PowerPoint, PDF and Google Slides

PowerPoint or PDF

1. In Media, press Upload and pick the file, or drag it onto the page. PowerPoint (.pptx, .ppt, .ppsx), OpenDocument (.odp) and PDF, up to 300 MB and 100 slides.
2. It shows Making slides, then Ready, usually within a minute. Each slide is now a picture, and a playlist named after the file plays them in order, 10 seconds each.
3. Press the deck to see its slides. Change Seconds per slide there, or press Open the playlist to put it on screens, add other photos, videos or signs, or give a slide its own time or schedule.

Changed the deck? Open it and press Upload a new version. The screens keep playing the old slides until all the new ones are ready, then change over at their next check-in. Slides that didn’t change keep their place, time and schedule, and anything else you added to the playlist stays where you put it.

Google Slides

1. In Google Slides, choose Share, set General access to Anyone with the link, then Copy link.
2. In Media, press Google Slides, paste the link and press Add. The deck takes the presentation’s name.
3. With Keep in step with Google Slides on, Dislab looks for changes every hour while the playlist is on a screen, and new slides show by themselves. Press Get the latest to look now.

Good to know

• Slides play as still pictures: animations, transitions between slides and videos inside a deck don’t come across. Dislab’s own fade or slide plays between them; set it in the playlist.
• Fonts: Dislab has stand-ins for Microsoft’s (Calibri, Cambria, Arial, Aptos, Segoe UI and others), so text can wrap a little differently. For an exact match, save the deck as a PDF from PowerPoint (File › Save As › PDF) and upload that. Google Slides already arrive exact.
• Keynote: choose File › Export To › PowerPoint or PDF in Keynote, and upload that.
• Design slides 16:9 to fill a landscape TV. Other shapes show whole, with bars at the sides.
• Slides count toward your storage like photos, and making them uses a little of this month’s converting time. Checking Google Slides when nothing changed costs nothing.
• Deleting a deck takes its slides out of its playlist; the playlist goes too if nothing else is in it.