A/V can enhance PowerPoint

8/22/2012

When you think about PowerPoint, what comes to mind? Perhaps a business proposal? Maybe a college report? What about a professional looking presentation on Sunday morning? While Microsoft touts PowerPoint as an integral business tool, it can also be used effectively, creatively and, most importantly, professionally in church.

If you’ve wanted to use a video seamlessly in the middle of your sermon presentation, but didn’t know how to do it, keep reading! What about adding music clips or audio files in your worship service? That’s all here too. Think that PowerPoint can only produce dull, boring backgrounds? Keep reading, as that myth is debunked.

Enhancing with a video
Most users know the ins and outs of PowerPoint basics, like adding a slide, chart or clip art. You may be familiar with the transition effects. But one thing that often presents a challenge is embedding or adding a video into a PowerPoint file. Instead of undertaking the tedious task of figuring it out, most just omit the video and hope the congregation doesn’t mind. However, listed below are simple steps for adding a video to your PowerPoint presentation and upping the wow factor by ten

A. Embedding a video

  1. Save the video file to My Documents, or desired location.
  2. On a new slide, click the Media Clip button. In Office 2010, it’s on the bottom right.
  3. Find the video you saved in Step One and click the Insert button.
  4. Under the Video Tools menu tab, you can play the video, make corrections, change the style, etc.
  5. You can resize the video to fit on your screen or the desired location on your slide.

Note: Embedding a video file will dramatically increase your PowerPoint file size, so please take this into consideration.

B. Linking to a video

  1. Save the video file to My Documents, or desired location.
  2. On a new slide, click the Media Clip button. In Office 2010, it’s on the bottom right.
  3. Find the video you saved in Step One and click the down arrow by the Insert button and select “Link to File”.
  4. You can resize the video to fit on your screen or the desired location on your slide.

Note: Linking to a video will NOT increase your file size. To avoid a headache later, make sure to put your video and PowerPoint file in the same folder so nothing gets lost.

C. Inserting a video from YouTube (or similar video sharing site)

 

  1. On a new slide, click the Media Clip button. In Office 2010, it’s on the bottom right.
  2. Click the down arrow by the Insert button and select “Video from Website”.
  3. Go to the video on YouTube’s website (or similar video sharing site) and click the “Share” button, then click the “Embed” button. Make sure “use old embed code” is checked on YouTube. Copy the html text and paste the code in your text box in PowerPoint.

Note: The video isn’t actually “embedding” into your PowerPoint file. It’s still stored on the video sharing site. Because of this, you cannot edit a video in PowerPoint that is inserted from a website.

Inserting Audio files
Audio files can be a great addition to a worship service, whether it is music or audio clips. Consider using an audio clip of a hammer and nail at Easter to drive in the suffering of Jesus being nailed to the cross. Inserting audio files may seem intimidating, but the steps are actually easy:

  1. Save the audio file to My Documents, or desired location.
  2. On a new slide, click the Insert tab on the menu bar and select “Sound.” In Office 2010, it’s on the far right.
  3. Find the audio file you saved in Step One and click the Insert button.

Bonus Features

If you want your video to begin automatically or play at full size when the slide is brought up in the slide show, follow these easy steps.

  1. Select the video on your PowerPoint slide. Under the Video Tools tab on the menu bar, select “Playback”.
  2. Select “Start”, click the down arrow and select “Automatically”.
  3. Click “Play Full Screen”.

(Mostly) Freebies
Almost anyone can use a preprogrammed template on PowerPoint, but it you want to jazz up your sermon presentations, welcome messaging or add lyrics to your songs, here are some great (mostly) freebies you don’t want to miss out on.

Backgrounds
www.Heartlight.org – stills www.HyperPixelsMedia.com – stills www.eBibleTeacher.com – customizable and some animated www.WorshipHouseMedia.com – these cost a small amount, but the quality is amazing Stills – up to $3 Loops – up to $10

Song Lyrics
Worship Omnibus - http:// www.stanford.edu/~cammat/cgibin/pwomnibus , includes:

  • Hymns
  • Contemporary Music
  • Tabs & Chords

www.HigherPraise.com – some come with decorative backgrounds www.PaperlessHymnal.com – shows the musical score so your congregation sees what’s an eighth note and what’s a half note!

There are a plethora of templates, videos and audio files available for your use on the Internet. Using them with PowerPoint can turn a ho-hum presentation into an interactive eye party! For churches on a budget, PowerPoint can be an integral tool for an impactful presentation. If you’d like a more robust set of features, check out MediaShout at http:// secure.umcom.org/Store/techshop.

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