How to create a slideshow without getting old and grey?

Are you narrating the video/slides? If yes, then you don't need to put every line of text in your slides. People can't read AND listen well at the same time. So if they are listening to your voice, keep your slides very simple, with very few words.

By the way, if you want the new Microsoft Office Powerpoint 2010 version, you can get it for free right now as it's still in beta. Just google it.

I forget what it's called -- but there were/are a few marketers that made an 'auto' slideshow creator. So basically you input the text, and it creates random slideshows/videos. Then they submit those in bulk to the videos sites in an attempt to get traffic.

The Incansoft (Big Mike) GFX Video Writer will let you import your text file and then convert it to a slideshow. You can choose from different backgrounds or create your own.

I'm not an affiliate with the link below:

GFX Video Writer | Seamlessly Convert Your Article Content Into Videos For More Traffic From All Of The Video Directories

Just my 2 cents- Not to have too many words in your slide.
You can try out this Slide - slideshows, slide shows, photo sharing, image hosting, widgets, MySpace codes, Facebook apps. It is eye catching and come with music if you want.

Heya, Nick

If you're on a PC, have you tried Windows MovieMaker?

It should come loaded with your machine and it's pretty easy to wrangle (an hour or so messing about with it and I reckon you'll have learnt all you need to know!)

Best,
TheNightOwl

Hi Nick,

Open Office Impress is a great program for presentations, so you're halfway there already. IMHO there are two keys to a great slideshow: 1) Don't have too much text. A lot of text looks boring. Just take the key points out of each paragraph and put them on the slide. Think of it as putting together a list of bullet points.
2) Don't have each page look the same. Vary the presentation slides so that you have some all text, some pictures and text, some just pictures. You can also do simple graphic animations with this software.

The next question is: What are you going to use the slideshow for? If sending it out unaccompanied, and it doesn't need any explanation, you can time the presentation to change slides at given intervals. Just use the "Advance Slide" setting in the Slide Transition tab. Then people can simply run the slide show and leave it to its own devices.

If you're going to need a commentary recorded on video, or you want something to upload to YouTube then things become more complicated. Camtasia is the most popular screen recording and editing software for this sort of thing - although a combination of Cam Studio and Windows Movie Maker are a good (free) alternative. PM me if you need any assistance.

Shaun

Thanks guys, but I'm really just looking for help on getting a lot of text from a Word/Open Office Writer document into Impress/Powerpoint quickly.

I have 300 slides of text...I can't stomach copy and pasting all that text into so many slides manually...it will take a LONG time.

So the question is...how do you export so much text into a powerpoint show?

I've kinda worked out that you can export text from the file menu, but it just jams all the text into a header box in each slide.

Grr, this is so frustrating.

Hi Nick

One way to do it would be to set up a template in your open office and then use a macro to say copy and paste 10, 20 50, lines whatever you want and then paste into the slide and then create a new slide from the template.

Run that macro and it will do it all for you.

I guess the other people arnt really reading your post.

Quentin

an idea from searches:

PowerPoint Tips: Import text from Word or Notepad

Perhaps you can put it into powerpoint (if it didn't go right into open office) with a trial version and then use your open office to manipulate?

You could bring in text, then apply a master slide format to put the background, etc. on it. Hope it helps!

thanks guys. Quintin, your Macros idea seems cool, but I don't know how to do them.

Anyway, I think I've solved the problem. Its a case of tweaking the master templates. Simple, but not at first lol