How to PowerPoint

I work on a 30 inch monitor.  So when I create a slideshow in PowerPoint and want to play it back, it fills my entire screen.  This can be a little overwhelming.

On top of that, when I do a video tutorial I may already have my screen recorder set to a specific resolution like 960×600.  I need to be able to do my screen recording and playback the slide show in the same window.

Here’s a quick tip to help set your slide show playback to a resolution that works with the screen recorder.

Here are the basic steps and then you can watch the tutorial below.

• Go into Slide Show and then select Set Up Slide Show.
• Select browse by individual window. This creates a scalable window that you can position inside the screen recorder.
• I always choose the lowest resolution.

PowerPoint Screencast Tutorial

Click here to view the tutorial.

Do you want to add software demos or “how to” tutorials to your PowerPoint slides or elearning courses?  Well then, Screenr is the the tool for you.  It’s both free and easy to use.  I covered it in detail in this post on how to use PowerPoint as a virtual whiteboard.

Screenr is a free screencasting application that lets you make a video of  your on-screen mouse movements.  It’s great for software demos.  I’ve also seen teachers use it to teach math and other subjects.

Once you have a good video, adding it to your PowerPoint slides is as easy as 1-2-3.  View the tutorial and read the basic steps below.

Click here to view the tutorial.

Here are the basic steps:

• Find the Screenr embed code and copy it to the clipboard.
• Open the developer tab in PowerPoint.  In the control panel, you will find the shockwave properties.
• Add the movie URL in the shockwave properties. Make sure to include the unique video ID.

Screenr is a great screencasting application.  It lets you make videos of your computer screen that you can share with others.  Here’s what I like about Screenr:

• It’s free
• Doesn’t require a download
• Easy to share via Twitter or Youtube
• Looks great on the iPhone or iPod Touch

PowerPoint and Screenr are a great combination.  I like to frame the screencast border around a blank PowerPoint slide to give me a virtual whiteboard.  Then I can use all of PowerPoint’s features as I explain a topic or present a lecture.

This works really well with a tablet PC (which you can see below) because it looks more like a real whiteboard.  It’s a great way to do math lessons, for example.

Check out the screencasts below.  In the first one, I show a demo of how it looks with a tablet PC (although it that demo I used OneNote).

Example of a Virtual Whiteboard

Click here to view the Screenr demo.

Here’s another example of Screenr and PowerPoint.

How to Frame the Screenr Window

In this next example, I explain how I frame the Screenr window around the blank PowerPoint slide.

Click here to view the Screenr demo.

One other thing I really like about Screenr is that the full screen of HD view mode gives you a really clear and crisp image.  Most of those video sites give you a full screen image which tends to make the video blurry because it stretches the video to fit your screen.

Give it a try, I’m sure that you’ll find that the combination of Screenr and PowerPoint is a winner.

PS.  If you’re not familiar with OneNote, check out Microsoft’s OneNote site.  It’s one of my favorite applications.

Most software tutorials are built using screenshots of the application or using a screencast video like those from Screenr. 

What’s cool about PowerPoint is that you can combine those techniques to create your software demos.  Or you can just build it in PowerPoint without the screencasting application.

In the post, Here Are Some Time Saving Tips for Your Next Software Demo, I wrote for the Rapid E-Learning Blog, I showed some ways that PowerPoint can be effective as an authoring tool for software demos.  You can even make them interactive, which you can see on that post.

Compared to older versions, PowerPoint 2007 makes this even more viable because you can easily right-click and swap out images.  Thus if the application’s screen changes after building your demo, it’s just a matter of right-clicking and inserting the updated images.  All of the interactivity and animations will still be intact.

Having produced hundreds of screencasts and software courses, I can tell you that PowerPoint is a very effective tool for software training.  Is it the best tool? Not always.  But for a lot of software training, it’s a good tool.  And in many cases a lot faster and easier to work with than a screencast video that requires more production (and usually a lot more editing).

Check out the blog post on the Rapid E-Learning Blog to learn more.  Be sure to watch the demo and try the interaction on the last slide.

PowerPoint 2010 is going to let you publish your presentation as a video.  You can then convert the WMV to a format that works for your iPod Touch or iPhone.  That’s probably easy enough, if you don’t mind the extra steps.

Or you can use Screenr to create a screencast video presentation.  It’s free and easy to do.

Here’s an excellent example of a presentation that Scott Skibell did.  It’s a great testimony to the Articulate customer service (which I like), but it’s also an excellent presentation that is captured using Screenr.  I think he used Keynote, but it would work in PowerPoint just as well.

Presentation on the iPhone Demo

Click here to view Scott’s demo.

The steps are pretty easy. 

• Just frame the Screenr record window around the PowerPoint slide and start recording.  You can use the page up or page down to advance the slides back and forth.
• If you want to capture the animations, then record from presentation mode rather than using the slides in normal view. 
• Once you have a video recorded, check out the URL in your iPhone or iPod Touch. 

Pretty slick, huh?

Here’s a quick demo I recorded when testing it out with an interactive PowerPoint file.  There’s no audio and probably isn’t the best example because it requires that the user clicks on the screen, but I wanted to see how the animations looked.

Click here to view the PowerPoint demo.

Check out the post on Understanding Multimedia for Rapid E-Learning.  While it’s about elearning, the core information is the same.

The post discusses:

• differences between vector and bitmap images
• recording audio
• use of video

There are also some good links to some free multimedia software.  Here are a couple that I use quite a bit:

• Paint.net: it’s free and it’s turned into a really nice graphics editor that does most of what people want.
• MovieMaker: Microsoft’s free video editing application.  You’re not going to make Hollywood videos with this, but it’s a very capable and easy to use editor.  Plus, most likely you already have it on your PC.  I see they even have some MovieMaker books for those who want to learn more.
• Audacity: it’s a free audio editor.  Most of the time it’s easier to record in PowerPoint or your elearning application.  But sometimes it’s good to keep the audio and other production separated.  
• Screenr: I find this to be one of the best and easiest to use screencasting tools.  It’s free and you don’t need to download any applications.  I also like that there’s no Screenr branding on the downloaded MP4 videos.