USB Control Of Powerpoint

[mister_e]

in my opinion, you will have to do a little application which will send commands to Powerpoint

have a look at that
http://officeone.mvps.org/vba.html
http://skp.mvps.org/vb/pptvbwnd.htm

[Homerclese]

I didn' see anything on those sites that looked useful. I think I need a patch that will take characters input to com4 and make them look like they came from the keyboard. A USB keypad I have does what I want. What is the difference between this and characters coming from the pic Serout

[keithdoxey]

I didn' see anything on those sites that looked useful. I think I need a patch that will take characters input to com4 and make them look like they came from the keyboard. A USB keypad I have does what I want. What is the difference between this and characters coming from the pic Serout

Take a look at "Accessability Options" in windows. There is an option to accept a "keyboard" input from the serial port which is intended to be used with some of the equipment used by people with severe motor disabilities who can only control things by suck/blow or eye movements etc

Its under the "General" Tab in accessability options. "Serial Keys" Serialkey devices allow alternate access to mouse and keyboard features.

HTH

[Homerclese]

Thanks,
I have investigated your suggestion with mixed results. In the Powerpoint setup screen I am able to select items in the text boxes by having the pic send ascii codes for keys 1 through 7 with return. But when in the slideshow mode there is no response. The show is set for manual control - repeating till esc key. I seem to be able to control dialog boxes but not the actual slide selections. Am I not "focused" on the show screen?

[keithdoxey]

Thanks,
I have investigated your suggestion with mixed results. In the Powerpoint setup screen I am able to select items in the text boxes by having the pic send ascii codes for keys 1 through 7 with return. But when in the slideshow mode there is no response. The show is set for manual control - repeating till esc key. I seem to be able to control dialog boxes but not the actual slide selections. Am I not "focused" on the show screen?

Well it was worth a try

Powerpoint is a strange beast at te best of times. We used to have a problem with "Screen Burn" on CRT projectors at work and ensured that all PCs had screen savers enabled. Unfortunately it still didnt save the projectors because presenters would leave corporate powerpoint presentations on the screen usually of the first or last slide which was always the company logo.

Powerpoint disables all screensavers so the projectors still got burnt

Can you get your PIC to fake either a PS2 or USB keyboard instead ?

We used to have a Kodak slide projector IR remote control that was interfaced to the cursor keys on a keyboard for controlling Powerpoint because it had better range than cordless mice and was 100% reliable.

[Homerclese]

Yes, exactly. That is what I'm trying to do. Make my USB input look like it's a USB keyboard or keypad. Is there some built in code or "tag" within these devices that makes the PC recognize them as human input devices?