We are very sorry for some recent frustrations our customers have been having when trying to embed Poll Everywhere polls into PowerPoint slides. Customers have reported that after following the instructions for embedding a poll, they see only a blank screen when viewing the slideshow. The reason for this is due to differing revisions of the Adobe Flash 9 Player. Adobe has released several fixes and revisions since they released the first version of the Adobe Flash 9 player. For polls in Poll Everywhere to display correctly, we now require v9.0.45.0 of the Adobe Flash player to be installed.
Additionally, what is frustrating about this is that versions of the player can be installed independently for Firefox and Internet Explorer. This is because Firefox has its own plug-in formats and Internet Explorer uses ActiveX-based plug-ins. Therefore, if you have the latest version reported in Firefox and are still scratching your head as to why the polls don’t work in PowerPoint, it’s because the ActiveX control is likely not up-to-date. Since PowerPoint relies on the ActiveX version of the Adobe Flash Player, it too must be updated.
If you want to see what version of the Adobe Flash plug-in you are currently using, go here: http://www.mediacollege.com/adobe/flash/player/version/show.html * Note that the version shown is the version installed for the plug-in of the current web browser you are using. Switch over to Internet Explorer to see the version installed for ActiveX.
If you want to update to the latest player from Adobe, go here: http://www.adobe.com/shockwave/download/download.cgi?P1_Prod_Version=ShockwaveFlash * Note that the latest version is 9,0,115,0 as of the date/time of this blogpost.
Since we have issues with users viewing polls with outdated revisions of the Adobe Flash player, we have now enforced the version required into our poll. If you do not have the correct version of the plug-in installed, your Flash player will indicate that you need to upgrade. Once you upgrade, you’ll be able to view our polls correctly and, more importantly, be able to embed your polls into PowerPoint again. We hope this solves many of the headaches that some of our customers have been experiencing. We’re very sorry for any of the inconvenience.
Cynthia | 31-Jul-08 at 9:08 pm | Permalink
I have the latest version of Adobe Flash 9 (WIN 9, 0, 124, 0) but am not able to successfully download a poll into PowerPoint. This occurs even when I make sure to enable the ActiveX content. I just get a blank slide with a big, thin black X across it. I’m sort of interested in using your product for my classes, but not if I cannot get it to work.
Jeff | 02-Aug-08 at 1:23 pm | Permalink
Hi Cynthia - My guess is that you are viewing the slide in PowerPoint’s editor mode. The poll isn’t activated until the presentation is placed in slide show mode. Try pressing F5 in PowerPoint and see if the poll loads and is visible. If this doesn’t resolve your problem, please give us a call at +1 (773) 382-0377 and we’ll be happy to walk through troubleshooting your issue.