Creating a video from a powerpoint presentation

100 Amazing Computer Tips

Creating a Video from a PowerPoint Presentation

Creating videos to support your social media efforts has never been easier. With a budget of zero you can create an awesome PowerPoint presentation, complete with audio, transitions, and animations, and turn it into a video. Turns out it couldn't be easier!

IMPORTANT: This feature was added to the 2010 version but if you're still using something earlier than that, you you should upgrade your software.

Create your presentation

Of course, step 1 is to create your PowerPoint presentation. For some of you, this might be the most difficult part. I can't give you a step-by-step of that process here, but look around the internet for some videos on creating a presentation, adding transitions between slides and animation to have text appear, dance around, and possibly disappear, being replaced with other words. All of this might sound hard but it's really not. If you were closer you could stop by and I'd show you.

You can also add narration and timings to your presentation. If you're adding narration I would strongly suggest you write a script. I've heard too many "off the cuff" narrations that sounded really dumb! The best way to add timings is to go to the Slide Show tab and use the Rehearse Timings option. This will allow you to set the advance on the slides to something appropriate for each slide. If you do not set timings the default advance is 5 seconds. I set my timings in the Slide Sorter view in PowerPoint (View tab, Slide Sorter View). Once in the Slide Sorter view, I clicked the Transition tab and in the Timing group, I entered 00:02.00 in the timings box and clicked Apply to All. I then selected individual slides that I wanted to remain on longer and adjusted the timing for those.

I inserted a soundtrack on slide #1 and formatted it (Audio Tools, Playback tab) so that audio would "Play across slides". Also, make sure the checkbox for Hide During Show is selected so the icon will not be visible. Depending on the length of the audio file you might also want to check the "Loop until Stopped" option.

BTW, I found my audio online by doing a search for "40-second instrumentals free" and found a dandy one right away.

Before you save the audio you should optimize the audio file. To do this go to the File tab, Info, Compress Media. This will embed the media and make the file a reasonable size.

Save your presentation

You'll want to save your presentation as you are creating it of course. This baby isn't going to be created in one sitting...I guarantee that! Once it's saved as a PowerPoint document, follow the directions below.

1. On the File menu, click Save & Send.
2. Under Save & Send, click Create a video.
3. To display all video quality and size options, under Create a video, click the Computer & HD Displays down arrow.

• To create a video with very high quality, yet a large file size, click Computer & HD Displays.
• To create a video with moderate file size and medium quality, click Internet & DVD.
• To create a video with the smallest file size, yet low quality, click Portable Devices.

 TIP   You'll want to test these out to see which option meets your needs. In the video below I used the first option for a very high-quality video.

The saving process might take a few minutes so I walked away from my computer. When I came back there it was my finished video. I think it looks pretty good, don't you? This whole process probably took just about an hour. Now I'm going to upload the video to my website and even to my YouTube channel.

My book, 100 Amazing Computer Tips - Shortcuts, Tricks, and Advice to Help Everyone from Novice to Professional, is available NOW at Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble in both print ($14.99) and ebook ($7.99) formats. There's also a handy link on the top right side of this window for your shopping convenience.

Happy computing!

Diane

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