Presentation Problem

[M2Mays]

Greetings! I'm a Newbie, so please be gentle if I say something stupid!

I created a slideshow with 84 slides, and one MP3 as background music, and when played on slideshow on my home computer and the one at church, it worked great. The text displayed exactly where I had placed it, and the music and the end of the program matched up perfectly.

When then showed the slideshow on our overhead projection unit at church, and the text was no longer in the same spots, and in some cases the font had been changed, and the music ended about 3 slides to soon.

Any help as to what I may have done wrong would be greatly apprecaited!

Thanks, M2

[JRR]

M2

Was the projector at the church hooked up to the same computer it worked fine on ?

I suspect not.

The text being in different positions make me think that you used OBJECTS for the text. That works great as long as the screen resolution is the same as the one on which you created it. Otherwise it will move about on the screen of the other computer. This can be solved, usually, by using windowed mode (PROJECT OPTIONS>SCREEN)

I use OBJECTS extensively and I still have to work at getting them to remain in the same place on other computers. Igor is planning to work out a way that they will not move about in a future release.

In the meantime you can put the text on the image in PhotoShop if you want to guarantee it won't move.

The timing of the show on one computer vs the other sounds as though one computer is slower in terms of specs than the other. Ensure your images are 800x600 to 1200x800 but keep them at about 100-200kb by compressing them. (Use quality 5 in PhotoShop).

The sound file should be kept relatively small, I use 128 or 96kbps generally.

Using fades all the time (I always do) is very "labour intensive" for any computer.

Hope that helps

[LumenLux]

Welcome M2,

No need to worry about someone here not being gentle. This may be the only forum or discussion group in the world that is filled with people wanting to build you up rather than tear you down.

Jim (JRR) gave you good info (he always does.) I may add also: As Jim suggested, if the problem computer at the church is not the same you tried earlier, then the fonts you used in your show probably are not installed on the computer you hooked to the projector. Preparing your text slides in Photo Shop or other program will ensure that the fonts don't change when show plays on a different computer. The problem of the location of text objects that you and Jim refer to, can often be avoided if you make sure the monitors used are all set to the same screen size, ie 800x600 or 1024x768, etc. When mixing screen sizes, the slides are not always obviously different, until you have text that suddenly is partially lost. Hope your presentation at church wasn't totally destroyed by the problem. The other thing that is always, always, wise, is whenever possible, run the show ahead of time on the exact pc, projector, etc, that you will use for the public performance. Laptops seem especially prone to act weird with audio visual capabilities.

[boxig]

This may be the only forum or discussion group in the world that is filled with people wanting to build you up rather than tear you down.

... and you are so right. The success of a good program is not being good but the level of help it offers to its users. This include the help user gets from other users in solving his problems and help him use and enjoy the program. There are many good members here who visit the forum just in purpose to help other members, and they should be blessed.

I know this may sound familiar to you, but "PicturesToExe" is great program and it has a great forum

just wanted to say it again

[nobeefstu]

M2,

We here have all been "new" to PTE at time or another ... plus with the upgrades and changes implemented into new versions, we continue to learn new things all the time

As for your slideshow timing differences :

When then showed the slideshow on our overhead projection unit ... the music ended about 3 slides to soon.

If you build your Show Settings using Syncronize slideshow to music duration ... this feature resolves the play/timing variance among different pcs. You have 2 types to choose from : Automatic syncronization or Custom syncronization to invoke your needs.

Major Note :

In using the Sync feature ... all mouse input/actions (button/object/navigation bar) are inoperable. Sync shows disable the mouse and disallows the user any control over your show. New features in future (real soon) PTE versions will enable the user some mouse control within a sync mode show.

[M2Mays]

Thanks to each of you for your assistance. I will be playing around with my slideshow so I will be ready for our next Youth retreat! I have been so impressed with Pictures To Exe, and then to have folks like yourselves lend a helping hand has been a real blessing.

The presentation still went well, even with my limited knowledge, thanks to such a great software package. Every time I use it I learn something new!

Unfortunately I wasn't able to test it on the computer our projection system was hooked to, so was not aware of the different screen size. But I know now!

Once again, thanks for ALL your help!

M2