HOW-TO: Put PowerPoint on your iPod Photo

This week's How-To is a quick and simple one if you have an iPod Photo and use PowerPoint or Keynote and don't want to lug around a computer-you can just plug in to a projector or a TV. This will also work with a Portable Media Center, or any other photo playing device that can be a video source. Also included in this How-To are some other ways to play your favorite slides, like using a pair of VGA goggles (that one's for the geeks).

PowerPointing...

Some say power corrupts, others say PowerPoint corrupts absolutely. No matter what business you're in, at some point someone needs to do a presentation and PowerPoint is usually the tool. Some are even using PowerPoint as an art form, as odd as that sounds, but like any medium, PowerPoint can be used for more than just quarterly sales presentations.

David Byrne (Wired)

For years, your humble How-To'er made hundreds of PowerPoints for one thing or another, usually what would happen is that the files would sent over to some executive-like person who could double-click the file and be the talking head. For the longest time it seemed silly to lug around a laptop just to show some slides, but now with the new generation of devices that can display photos in a quick, simple way, you might just be able to leave that laptop behind.

When we started this article, we were chatting with a pal over Instant Messenger, and he said it best "that would be awesome, you roll into a business meeting all pimped out...pull out your little teeny iPod Photo and plug into in the projector and then rock out with a beautiful powerpoint presentation complete with templates from http://www.presentationpro.com/Products/Templates_Designs.asp. You would rule the boardroom."

Of course there are tons of PDA solutions with custom software, connectors and all sorts of things, but even for us they were often overly complicated and never worked out exactly the way we wanted them to.

So we're thinking if you pitch this to your boss in the right way you could expense an iPod Photo or Portable Media Center. For the hardcore geek, a lot of this might be pretty basic, but the hardcore geek rarely presents PowerPoints, so feel free to skip to the end for some geek tidbits.

Now, on with the show, er slide show.

Getting started
The main thing we're doing here is exporting slides as JPEGs, these images will then be placed in a folder where iPod photo can grab them and sync them up next time the iPod is plugged in your computer. For our example we're using PowerPoint 2003 on XP on a PC and Keynote on Mac OS X.

The iPod Photo and Portable Media Center
We're using an iPod photo 40 gb version and a Creative Zen.

Both can use video out as well as pump out any sound to a video / audio source.

For our PowerPoint, we're going to use one from Tom Peter's site, Tom has some cool slides about marketing, branding and shaking stuff up— since his slides are out there, we thought these would be good examples if you want to use the same ones to follow along.

The one we're using is:
TechLearn Conference & Expo, New York, NY from November 15 2004

Right Click / Control Click to download it.

Exporting slides from PowerPoint
Open up your PowerPoint (File > Open) or just double click it. Review the slides and make sure this is indeed what you wish to export, make edits, etc...

To export the slides choose File > Save As...

In the pull down list, scroll down and choose JPEG.

PowerPoint will ask if you want export all the slides, click "Every Slide".

All the images will exported, depending on how many slides you have it may take a minute or so.

Importing the images to iPod Photo

Now we need to get all the images that we just exported in to the iPod.

Once the images are exported, open up iTunes, select File > Preferences.

 

In iTunes > Preferences, choose the iPod tab, then the photos tab.

Choose the folder where you exported and click OK.

Once imported, click OK. iTunes will now optimize and send over the photos to the iPod photo.

If you have Portable Media Center, you can also drop the images in Windows Media (if you've set it up to sync) and the images will be sent over as well. You can also play videos, so depending how you like to present, or what you need to present a Portable Media Center might be a better choice.

Exporting slides from Keynote
If you use PowerPoint on a Mac the process is almost identical to the PC process, so we don't need to go over that. Open the PowerPoint in Keynote. So, grab the same file or use an existing Keynote file.

Open up the file (File > Open). Keynote will convert it.

Once open, export to QuickTime File > Export > QuickTime. Choose QuickTime and click Next..

Choose "Interactive Slideshow"

The slides will export.

Exporting from QuickTime
Open the file in QuickTime. Now we'll export the images to a folder, in our example the picture folder.

Choose File > Export. Choose "Movie to Image Sequence. Then click Options.

Choose JPEG and set the frames to 1, that way it exports one frame per second of video.

Importing to iTunes and sending to the iPod photo
Open iTunes, choose iTunes > Preferences.

Click Photos and choose the folder you exported the images to from QuickTime. Then click OK. iTunes will optimize and sync over the photos then you're all ready for slide-ville.

The results
Here are the slides on our TV which has video in, right from the iPod photo and a Portable Media Center, if you get creative you can have some songs play at the same time and really rock out the boardroom.

Some bad news, a few of the slides looked really compressed and blocky on both the iPod photo and Portable Media Center, which seems to the default setting that can't be changed from PowerPoint, at least we couldn't find an option to change it. So, we're going to investigate a bit and will update this article if we find anything. We found best results were when we imported the PowerPoint in to Keynote and exported to QuickTime and imported the JPEGS from that QuickTime on to the Photo iPod.

Some thoughts
It's still a bummer you can't use any type of remote for advancing photos, we talked about this a couple weeks ago, but basically right now, the iPod Photo doesn't allow any external remote to advance pictures. The Portable Media also cannot display slides on its screen as the same time as the TV or projector, and you can't use external remotes yet either.

Ideally new versions of PowerPoint would have a new menu for Porable Media Centers (File > Export to Portable Media Center or File > Sent to Portable Media Center).  Also, Keynote should have "Send to iPod Photo".

PowerPoint cyborg
Now, one last thing we want to try was to export our PowerPoint slides to the iPod photo and then use some VR goggle to watch the slides, it worked pretty well.

On our next flight, we might use this set up to rehearse our slides. Or maybe not.

---

Phillip Torrone can be reached via his personal site, http://www.flashenabled.com

[Guttrhead @ Dec 19th 2005 2:26AM]

VR goggles? You gotta be REALLY lazy if you can't tilt your head 10 degrees to look at the ipod screen, considering you have to have it in hand to change to the next slide anyway.

[James @ Dec 19th 2005 2:26AM]

OMG... my eyes almost fell out of my skull with that green on red screenshot. DEAR... GOD...

Other than that, great idea!

[James @ Dec 19th 2005 2:26AM]

*not related to iPods, but...* Who's slides are they? They read like somthing management guru Tom Peters put together. www.tompeters.com if not.. I would be intersted to know..

[Charles @ Dec 19th 2005 2:26AM]

Couldn't you do the same with any digicam that can output to TV? Not as cool as a "digital media player" but it should work and will still be much lighter than a laptop.

[Chris Gregg @ Dec 19th 2005 2:26AM]

I've been doing the same thing with my digicam for years. It took a while for me to figure out how to get the .jpg format correct so the cam (Sony) would read it, but once I figured that out it made a great portable slideshow viewer.

[starwxrwx @ Dec 19th 2005 2:26AM]

can you export keynote transistions (ie the cube effect) like this?

[mischa @ Dec 19th 2005 2:26AM]

why not just:

- make your text-y frames in photoshop.
- export as jpgs at whatever res you want. res it out to a tv or a proj, which ever, you can do both as actions in PS.
- import to avid/premiere/imovie.
- edit each text-y frame into whatever you want. If you numbered them sequentially, then it should work fine.
- you can even test out music tracks beneath the 'video' layers by extending each jpg to the cut of each beat.
- load into ipod.
- play rad presentation for co-workers like you know what the internet is.

Why is this machine such a workaround?

Why can't it be more what it should be?

Most people are tools. Not everyone has the desire to scroll through thousands of frames trying to match it up to the audio in hopes of playing a movie. These things should be easy.

as a side note, I have a 3GiPod. I love the thing to death. 4G was cool, but the idea that Jobs could pan off this 'lil colour screen as a photo-up? This thing isn't upgraded until it can play any codec-ed file (mp3/aac/mp4/avi/divx/xvid/whatever) to a TV via s-video and 1/4"...

and HE KNOWS IT.

I'll upgrade gladly when they do.

Until then, it's still the best damned jukebox around.

[misterbleepy @ Dec 19th 2005 2:26AM]

Couldn't you just show the Quicktime movie (exported from Keynote - thus keeping transitions etc) from a movie capable digicam?
Worth a try if the snazzy effects are important to you...

[Eelco Doornbos @ Dec 19th 2005 2:26AM]

You can easily get rid of the compression artefacts by exporting to a format such as gif or png instead of jpeg. According to the tech specs, the iPod photo is able to show these. Use jpeg only for photos, and gif or png for text and line-art slides.

[dm @ Dec 19th 2005 2:26AM]

What about using a Navipod as a remote?

[Vlad @ Dec 19th 2005 2:26AM]

I know there's a lot less "cool-factor" with this thought but: Wouldn't it be better to just create a DVD, menu-controlled, slide-show? You could not only show remarkably clear JPGs of your slides, but you could also play full-motion video and audio. The other upside is that a Portable DVD is a lot less expensive than any iPod-Photo. Don't get me wrong, I love my iPod (and I'm totally down with technology for technology's sake - most of the time), but... Oh, OK... if I had an iPodPhoto, I'd try it out at my next presentation! OK, there... I've said it! ;)

[iFelix @ Dec 19th 2005 2:26AM]

I have to say I was thinking about this when the iPod Photo was just a rumour.

My iPod photo has just arrived and I will be using this process when I deliver a presentation at the end of November.

[WLC @ Dec 19th 2005 2:26AM]

you can get rid of the jaggies... back when I did FDA regulatory review presentations for the pharmaceutical industry we did output to JPGs via PPT and used some conversion tools to get rid of the jaggies (essentially rerendered the images with antialias)... it was much cleaner and smoother then projecting directly out of PPT or projecting PPT's exported JPGs. We would then build a databse system to access, search/retrieve, any JPG on demand... the output from the BarCo projecters were amazing, nothing like seeing a 30 foot projection of the AIDs virus come to life... then of course there were some other specimen images that really got people queazy. LOL.

[Brian Grossman @ Dec 19th 2005 2:26AM]

Great idea kids.

One question. How can you pull off the same thing with a Palm? I've got a Palm Tungsten T3 and have tried (with overwhelming failure) to try to splice the T3's cradle cord or Zip Linq into the three RCA outputs.

Here's what I'd love to be able to do. I've got my Palm, I've got my connector Palm to RCA cable and I can walk up to any TV and plug it directly into the RCA inputs of that tv. So the tv is nothing more than a glorified monitor.

Call it a "presentation in the key of kick ass".

Because that would be much more portable than having to lug around a projector and its hardware.

Plus, with Palm's built-in slide show, you can dump having to use PowerPoint (aka "The Spawn of Satan"). Because the phrase "I want to show you this PowerPoint presentation" doesn't exactly cause people to spontaneously break out into wild cheers.

Any ideas on how I can pull this off?

[Mr.Clicky @ Dec 19th 2005 2:26AM]

Why would anyone *want* to use PowerPoint :-0

[Herv?. @ Dec 19th 2005 2:26AM]

As anyone could expect, there is now a shareware doing exactly this process on macintosh: iPresent, at
As far as I undestand, no transitions nor embedded animations.
As there has been details on passing QT movies on ordinary iPods for almost one year now, I'll wait for transitions to be added :-)
Herv?

[macdeutsche @ Dec 19th 2005 2:26AM]

It's pretty good information. I was just thinking about it and found this page on google.

It will be pretty embarassing if the slide looks poor. I think the poor quality is probably due to two conversions.

So unless they support natural PPT or quicktime, I guess I will hold on to the purchase of ipod photo. But, if they support quicktime, it will be iphoto movie, not ipod photo. To me, right now, ipod photo is not well made. They have so many possibilities, but only provided photo.

[Cazieel @ Dec 19th 2005 2:26AM]

I'm not sure about the IPOD Photo, but Creative has a remote out for the Portable Media Center now.

[MDG @ Dec 19th 2005 2:26AM]

Thanks for a great detailed article. I tried it and it works GREAT!

[barb dybwad @ Dec 19th 2005 2:26AM]

Griffin's putting out an iPod photo remote:

http://www.tuaw.com/entry/1234000207026691/

awwwww, yeah!

[stephen bell @ Dec 19th 2005 2:26AM]

Good article. I'm considering doing a presentation using my iP/photo, but dont want to have the thing stuck in its dock... rather in my hand where I can control the show. Is there a longish lead I can get that allows me to dispense with the dock?

[carter @ Dec 19th 2005 2:26AM]

wait if you put the ppt on an ipod photo can there be animations like bullet notes popping up one by one

[Dazler @ Dec 19th 2005 2:26AM]

Save them as PNG, and then convert them to JPG using a batch tool like IrfanView to get a better quality on your PMC/IPOD

[Alpha Geek @ Dec 19th 2005 2:26AM]

Works great for me.

The Apple cable that plugs into the headphone port for AV works better than the dock. You can hold the iPod and step back and forth thru the slides, using it like a wired remote.

The port is very slightly better image though because it is S-Video vs just composite video.

The music along with the slide show is a nice perk with the iPod. Makes for a nice presentation.

[Scott Lukas @ Dec 19th 2005 2:26AM]

I tried this process with a 90 slide powerpoint presentation and the slides do not import to the ipod photo in the order that I have them in the file. I have to use iPhoto as I need to have multiple presentations with me. It is a bit of a pain to have to manually rearrange the slides in iphoto before docking with the pod. I have tried to resave the file (after I have rearranged slides and added some to the middle of the presentation. By the way, this problem also occurs when I simply export to a folder on the desktop and avoid iphoto.

Anyone else have the same problem and if so how did you solve it?

Thanks!
Scott

[Marco Bertola @ Dec 19th 2005 2:26AM]

Importing slides from a folder in which they are numbered (Slide 1.JPG,Slide 2.JPG etc.)to the ipod,the order is not preserved.Suggestions on how to avoid such inconvenience?

[DB @ Dec 19th 2005 2:26AM]

Can a/v (sound and animation) powerpoint and keynote presentations be viewed on the iPod Video?

[DB @ Dec 19th 2005 2:26AM]

Can a/v (sound and animation) powerpoint and keynote presentations be viewed on the iPod Video?

[Mark Stamp @ Dec 19th 2005 2:26AM]

There's a realtively painless solution. The trouble is that the when PowerPoint exports the slides it numbers them Slide1.tif, Slide2.tif, and so on, which seems like the logical thing to do. But the problem is that the way the file names are ordered on the Mac (and iPod) results in, say, Slide10.tif coming before Slide2.tif. That is, the file names are ordered in dictionary order. One answer is to rename the files as Slide001.tif, Slide002.tif, and so on. Fortunately, there is a freeware tool, Renamer4Mac, that makes this totally painless. You can find Renamer at
http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/17205&mode=feedback

Renamer is pretty much self-explanatory, but, just for the record, here are the settings I use. First, click the "+" and select the folder with the tif files and select "open". Click the highlighted button, "add files recursively". Then select "number" from the drag-down menu, and "001, 002, 003,... " from "number format" (assuming you have less than 1000 slides). Under "text-format", select "text - number" and under "Text" enter, say, "Slide". In the lower-left drag-down, select "name only". You'll see the new names appear in light blue next to the current names, so you can check that it's going to do the right thing. If it looks good, click "Rename Files" and you're done.

[philippe fattal @ Dec 26th 2005 10:03AM]

when saving a file with more than 100 slides the numbering of the saved files i.e. the naming of the saved files will disturb the sequence. the sequence on ipod will be 1, 10 , 100, 101, 102, ...,2, 20, 200,, so the slides had to be renamed before sync.

[philippe fattal @ Dec 26th 2005 10:23AM]

the solution to the numbering problem is to rename individually each file from 1 to 99 with a suffix sequence with the number of digits equal to number of digits of the number of slides. i.e. 290 slides = 3 digit suffix i.e. the numbering should be slide001, slide002, ...slide020, slides099, After 99, there is no more problems unless you have above 1000 slides.

[ap @ Jan 6th 2006 2:44PM]

For ipod video (and photo version, I think) don't need to buy Apple's video cable or dock, you can use any 1/8" plug camcorder A/V cable. I found a 10 foot one at RadioShack for $16. The only difference is that you need to switch the color leads to opposite plugs.



I don't know how you could get transitions out of PP without a lot of work, but a program like Flash or Premiere could be used to make and export animations. The ipod video does play movies, but only a specific mp4 format. Search for "ipod video convert", then drag the video files onto iTune's Library (dragging to the video folder doesn't work for some reason).