PowerPoint tips, please

Welcome to Wondercafe2!

A community where we discuss, share, and have some fun together. Join today and become a part of it!

Register Log in
D

Donna L

New Member
Our church is new to the world of PowerPoint projection. We are learning and growing.

We want to insert Minutes for Mission into our slides, both the photgraphs (in Flickr) and the videos from the United Church site or even YouTube. No luck so far on either.

Are there some special permissions we need?

Your tips and tricks would be most welcomed.
 
Welcome Donna L - nice to see you here & I hope you'll become a regular participant :-)

I was trying to insert some youtube video into powerpoint a few months ago - seemed almost impossible. I recall googling to find some solutions - some were posted, but did not work for me - possibly partly because I was doing this in a large corporate system. Hope you have better luck!

At a workshop a few years ago, I think EasyWorship was mentioned as a very good alternative to powerpoint - seems it had more options & easier interface for making changes 'on the go' if needed during the service.

Hopefully others will come along with suggestions for you.
 
Donna, it would be worth it to reach out to the Tech's at the uccan for guidance on this one.

Question: are you trying to imbed, or switch to them?
Do you have access to the internet during your service, or do you need to download in advance?

@AaronMcGallegos may also have tips.
 
mgagnonlv said:
This entire site has lots of tricks for all versions of Powerpoint: http://www.dvd-ppt-slideshow.com

One added caution about Youtube videos: you need a live connection to the internet – and a good one – to show the video.
Click to expand...
even if you have a live internet connecction I heavily discourage trying to stream a video during worship or a presentation. Seen it fail too many times. ANd ALWAYS test the thing beforehand--video and audio.
 
Hi:
Download YouTube Video dowloaded. http://www.ytddownloader.com/ Its free and malware clean.
In the slide from which you want to play the video, establish an OLE link. That way the video is not saved in the slide show, which usually fails and makes it huge in size.
find out how.... https://support.office.com/en-us/ar...E-object-f767f0f1-4170-4850-9b96-0b6c07ec6ea4
When clicked the OLE link to the video will open Windows Media Player - which regardless of what some say, usually will work. And YTV downloader will convert to whichever file format you wish, i.e. WMV, MP4, mkv etc.
Edit the video as you must if you want. But use a good program. Corel Video Studio or Pinnacle are the best for the money.
The video must be on the HD of the computer you are using to play the video so that the OLE link can find it.
to get photos off Flikr, simply right click the image - save as, and direct the save to a folder you can find later.
This will work for any photo you find. But use photos with resolutions that make them clear. 1024x768 is the minimum size. People often use small pictures and get horrible pixilation as a result.
Same with videos, save to a folder you can easily find.
Oh yes, set Media player to open in full screen. http://smallbusiness.chron.com/start-windows-media-player-full-screen-54710.html
Minute for mission videos can be ripped from the DVD by media player to a folder as well.
and if the UCC wants us to promoted Minutes for Mission and then complains about the use of the videos....well thats a bit odd.
And please for the love of God....forget using fancy transitions and special effects all the time. The show should be the message of good news not lead to a discussion about how may 'neat' things the program will do. Its not the program and what it will do, its what needs to be done to get the good news across.
Enough for this long post...peace and God Bless you in the new step in service.
 
revmatthew said:
...And please for the love of God....forget using fancy transitions and special effects all the time. ...
Click to expand...

Thank you. I've heard it referred to as Powerpoint poisoning. And unfortunately, there are people managing outside digital signs with some of the same symptoms...
 
Yes, we have a digital sign. reigning in the volunteers means deleting some of the transitions. And, PowerPoint has become the Ubiquitous term for presentations software. There are better, and much, much cheaper.
 
revmatthew said:
Yes, we have a digital sign. reigning in the volunteers means deleting some of the transitions. And, PowerPoint has become the Ubiquitous term for presentations software. There are better, and much, much cheaper.
Click to expand...

Better? Perhaps. Cheaper? It comes installed free in most laptops these days.
 
GordW said:
THe viewer is, I don't think the full version does (at least not when I was looking earlier this year)
Click to expand...

It comes installed on most laptops but to get full use of it, you usually have to have a license key or buy one online or (MS's preferred option) subscribe to Office 365.

Which brings me to a question: Anyone using "cloud" presentation software like Google Slides or the Office 365 iteration of Powerpoint? There's one that my son was using for some courses in school, too, (due to teacher preference) but I forget the name now.
 
Not really. I have converted a small Powerpoint presentation to Google Slides and it works very well as far as conversions are concerned (I didn't have any embedded or linked video). But generally, I find that Google Office software is quite compatible with Microsoft Office (not perfect), but underwhelming in terms of features.

For on-the-road presentation, there is also the additional concern of having an internet connection at all times and, preferably a fast one if the presentation is heavy or if there are attached videos.

Another very good software that is free and multiplatform is LibreOffice (http://libreoffice.org). Quite compatible with Microsoft Office. It has a few good points and bad points compared to MS:
– Free (it's open source software)
– Steeper learning curve
– Some frustrating limitations (ex.: impossible to define a page template as a copy of another one)
– A few nasty bugs in it (in terms of screen refresh; not in terms of document integrity)
– Many more possibilities for automatic numbering of figures, equations, lists, tables, etc.
– Better integration of the different modules, allowing one, for instance, to prepare a variable presentation using data and photos issued from a database.
 
mgagnonlv said:
Another very good software that is free and multiplatform is LibreOffice (http://libreoffice.org). Quite compatible with Microsoft Office. It has a few good points and bad points compared to MS:
– Free (it's open source software)
– Steeper learning curve
– Some frustrating limitations (ex.: impossible to define a page template as a copy of another one)
– A few nasty bugs in it (in terms of screen refresh; not in terms of document integrity)
– Many more possibilities for automatic numbering of figures, equations, lists, tables, etc.
– Better integration of the different modules, allowing one, for instance, to prepare a variable presentation using data and photos issued from a database.
Click to expand...

If I was not a manager in an all-Microsoft shop in day-to-day life and just using my own computer for writing, I'd happily run LibreOffice on a Linux box. Reality dictates otherwise, at least for now.
 
(slight aside ...) my mate & I are attending a morning lecture series ... attended predominantly by retired folks. Speakers are usually great, but the organization needs a new 'tech guy'! I think he's a volunteer. It's been painful lately - as we (the large audience) and the speaker wait, and wait, and wait some more while he does his best to coax the powerpoint system, the projector & mike systems into operation. Seems often to be a problem of compatibility between systems, painful ... and three weeks in to this series doesn't seem to be improving! (okay of end this - thanks for listening - back on topic!)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top