How Tos‎ > ‎

Importing Powerpoint (on a Mac) in ActivInspire (Work-around)

Logo of Promethean Boards Bound: A Blog About Educational Technology featuring a cartoon map of the Upper Cumberland region

by MARK WEST 2/5/10

Mac Tips

Special Keys

The Mac Command Key

You probably call this the "Apple Key", but it's officially called the Command Key and it is located near your spacebar. It is used on a Mac much like the control key is used on Microsoft Windows®; example: control-c on Windows copies and on a Mac we use command-c; control-v pastes on Windows and command-v pastes on Mac OS.

The Option Key

The Option Key is located near the Command Key and is sometimes called the ALT key. This key can frustrate a Windows user, as it doesn't work as a Windows ALT key does (you'll often use the Command Key on Mac where ALT is used in Windows), such as when tabbing through open applications: on Windows it's ALT-Tab, on a Mac it's Command-Tab.

The Control Key

The Control Key is located near the Command Key and has special funtions on a Mac (see "Right Clicking" below).

Exiting A Bad Program

On Windows, Alt+F4 will quickly terminate a program.

On Mac OS, Command+Q will quickly terminate a program.

The "3-Finger Salute"

On Windows, when a program stops behaving properly, you can press Control+Alt+Delete to invoke the Task Manager to make an application stop.

On Mac OS, you can accomplish the same thing by pressing Command+Option+Escape; this invokes the Force Quit menu and you can make applications stop.

"Right Clicking"

Sometimes you need to right click. On most computers it's easy, as they come with a two-button mouse. On Mac OS, you typically find a single-button mouse.

You can plug a two-button mouse in to a Mac and it will work. The reason is because two-button mice work on Unix and Mac OS is a Unix variant that uses parts from FreeBSD's and NetBSD's implementation of Unix.

You can also "right click" on a Mac with a single button mouse. To do so, you can do either of the following:

  1. Press and hold the Control Key while clicking.
  2. (This one only works if you have a Mac with a touchpad - usually a laptop) place two fingers on the touchpad while clicking.

Importing A PowerPoint On Mac OS

On Microsoft Windows®, you can import a PowerPoint file into ActivStudio and ActivInspire. On Mac Os, you can't ... directly from Powerpoint. However, the sneaky way is to convert your PowerPoint into a PDF. Both ActivStudio and ActivInspire can import a PDF on Mac OS.

Once you install Adobe Acrobat Reader on Mac OS, you have a new print option, Print To PDF.

Wait! I have multimedia embedded in the PowerPoint file!

Mac's version of PowerPoint lets you make a movie (File ->Make Movie in PPT 2004, File ->Save As Movie in PPT 2008). Copy your PPT file and in the copy remove all pages except for one page with the movie on it (if you have multiple embedded movies, make a separate one-page PowerPoint file for each separate movie). You can then import each movie into ActivInpire/ActivStudio.


Comments