How to publish Flash slideshow to Blogger

After publishing my post about software bundle of watermarking software and flash slideshow maker I received lots of feedback not only of the kind I expected. The half of questions was not about software in the bundle but about how I add Flash slideshows to the posts and Blogger sidebar. To answer your questions, I write this post. The software I used was FlashSlider. I like it because it’s simple and creates slideshows that are nice but not overcharged with visual effect – exactly what is needed for blog and especially for sidebar. Of course, you can use your favorite flash slideshow creator to do that. Let’s embed flash slideshow in Blogger in 4 easy steps.

Create flash photo slideshow and copy its HTML code to clipboard. Before creating a slideshow, estimate needed canvas size. For sidebars, slideshow width is usually about 170 pixels, for posts - about 525. Slideshow height depends on size and orientation of photos you use. Nevertheless, for different templates these values vary, so you’d better to measure you sidebar or post field width. In Firefox or Flock, it can be easily done with MeasureIt add-on. When slideshow is created, copy its HTML code given by your slideshow maker to clipboard.

Create a new post or add gadget in Blogger and paste the slideshow code. I presume you know how to create posts in Blogger :) . Only one advice for beginners – slideshow code should be pasted not into visual editor field (Compose tab), but in HTML editor field (HTML tab).

The code will look like this:

You won’t see flash slideshow in visual editor field even after pasting its code, but it will be shown in preview.

If you want to publish your slideshow to the sidebar, go to your Blogger Dashboard, then to Layout > Page elements, click Add a Gadget, select HTML/JavaScript gadget and paste your slideshow code into the Content field.

Upload Flash slideshow to the Web and copy its address. “Where should I upload my swf slideshow to?” is one of the most often questions. I use Google Sites to store my files – you can create your own website at http://sites.google.com and upload your files to it. To copy the link of uploaded file, right-click it and select Copy link location or Copy link address or something like these :) .

Paste the slide show URL into its HTML code. The URL of slideshow you’ve copied is the source URL to be pasted into slideshow HTML code.

That’s all and you’re done. Publish a post or save you gadget and enjoy your Flash Blogger slideshow.