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AutoCAD: Inserting a Drawing into a PowerPoint

Presentation

By Ellen Finkelstein
Do you sometimes deliver PowerPoint presentations to clients or colleagues?
Have you ever wanted to put an AutoCAD drawing in the presentation? There
are many situations where you might want to formally present your work rather
than just bring a printout and have the audience gather around.
The Old Way
Until recently, your only option was to save the drawing to an image format, such
as JPEG, WMF, or BMP. Then you could go into PowerPoint and insert the
graphic file using Insert > Picture > From File.
You could use one of these methods to prepare the drawing for insertion:
Choose File > Export and choose the file format you want in the Save
as Type drop-down list.
Copy AutoCAD objects to the Windows clipboard and paste them into a
PowerPoint slide.
If you have a rendered image, choose Tools > Display Image > Save
and choose BMP, TGA, or TIF.
Use the Publish to Web feature in AutoCAD 2000i or 2002 to create a
JPEG or PNG file.
Whichever method you used, when you showed your presentation, the drawing
just sat there, immovable. If the drawing was large, your audience couldn't see
very much detail. If you needed to break down the drawing into smaller areas, you
had to put each area on a separate slide, losing the sense of the whole.
On the other hand, you could bring a projector and go directly into AutoCAD
software to show the drawing. Many people probably use this method, but a
PowerPoint presentation adds a sense of formality, structure, and class to the
proceedings. And you can add text to make your point (and help you remember
what to say).
The New Way
Wouldn't it be nice to have a PowerPoint presentation that displayed an AutoCAD
drawing where you could pan and scroll, zoom in and out, go to saved views and
turn off layers? Now you can. It's like having the actual AutoCAD drawing in
PowerPoint.
The technique involves using Volo View Express software, which is a free
download available at the Autodesk website. You can also use Volo View Express
to view files in DWF (drawing web format) and DXF (drawing interchange
format). All the steps below apply not only to DWG files, but also to DWF and
DXF files as well.
Here are the steps:
1. Make sure you have installed Volo View Express on the computers you use to
create and deliver your presentation. Go to the Volo View Express page on the
Autodesk website and follow the instructions for downloading it.
2. In PowerPoint, display the slide where you want to put the drawing.
3. Right-click any toolbar and click Control Toolbox to display the Control

Toolbox toolbar.
4. On the Control Toolbox toolbar, click More Controls.
5. Choose Autodesk Volo View Control from the drop-down list.
6. On the active slide, drag out a rectangle for the DWG file. You'll see a rectangle
with the Volo View Express logo (see Figure 1).

Figure 1: Here you see a PowerPoint slide with a Volo View Express control
just a rectangle with the Volo View Express logo.

Figure 2: Use the Options dialog box to specify the drawing you want to display in your
PowerPoint presentation.

7. Right-click the rectangle and choose Properties. The Properties window opens.
8. Click anywhere in the Custom (top) row. You see an ellipsis button. Click the
button. The Options dialog box opens (see Figure 2).

Figure 3: When you finish inserting the Volo View Express Control and
specifying the drawing, you see the drawing with scrollbars on your slide.

9. On the General tab in the File Name section, click Browse to choose the
drawing file. I didn't have success using a relative path (just the file nameeven
though the file was in the same folder as my presentation), so using Browse seems
safest.
Note: On the General tab, you can also add paths for support files
(xrefs or hyperlinks, for example) and font files.
10. On the Display tab you can set some color parameters as well as the projection
(parallel or perspective) and shading (wireframe, flat shaded, or Gouraud shaded).
(Gouraud shading provides more realistic shading.)
11. On the Print tab you can set color parameters for printing the drawing. (You
can print the file from PowerPoint.)
12. When you're done, click OK to return to the Properties window. You should
see your file listed next to the Src item. Close the window by clicking its Close
box. (If you don't see the file, close the Properties window and reopen it. The file
now appears next to Src.)
13. In PowerPoint, go into slide show view to view the slide. After a brief pause
(perhaps embarrassing in a presentation environment?), you'll see the drawing,
along with horizontal and vertical scrollbars (see Figure 3).

Figure 4: Right-click the drawing in PowerPoint to get this menu so you can pan,
zoom, go to named views, and more.
Besides scrolling, you can right-click the drawing to use the Volo View Express
menu (see Figure 4), where you can do the following:

Pan and zoom.

Turn layers on and off.
Display named views.
Switch to ClearScale (gray scale) or Black & White.
Print (just the drawing, not the slide).
Others options may be available depending on how the drawing was saved.
This could make for a very nice presentation, zooming in and out to show the
drawing. I'd like to credit Geetesh Bajaj, a Microsoft PowerPoint MVP, for the
initial idea that led to this tip. He wrote an article on putting a DWF file in a
PowerPoint presentation using WHIP!.
Conclusion
Having written books on both AutoCAD and PowerPoint software, it was like love
at first sight when I discovered this technique for putting an AutoCAD drawing in
a PowerPoint presentation. AutoCAD and PowerPoint make a great combination.
Drawings are not isolated; as the objects they portray go through the production
cycle from concept to completion, they need to be explained and presented at
every step. Now there's a new tool in your arsenal.