objective

The objectives of this project are:

Develop a web based tool for the users to extract the learning object into separated format from Microsoft PowerPoint presentation slides.

Develop an interface for the web based tool to let the users search and browse the learning object after perform the extraction.

Scope

The scopes of this project are:

The web based tool is designed for students and lecturers in universities or school.

This tool will run in a server and every user can access it by log in to the webpage.

This tool supports several types of Microsoft PowerPoint format such as ppt, pptx, ppsx, pptm.

This tool can extract learning object with various format such as jpg, png, gif, flv, wmv, mov, mp3, wma, wav.

Significance of Project

This tool can give convenient for its users by extract the presentation slides automatically. Users can share or reuse the learning object easily by using the extraction tool to extract the object from presentation slides. In addition, users can search for the learning object without open and view each of the presentation slides after perform the extraction.

CHAPTER 2

LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 Introduction

Microsoft PowerPoint is the leader of all in presentation programs compare to Corel Presentation or Apple’s Key-note. (Emily, 2007). People all around the world use presentation slides every day. Bulleted text, graphics, video, sound or animated slides are major content of a presentation slides. We can embed images, videos or sound by using Object Linking and Embedding (OLE) technology. “Object Linking and Embedding (OLE), is a Microsoft Windows feature that combines various application data into one compound document. (Thomas and Krishnan, 2002).” According to Peter (2010), it is a medium for bringing programs beside Microsoft PowerPoint into the mix without leaving Microsoft PowerPoint.

2.2 Research on the Existing Tool or Method

It is necessary to analyze all the current tool or current methods that exist in the internet in order to develop a complete Learning Object Extraction for Microsoft PowerPoint. There are one similar standalone application and a method on how to extract learning object are found for analysis study. The standalone application will be discussed in Section 2.2.1 while the method on how to extract learning object will be discussed in Section 2.2.2.

2.2.1 PowerPoint Image Extractor V1.2

PowerPoint Image Extractor V1.2 is a freeware. It can be downloaded at http://alainlecomte.free.fr/Download.htm#PPImageExtractor. This application can extract pictures and wave files from Microsoft PowerPoint and slideshow that in format of .ppt and .pps. After perform the extraction, the image files and wave files will be separate in a different folder by the application. This standalone application will run under Windows environment such as Windows NT/XP/Vista/7. Below are the screenshot of the application.

Figure2.1.JPG

Figure 2.1 Screenshot of PowerPoint Image Extractor V1.2

2.2.2 Extract Images and Sound from Microsoft PowerPoint

All of these methods are written at pptfaq (2010). There are different methods to extract presentation files that created in different version of Microsoft PowerPoint such as in Microsoft PowerPoint 2010, Microsoft PowerPoint 2007 or Microsoft PowerPoint 2000 through 2003. There are several steps in order to extract images or sounds from Microsoft PowerPoint 2010 with file extension in PPTX, PPSX, PPTM, PPSM, POTX, or POTM. Firstly, right click the presentation slides and choose rename. Then, add .zip to the end of the file name and it will look similar like this type of format: myfile.ppts.zip. After that, double click the zip file to open it in windows explorer. There is a folder name PPT, double click the folder and the images or sounds will be kept in media folder. Drag and drop the media folder to anywhere in your hard drive to save the objects. Finally, by right click the presentation file and delete the .zip extension to open it with Microsoft PowerPoint.

The method to extract presentation files created by Microsoft PowerPoint 2000, 2003 and 2007 are the same. Firstly, double click to open the presentation slides. Then, click Office button and click Save As other format. In the dialog box, make sure the type of save as are save in web page (*.htm, *.html). Finally, choose a place to save it and then close the presentation slides. Microsoft PowerPoint will create a single file and in the mean times will create another folder. Inside the created folder, there are whole bunch of files. The embedded images or sounds files will be among of the files.

Justification of Learning Object Extraction for Microsoft PowerPoint

Learning Object Extraction is developed as web based tool to improve the current standalone application and methods by adding more supported format of presentation slides. In addition, this web based tool will extract learning object with several format such as jpg, png, gif, flv, wmv, mov, mp3, wma, wav. This tool will run in a server and require the users to upload the presentation slides to the server and extraction of learning object will be performed at the same time.

Therefore, the current application and methods are studied for implementation of Learning Object Extraction for Microsoft PowerPoint in order to achieve the goal.

2.4 Research on Current Technology

There are several options to choose for web development such as HTML for static web pages, JSP and ASP.NET for dynamic web pages. The most appropriate language use on the development of Learning Object Extraction for Microsoft PowerPoint is either JSP or ASP.NET.

2.4.1 Research on Java Server Pages Technology

The use of Java Server Pages has grown rapidly since after the introduced of The Java 2 Platform. Many web developers choose to use JSP to build e-commerce system, dynamic websites and web services. A JSP can compile into servlet and servlet can act as a middleware to read and sent data between client and server. (Marty and Larry, 2009). Web service will make use of servlets container such as Apache Tomcat and then execute numerous of code that define by the developer in order to perform the complete web pages.

2.4.2 Research on Active Server Pages Dot NET Technology

ASP is a technology that enables web developer to build dynamic and interactive Web pages quickly and easily. We could include VBScript or JScript code commands in the ASP to be executed on the Web server before the page was sent to the user’s browser. “ASP used script between and percentage sign to control server-side behavior. (Bill et al, 2010).” Developer can firstly build an ASP page with only HTML static page and then can define own code to make the ASP page dynamically.

Justification for Choosing JSP as the Coding Language

“JSP technology adheres to the Write Once, Run Anywhere philosophy of the Java architecture. (Sun Microsystems, 1999)”. JSP technology can be run in any operating systems that support Java such as Unix/Linux, Mac OS or others. Compared to ASP, JSP is more popular and tool used to create JSP web pages is also free of charge. Apart from that some of the component such as JavaBeans can be reused for others web pages. This can help the developer to complete the web development more faster due to the flexibility of Java technology.