Turning PowerPoint presentations into webcasts has become a fairly routine request. One of the more difficult aspects of recreating a presentation is knowing when the presenter advances the slide. This is critical in syncing video of the presenter with the slides. Here is one method I have used – and best of all it is built into PowerPoint!
A few points about this process:
1 – This is at larger conferences where I am backstage running the presentations.
2 – I am running a backup computer and I run this timer on it.
3 – I use a remote system so both computers advance simulataneously.
(1) With the presentation open go to SLIDESHOW >> REHEARSE TIMINGS
(2) The slide show begins and a pop-up timer is visible.
TIP 1: As soon as the Timer window is visible click the PAUSE button. When the meeting begins click the PLAY button (the last thing I want is to have to many things distract me at the beginning of a meeting!).
TIP 2: Even though the timer is running on the backup computer, drag the timer to the very bottom so it is virtually invisible – just in case you have to switch to it!
(3) When the presentation is done click YES to the save the timings.
(4) Each slides time onscreen is seen next to the slide thumbnail. Be sure to do a SAVE AS to keep these timings for reference when building the webcast.
– Troy @ TLC
