About ActiveX controls

Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2003

are similar to those you find in programming languages such as Microsoft Visual Basic for Applications. ActiveX controls include scroll bars, command buttons, option buttons, toggle buttons, and other controls that you use to create custom programs, dialog boxes, and forms.

The ActiveX controls in Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2003are stored in the Control Toolbox (View menu, Toolbars submenu). When you add an ActiveX control to a presentation, you can make the control "active" by writing macros in the Microsoft Visual Basic Editor that customize the behavior of the control. For example, you can use ActiveX controls to create an online survey in your presentation in which respondents can enter text in text boxes or select or clear check boxes.

ShowUsing ActiveX controls on Web pages

If you plan to publish a presentation as a Web page, you can use ActiveX controls to enable users to enter data. When you use ActiveX controls in a Web presentation, you write Web scripts (rather than macro code) to run the controls. You can write the scripts in Microsoft Visual Basic Scripting Edition or JavaScript.

Be sure to use proper security settings on your Web site and to grant access only to trusted users.

ShowAdditional controls

Each set of new ActiveX controls comes with a Setup program that installs and automatically registers each control so that the controls can be used from within Microsoft PowerPoint.

In addition to the controls in the Control Toolbox, some custom controls are installed by other programs. For example, the ActiveX control that displays ActiveX movies is installed by Microsoft Internet Explorer.

If you copied an ActiveX control (a file with an .ocx or .dll extension) from an installation disk or from a network without using the Setup program, the control might not be registered or appear in the More Controls list. You must register the control before you use it.

Security  Use caution when you are adding ActiveX controls to your Web page. ActiveX controls may be designed in such a way that their use could pose a security risk. We recommend that you use controls from trusted sources only.

For more information about ActiveX controls, see Visual Basic Editor Help.