Migrating off of SlideShare
For a long time, I was using SlideShare to host PowerPoint presentations from my technical talks. After uploading them, I could embed them in my blog pages for online viewing and provide a link for visitors to download the original file. After SlideShare got acquired by Scribd, the files weren't available for download anymore without a Scribd subscription. I didn't like Scribd charging visitors to give them access to my content, so I started looking for alternatives.
I managed to achieve the same functionalities by uploading the files to my OneDrive account and hosting them there:
- To embed the presentations in my blog page, I used the built-in embed functionality: in the OneDrive web interface, choose Embed from the file context menu (accessible by right-clicking the file or left-clicking the three-dots icon next to the file) and copy the provided
iframeelement to my blog page. To no surprise, the Office 365 PowerPoint viewer works much better than the SlideShare one did. - For the download link, I used the sharing functionality. The Share menu item from the file context menu opens a pop-up to configure the settings. It's important to change permissions so that Anyone with the link can view (by default, the link gives edit permissions and I don't want that). The Copy button at the bottom gives access to the link without sending it to anyone:
Uploading all the files and replacing the embed code and download links for them in my blog took some time, but once I was done I could delete my SlideShare account and by doing that remove all my content from their site. I actually like my current setup much better than the previous one, even from before a subscription was required for download.
If you need to embed PowerPoint files (or any other Microsoft Office files) in a web page, hosting them in OneDrive and using the Office 365 viewer is an excellent solution. Probably better than any 3rd party alternative you can find.
