11/28/2006 11:44:38 PM

A good number of SongShow Plus users still use PowerPoint for the presentation of announcements, sermon notes, and other slide show type media. SongShow Plus has its own slide show capabilities, but some users still prefer to use PowerPoint for these things.

If you are one of these users, please tell us what features and attributes of PowerPoint you like the most. The information provided by you will help us better develop the slide show capabilities of SSP.

Even if you do use the SSP slide show features and want to chime in on this discussion, feel free to do so as well.

11/29/2006 12:40:43 AM

Hi Doug,

We use a mix of SSP slides and PPT.
The main motivation for using PPT is familiarity - lots of folk use it at work etc. so can produce something very quickly without having to think about it.
Having said that another big factor is WYSIWYG - the SSP slide editor is not WYSIWYG and folk find that strange - e.g. if you edit some text and change the size, the size of the text WHILE it is being edited is not the size it ends up as on the slide. This takes a bit of getting used to.
Another BIG plus in PPT is the outline view - i use the outline a LOT for copying in a big bunch of text and then splitting that down into multiple slides just by pressing TAB and SHIFT-TAB to create a new slide.
In SSP there is no real concept of text flowing from one slide to the next, which makes it a bit laborious to copy just the right amount of text onto each page.
Finally, and I'm sorry to have to say this, the SSP templates are not the most pretty in the world. The default colour-schemes etc. all look a bit garish and not very professional. Just my opinion of course.
I would suggest you guys hire in a good graphic designer to design some really modern, stylish templates for you.
I think PPT covers over a multitude of issues by having nice looking templates. I know we are all fed up with them by now, but at least you can start with something that looks good, and that inspires you to keep going.

OK, that's all I can think of for now.

Don't get me wrong - I would LOVE to get my team using the built-in slide generator, but it's an uphill struggle at the moment.

Dave

11/29/2006 5:04:50 AM

Wow. I haven't gone off on this diatribe for a while. I hope I can remember all the important points. ;)

I'll try to answer for our team, not just me.

1) Familiarity. This is much more important to the other two members of the team than me. But, for instance, the Associate Pastor who usually does most of the sermon notes doesn't have time to learn a new program.

2) WYSIWYG (Thanks for bringing this up Dave). This is much more important for my main partner than me. She is much more right brained than I. However, it is annoying to get a screen to look just right in edit mode and have the text boxes not line up when we project it. My cohort is also annoyed by the fact that the font may change size when she exits the text box after editing it.

3) Clip Art. Someone has said, "Clip art may be easy, but it's cheesy." To which I reply, "Clip art may be cheesy, but it's easy." We don't always have time to find the right stock photo and edit it down. It's just easy to click Insert -> Picture -> Clip Art and have the Microsoft collection right there. Sometimes, especially in announcements, it's just the accent a slide needs. This, of course, also brings us to...

4) PNG transparency. I realize now that I could make graphics with an annoying background color and make it transparent in SSB. But with transparency in PNGs, I can use feathering (partial transparency) to make a soft edge, or a nice soft shadow, as part of the graphic or any number of other effects with semi-tranparency.
If you want to see an example, I can send one out, or try to find some server space somewhere. If you have a ProMembership at ChurchMedia.net, you can see my example here.

5) GIF Animations. This also has to do with clip art. Sometimes the movement is just the punch needed for an announcement slides. I do not encourage this for a sermon, however. ;) Particularly if the slide is going to be up there for a while. Of course, with the potential for motion backgrounds in SSB, this becomes less important. This, alone, would not keep me in PPT.

6) Animation timing and firing. I still haven't figured out how to make some animations fire automatically and other "on click".With PPT it's real easy with the With Previous, After Previous and On Click options selected for each animations.

6b) As for animation timing, I've never figured out the difference between when a animation ends and when it finished (or whatever those last two timelines are).

6c) Animate at the same time. Again, with PPT, having two items animate on the screen at the same time, or having one start before the previous one ends. In fact, you can "Show Advanced Timeline" for the animations and you almost have NLE functions for that slide.

6d) Group items for animation. This is slightly different, but sometimes you want to animate two items on as one item, rather than having the items animate at the same time. It's a suble difference, but one I would miss.

That's all that comes to mind, right now. Thanks for asking.

11/29/2006 8:05:40 AM

7) Formatting Text boxes. It is nice to be able to be able to put a background color behind text, sometimes, especially when you are using a busy background. It is also nice to be able to make it translucent, so that you can still partially see the background behind the shaded/colored text box.

11/29/2006 8:19:41 AM

All good answers - In my case I don't see any of Joel's 3) and 5), and I'm the only one who uses 4). But PPT does 2) and 6) very well.

One thing PPT is not as good at as SSB is text shadows. I believe if you use 4) then shadows are disabled and if you use shadows with an object the text won't have any.

PPT lets the fill of a text object be transparent, an invaluable feature.

PPT is OK but a bit confusing with audio whereas SSB has none, but PPT doesn't use motion backgrounds (they say there are 3rd part applications but how do you get 30 different people to use the same 3rd party application?) I also like to use SSBs "layering" of motion backgrounds over static ones.

PPT does previews very well including a complete visual timeline implementation in a separate pane while the preview is playing. Nice.

Dave asked for templates but I'm one who probably wouldn't use them.

11/30/2006 12:17:46 PM

The only thing we use PPT for is sermon notes, why, we trained our pastor to do his own and do not look forward to the retraining process.

I think the areas where PPT is stronger have been pretty well covered and however I will throw my support in on a couple.

From Joel;

#2, that is a biggie, while we use SSB for many things, it would be so, so, so much better if it was WYSIWYG.

6. Animation and timing, PPT does it quite well and is easy to learn/use.

From Lee;

Letting the text object be transparent, another biggie.

11/30/2006 5:01:10 PM

I think the intuitive interface of PowerPoint makes it easier to use than SSB..

I occasionally use PowerPoint but try to keep to SSB as much as possible

I think that it would be more wildly used if it was a bit more WYSIWYG...

What I personally would love to see in SSB is: when you select Video File as a background: it takes a random frame from the video file you select and displays that as a background in edit mode

11/30/2006 9:26:24 PM

We only use SSB unless a staff member makes a quick bullet list. If someone brings a PPT, it can be played in SSP. If I take a sspss someplace, it cannot be played in PPT. :(

Joel 6b = 1000 start, 2000 finish, & 3000 end = 1sec delay to start, "plays" for 2 sec, & the next item starts 1 sec later ( at 3 sec point). I agree with 6c and 6d. This may have answered 6a xept On Click

WYSIWYG would make it a whole lot easier for everyone, and even more so for the newbs.

png and ani-gif would be nice.

agree with still of video

I have used the PSB several times. Does PPT have such a feature?

While it is a bit more cumbersome, the shapes feature can be used as a background for a text box. If only we could set transperancy on them like the motion background, that would be kewl. Especially because you can use fill, texture, border and shading on them.

Adding audio to videos in the ssb (which is a wishlist item) would be another plus. Maybe even making video a subcatagory like Transition and such.

OH OH OH Adding animation as a sub-catagory also. Or maybe adding it as an option on the layout tab so that defaults could be set for all slides for those times when you have to throw something up quickly. I would also like the ability to set my start/end/finish to a particular setting other than the factory default.

Speaking of timing I would also like to be able to set the default transition time to 2000, but it always starts at 1000 no matter how the default is set.

12/1/2006 8:30:16 AM

And while we are talking about animations:

8) Exit and emphasis animations. Sometimes I want to animate something off the screen or emphasize something with animation.

12/1/2006 9:35:21 AM

Yes. In ver 2002 it is Insert > Picture > New Photo Album

12/2/2006 9:10:58 AM

We also use a mix like most here.  Our pastor does his own sermon slides in PPT, and the staff does our announcements in PPT.  Everything that the tech team does is usually via SSP.

The big reason we stay with PPT?  Our staff has mostly antiques for PC's, and they still don't have XP!  PPT and Win2k.

 

Lance Murdock

St. Marks United Methodist Church

Findlay Ohio

12/2/2006 4:01:55 PM

We ordered the UMC Hymnal on CD and it only comes as power point.

Now I'll put my Open Source bigot hat on and say it is frustrating being locked into M$ software, IE and PPT. We hadn't bought the M$ Office for our church computer and couldn't play the PPT files. After I load Office then everything ran. This was in the previous version. I did have Open Office which does allow me to create PPT files but they wouldn't run in SSP. This was with the version 5 SSP. It might be different now.

Having the PPT feature is nice for using PPT files from Internet resources.

Tim

12/3/2006 2:14:45 AM

12/3/2006 11:02:07 AM

At my church, I work in the office and putting together sermon, announcements and other slides has become part of my job, as well as running media at 3 services on Sunday.....Soooo what does this mean? It means I am the only person to make slides, so ever since we started using SSP I've been using SSB instead of PPT.

The only time we use PPT is when special guests or speakers come with their own PPT presentations pre-made.

I still enjoy using PPT once in a while for reasons already mentioned: More options for item Animations (timing, exit etc), good use of shadow and transparency with text and shapes. (However I really like the blur option now in SSB, thumbs up for that!)

I also admit that PPT is familiar like an old favourite shirt that is easy to wear and I find it easy to whip off a quick PPT slideshow...BUT I am now just as quick, if not must more quick, with SSB. I have found, though, it takes more time to teach someone SSB than PPT. Maybe that's because PPT is a "Windows-type" program with many similarities to other MS office programs.

Some PPT attributes I find I don't really need, are access to Clip Art, use of Animated Gifs...

I don't ever use the SSB templates, and rarely ever used the PPT come to think of it.

I would LOVE a still image of a motion background when chosen for a slide. (Thanks for the thought, Lucas!)

I'd also love audio to go with a SSB slideshow.

I agree with iamgap that it's disappointing to not be able to take a SSB show off location and expect to be able to play it. I realize that PPT is MUCH more universal and I don't see how SSB can work that way. (Unless you brought your own laptop with SSP on it...which I have done countless times already.)

I must add - the ability to import Scripture in SSB is so easy and SOOOOO appreciated by me!!!

That's all I can think of for now, I'll add more if i can think of it.
~ Kirsten

 

PS - Thanks iamgap, for the explanation of start, end and finish time with Animated objects. I had never really played with it enough to figure it out. :)

 

12/4/2006 10:22:50 AM

Another PPT feature:

Yesterday a speaker came with an 18-slide PPT show that was each a solid bright-red background with plain white text. I didn't want to complain about the background, but the text was problematic, so I went to the master slide and added shadow to the text boxes. In case you're not aware of it, if a master slide was used during development then doing so affects all slides; it is not necessary to individually add the shadow to each slide.

I realize this feature has limited usefulness (because it is something not done very often) but it was nice to be able to do that in two minutes.

12/4/2006 10:38:39 AM

have you tried adjusting the shadow properties in the display properties for the entire show? Or does that just adjust the default shadow properties for text boxes that have default shadows turned on?

12/4/2006 8:22:55 PM

All these points about PPT is the same reasons that some of the other members still use PPT.  I would also like to add the time rehersal feature in PPT to read all the slides and each time you press the space bar it will record the time it took you to read the slide before going to the next slide.

12/5/2006 7:08:01 AM

Ture - But...despite the PPT pluses there remain several situations to prefer SSB/SSP, which is why SSB exists in the first place. I use SSB not out of any particular loyalty to the product, but because it does a few things I want done better (if at all) than PPT, and I put up with its foibles for the same reason.

It would be much cheaper for R-Technics to give up SSB and simply integrate with PPT, but unfortunately PPT doesn't have every desired feature, and it isn't designed to permit 100% seamless integration nor does it look like it will any time soon. Therefore they have to choose between not having some features, or developing their own me-too product that has those additional features.

12/5/2006 7:13:00 AM

It doesn't seem that SSB has an ability to ripple through all slides and apply attributes to all objects it finds.

12/5/2006 11:00:14 PM

It depends on how you set the properties for the text objects in the slides...but this is thread about PowerPoint qualities.

12/7/2006 4:12:44 PM

For us, familiarity is #1, WYSIWYG is #2, PNG transparency is #3 (our graphic artists do a lot of image creation in Photoshop which they then import into the slideshows).

One thing I haven't yet seen mentioned is pen & ink support. Our pastor also uses a tablet to draw on the slides during his message, so we would not be able to use SongShow slides unless pen & ink was supported (can also be done using a mouse but not as useful).

12/31/2006 9:33:08 AM

For our Christmas Eve service, I had a little more time than normal. So I decided to bite the bullet and do the sermon slide show in SSB.

What I missed most was the control of the animations firing.

a) I really need the ability to have some things fire automatically ("After Previous" in PPT) or Manually ("On Click" in PPT).

b) I also really missed the ability to animate two (or more) things at once ("With Previous" in PPT).

c) I also could have really used the ability to color in a text box, with optional transparency. I ended up drawing a lot of rectangle behind the text boxes. But then I had to fire the animations separately, bringing up the text box and then brining up the text. Having "With Previous" and "After Previous" would have helped a lot.

d) And, of course, PNG files. However, with this slide show I was so busy trying to build the slide show in a program I wasn't familiar with that I didn't have time to spend on the graphics themselves that I would have liked to. And I went into this knowing PNG support wasn't there, so I wasn't headed that direction at all.

1/16/2007 10:27:11 PM

We have different people responsible for updating Announcements and Sermon presentations. They all have PowerPoint on their individual computers so it is easier to let them develop it wherever they are during the week and pull it together and import it into SSP when needed.

1/17/2007 3:11:20 PM

You are aware that you can have SSP installed on all there PC's as workstations..Then just use the "Package To Go" feature to bring them all into SSP...??

 

Rod

2/10/2007 4:22:56 PM

The pastor does his own slides in powerpoint, and he doesn't have SSP installed. Yes, we might be able to get him to install it, but he has it and is familiar with it. Now, most of the time all he does is make a bunch of text slides, and then we add background and text shadows, so if we could convert the PPT slides to SSP slides, so they use the program's background and text color, that would be great.

We do have opening and closing announcements that run in a loop, often with animation in the slide. I don't know how easy it would be to convert those to SSP, but again, the person who does that has PPT installed, but doesn't have SSP installed, so he would have to install SSP just to maintain the announcements.

2/19/2007 2:39:24 AM

2/22/2007 12:26:40 PM

I use powerpoint most of the time because the SSP slide editor doesn't have an undo feature that I can find. I become frustrated when I've worked on a slide for a while, forget to periodically save it and then make a mistake and have to start over.

Lamar

3/14/2007 4:46:05 PM

I use Powerpoint for our prayer request because I maintain them in an Excel file that puts them in alplabetical order, finds and removes duplicates and also removes entries after a specified time period. I use the same Powerpoint file with links to the Excel file. When ever I open the Powerpoint file it updates from the Excel file.  I would love to see that in SSP so I wouldn't have to maintain a separate file. I would be glad to share my file with anyone. I does however contain macros to accomplish this, so you will be warned when you try to open it to only open it if it is from a trusted source. 

4/17/2007 3:01:34 PM

I have installed a workstation version of SSP on the computers of the people who need to access the slided and the pastor edits his notes from his desk! Their computers are pointed to the computer we use for service, and what they edit is the same as what I use on Sunday morning. The only use we have for Power Point is to keep for when visitors come to preach. They usually only have Power Point, and will give me a copy. If I have time, I will convert it to SSP, because the features in SSP are just far and above anything Power Point gives you to use.

5/6/2007 9:03:36 AM

The pack and go feature in power point is good to have. So in the unlikely event that someone doesn't have power point installed they can at least view the presentation that I have created for them. I know song show builder has a pack and go feature but if you could improve it to have a viewer as well that would be AWESOME. That way I could pack it, zip it and then email it to my Pastor or whom ever to view it before Sunday for his/her approval. This being said, SSP would probably have to devise a way so that it couldn't be used as a projection method. Using the demonstration watermark is a little annoying but necessary.

5/6/2007 5:32:04 PM

Welcome to the forums..

You can install SSP as a workstation on any PC (free) and that will allow you to view your shows or create programs etc.

Then you would just use Package to go, they would restore package, and away they go.

We do all our preperation at home on our "workstations" then package to go, take it to church and restore the package onto the projection PC.

Anyway, I understand what you say about the viewer, but it wouldn't be hard to just install SSP on there PC's as a workstaion and do it that way..

If you would like any more info on how to use "package to go" or installing a workstation just yell out..

Rod

 

5/7/2007 12:59:33 PM

I prefer SSB to PowerPoint. 

However, there are TWO things that I DESPISE about SSB.

One is what as already been mentioned here WYSIWYG!!  It is SO frustating to have SSB change things with seemingly random results. 

Two is the print output!  I can print out in PP 4 different ways and have yet to be able to print out my service in SSP in a helpful way.

Also, some mentioned about the packaging of shows and then importing, maybe I'm doing it wrong, but I lose all my backgrounds when I do this and wind up having to redo them.  This locks into preparing my SSB files on only the computer in my sanctuary, away from all my office based resources.

Kelly Smith

St. Mark's Lutheran

Brooklyn, MI

5/8/2007 1:19:48 PM

Have you noticed how the new beta SSB now displays a living preview of slides when you select that slide?

5/8/2007 5:48:23 PM

Hey Kelly,

We have no problems with loseing backgrounds... when using package to go.

Do you have all your backgrounds in the "SSP" video/image folders or are they stored elsewhere on your PC. I am sure we can solve this for you here. There is no reason you should have to do all your prep on the projection PC.

Rod

 

5/26/2007 5:16:57 PM

The animations are the biggest issue I have. Using two text animations at the same time and also having some of the certain animations. Personally I like to be able to make certain text flash on and off for announcements.

The other particular thing I like about PPT and maybe I'm missing with SSB is being able to see the individual slides during projection like you can in PPT.

5/26/2007 9:23:15 PM

If you turn on the Inspector Panel (Magnifying glass), right-click the Program Panel header then select Arrange>Panels Vertically, Inspectors Vertically; this will allow you to see the individual slides.

The default is Titles, but when you click the Slides tab, it will show the slides. If you right-click the slides in the inspector panel, you can select small, medium, or large sizes.

3/25/2009 10:35:59 PM

I use SSB for everything i build (announcements, special music slides). Pastor builds all of his slide shows in PPT. It was hard enough for him to learn PPT. I know i could put SSP on his machine but he likes PPT and it plays well through SSP so i would rather leave it alone. I am just glad he builds what he does.

3/26/2009 7:06:27 AM

Looking over my list (thanks for the trip down memory lane) the only thing that still applies is #6 in all it's flavors.

I need to have better control of entrance, exit and emphasis animations. PPTs ability to have animations fire On Click, With Previous and After Previous is just too useful.

And the inability to have an animation fire AFTER the transition is complete is really irritating.

I've switched to SSB for the sermons and announcements, but only because we've changed the style of slide show to have almost no animations at all.

2/4/2012 2:36:43 PM

I have been reading these replies - I don't know why you just don't spend more time on making PPT work better with songshow plus - I know some of the down sides but if the powerpoint worked better it would be a big help.  We currently use the song database to manage text for services - it is easy to use and the whole team already knows it.  Why add something else?

2/4/2012 7:50:05 PM

Microsoft makes working with PowerPoint a moving target. And it slows your system down a lot compared to using SlideShow Builder.

Also, you can edit one SSB slide show while SSP is showing another one, e.g. and automated announcement loop. Try that with PowerPoint and the loop will stall while you are working on the other slidehsow.

In addition, you have access to the motion backgrounds and visualizations in SSB that you have in SSP as well as the 3d transitions and animations if you have the CinFX add on.

Those are a few of my favorite things, anyway.

2/7/2012 3:41:22 PM

Posted By Dean Muller on 04 Feb 2012 02:36 PM
I have been reading these replies - I don't know why you just don't spend more time on making PPT work better with songshow plus - I know some of the down sides but if the powerpoint worked better it would be a big help.  We currently use the song database to manage text for services - it is easy to use and the whole team already knows it.  Why add something else?

You are looking at posts that are from nearly three years ago. There has been considerable work in getting PowerPoint to work better from within SongShow Plus. The November 2011 Edition itself contains several compatibility improvements.

But since you asked: The challenge we have is that PowerPoint doesn't work well having multiple presentations used simultaneously within a single process, nor does it work well with the same presentation being used in multiple places, nor does it work well being accessed from multiple threads. This creates big challenges for us because SongShow Plus cues up all media within a program ahead of time and renders preview slides based those items, and tries doing this using using background threads. Also, PowerPoint doesn't give us step-by-step access to the presentation which makes it impossible to provide step-by-step access from within a program like we can do with the native slide show format. Those are just a few things. Plus, with each new version of PowerPoint, something usually changes that breaks compatibility. I could go on.

But like I said, there has been considerable work in getting PowerPoint to work better form within SongShow Plus.