Storyboarding PowerPoint to Video to DVD on the Cheap 

By Glenna Shaw

More and more folks are asking how to burn their presentations to DVDs and the reasons are obvious.  First, PowerPoint is an extremely easy multimedia authoring tool.  Nearly everyone with a PC has PowerPoint and you don't have to be a genius to use it. Second, DVDs have become very cost-effective to create and nearly everyone has a DVD player (even my 88 year old Granny).  And DVDs don't require a computer to play.  With PowerPoint and DVD you have an easy method of getting your message out, whether it's a training video or a digital business card promoting your products or service.  And your audience can view it at home as well as in the office.

For most folks, saving your PowerPoint presentations to a video or DVD means capturing the presentation as it's running and then using some method to save it as a video and then put that video on DVD.  This tutorial takes a different approach, turning PowerPoint into a storyboard of slides that can then be used to create a video/DVD or animated gif file.  A storyboard is like the old cartoon flipbooks.  A flipbook consists of a series of pictures held together in a stack at one end so the stack of images can be "flipped" through with your thumb.  The images on the pages appear to move.

Storyboarding your presentation is entirely different than capturing a presentation running on the screen.  The end results can be quite spectacular, but it will probably require more effect and thought on your part.  If you want to capture your running presentation to video and DVD, see Taj Simmons' tutorials on PowerPoint to Video and PowerPoint to DVD and I recommend purchasing Camtasia.  If you want to create an animated GIF, you must use the storyboarding method.

Before You Start

Video

If you're creating Videos, you need:

• Either Photo Slideshow Software

  There are many photo slideshow applications available on the net for little or no cost.  Most Digital Cameras come with software that let you create videos from your photos.  You can do a Google Search on "Photo Slideshow Software" or check c/net's download.com site for free or near free software that creates a video from photo images.  Microsoft makes it's Photo Story 3 software available free for Windows XP, but double check the system requirements.  Any videos created with Photo Story 3 require Windows Media Player 10 for playback or the player will automatically prompt to download the required video codec from the Microsoft Web site.  This is important to know if you plan to post your videos on the net or share them via email.

• Or Video Editing Software

  There is also a plethora of movie making software.  Most DVD Burners come with software that let you create videos.  You can do a Google Search on "Video Editing Software" or check c/net's download.com site for free or near free software that creates video and movies.  Microsoft makes it's Movie Maker software available free for Windows XP, but double check the system requirements.

DVD

If you're also creating DVDs, you need:

• A DVD Burner

• DVD Burning Software

  If you have a DVD Burner, it should have came with the software to burn DVDs.  Sonic offers Photo Story 3 DVD plug-in for only $20 and a combination package with My DVD for only $50.  You'll want to make sure your DVD Burning software has the ability to convert the format of your video to one that plays on a conventional television DVD player.  Many of the photo slideshow and video editing software packages include the ability to burn to DVD or at least import videos to be burned to DVD.

• If you are going to play your DVD on a TV, Microsoft PowerPoint MVP Taj Simmons offers the following suggestions:

  The quality (resolution) of a TV is not as good as a computer monitor. Keep these points in mind to get the best results.

  • Avoid putting information too close the edge of your slides, otherwise this information may be cut off when viewed on a TV

  • Avoid very small text. A lot depends on the quality of the TV and how far back the TV will be viewed from. Aim for no smaller than 30 point font sizes
  • Avoid very thin lines. Aim for at least 3 point line sizes
  • Avoid certain colors. Red is notoriously bad for video
  • Avoid very skinny / lite / thin / serif fonts. Aim for Arial (sans-serif), bold and black weights
  • Aim for dark backgrounds (dark blue), and light colored text (white / yellow)

If you're creating Animated Gifs, you need:

• Animated Gif Software

  Animated Gif software "stitches" together images and saves them in a single file that rotates through the images.  Microsoft GIF Animator is a free utility for creating animated gif files.  Animator9 is a very nice freeware application as well.  A Google search or a check on c/net's download.com will also show many free or near free options.  Many of the recommendations for DVD on TV apply to animated gif files as well, especially text.  If your animated gif is going to have text, don't put more that one or two lines of text per slide.  And make the text as large as possible.

Turn Your Presentation into a Storyboard

If you want to use an existing presentation, there are some steps you need to take to change the presentation to a storyboard format.

1. Save a copy of your original presentation with a new name.

   For example: present.ppt can be saved to presentvideo.ppt and all storyboard work done on this version of the presentation.

2. Turn off AutoFit.

   Microsoft PowerPoint, by default, automatically formats certain types of text as you type.  Automatic paragraph formatting includes automatic bulleted and numbered lists and resizing of text in text placeholders if the text doesn't fit at its current font size.  If you want text on a slide to appear line by line (as shown in the example below), you need to make sure the previous text will stay in the same place from slide to slide.  Turn off AutoFit by clicking on the Tools menu, click AutoCorrect Options.  Click the AutoFormat As You Type tab.  Under Apply As You Type, uncheck all the boxes.  Remember to turn AutoFit back on (if desired) after working on your storyboard file.

3. Remove all animation.

   Because you are exporting your slides as images, animations have no impact on your video.  Add slides to recreate the effect of your animations.  In the example below, to replace the animation effect of the text on slide 3 appearing line by line, 5 slides are created from the original slide and the text is introduced incrementally on each slide.  Copies of slides are easily created by selecting the slide, clicking on Insert menu, click Duplicate Slide.  Think of your slides as the cartoon flipbook.  If you flip through the slides, will it give you the effect you want?  Typically, a presentation with animation will need approximately 3-5 times as many slides when converted to a storyboard.
   
   

   What if you have complex animations in your PowerPoint presentation?

   If you have a objects with animated motions, you will need to create a frame for each half second of motion of the object.  This is just like creating a cartoon.  View the Complex Animations presentations in the Example section below to see how to create these motion frames.

4. Remove all slide transitions.

5. As with the animation, because you're exporting your slides as images, transitions will have no effect.  Most photo slideshow and video editing software includes the ability to add transitions between images.  In several software packages, these transitions are as good as or superior to the ones offered in PowerPoint.

6. Check your storyboard.

   Change to the Slide Sorter View, by clicking on the View menu, click Slide Sorter.  This lets you see all your slides laid out end to end to check how you storyboard flows.  If desired, print your presentation by clicking on File menu, click Print, under Print What:, choose Handouts and leave the setting for 6 Slides per page.  Click ok.  After your handouts have printed, cut out the slide images leaving a small margin on the left side and arrange them in the appropriate order in a stack from top to bottom.  Staple the left sides together.  You now have a physical flipbook of your presentation that you can thumb through to check the flow of your storyboard.

Slide Sorter View Before Storyboard

Slide Sorter View After Storyboard

6. Resize your presentation.

   Resize your presentation pages larger if you're creating a video and smaller if you're creating an animated gif.  For video, making the slides larger improves the output resolution of the images.  See Improve PowerPoint's GIF, BMP, PNG, JPG export resolution for more information about this.  Your photo slideshow or video editing software should take care of resizing the pictures smaller for your video output.  For animated gifs, make the slides approximately the same size as the desired animated gif.  This should be much smaller than the standard 10 X 7.5 inch slide.  The important thing is that the slide aspect ratio remains the same.  The table below shows some recommended page sizes:

   For	Use Page Size
   Large Video	40 inches width X 30 inches height
   Medium Video	20 inches width X 15 inches height
   Large Animated Gif	4 inches width X 3 inches height
   Medium Animated Gif	2 inches width X 1.5 inch height

To change the page size of your presentation, click on Files menu, click Page Setup.  Change the width and height of the page to meet your needs.

If you plan to use this method of creating videos frequently, consider investing in software that will increase the resolution of the images created from your slides.

• Image Exporter - Graphics export with full size control

• Batch Exporter - Export the components of one or many presentations

7. Save your work.

   It should go without saying that you should save your work frequently and often.

Save as Images

Once your storyboard is complete, export your slides as images.  This is exceptionally easy in PowerPoint.

1. Click on the File Menu, click Save As and choose or create a folder for storing your images.

2. Click on the drop down arrow next to Save As Type: and choose GIF, JPG, BMP, TIF or PNG as your file type.

   I used JPG for the examples, but you may find a different image type works better for your purposes.  If you're creating an animated GIF, save your images as GIF files.

3. Enter a name for your files in the File Name: box.  Click Save.  When prompted, select Every Slide.

Create Your Video

This steps depends entirely upon the photo slideshow or video editing software that you've chosen.  Read the instructions that come with your software to learn how to use it properly.  Although the methods may be different, there are some steps that are common to all video creation from images.

1. Import your images.

   Select all the images from your image folder according to your application instructions.

2. Add your images to the storyboard.

   Add each image to the storyboard used by your software.  Make sure the images are in the proper order using the image name (Slide1, Slide2, etc.) as your guide.

3. Add transitions.

   If your software gives you the option, add transitions between your images.  The example below shows the storyboard from Windows Movie Maker.  The transitions are shown in the small boxes between the images.  I found Photo Story 3's transitions to be the most versatile, but also the most work.  The default transition is a faded zoom in and out and each image transition setting had to be changed individually.

   

   How do you transition complex animations?

   Do not set any transitions between your complex animation frames.  Transitions will break up the illusion of motion in your complex animations.  View the Complex Animations video in the Example section below.

4. Add other effects, if desired.

   Many of the applications that I used included the ability to add other effects to the video as well as transitions.  In the example above, I added a fade through black special effect to the first image.  This is shown by the blue star in the lower left corner.  Adding text, titles, credits, etc. were some of the additional features offered depending on the application.  Make your own decisions and use what works for you.

5. Adjust timings.

   Set the amount of time you want each image to remain on the screen and the length of the transitions between images.  Most packages do a good job of setting this for you automatically.  I shortened some of the images in my examples because I wanted the video to be one minute long.  How you adjust the timing varies depending on the application.  Most of the applications I used required timings to be adjusted using the timeline view instead of the storyboard view.  You simply slide one side of the image or transition to lengthen or shorten its timing.  The example below shows the Windows Movie Maker timeline.  You can see where I've shortened the timing for some of the images at the beginning and end of the movie

   

   What timing do you set for complex animations?

   Set the images of your complex animations to display for .25 seconds with .25 seconds transition time. This will fool the eye into thinking the image is moving.  View the Complex Animations video in the Example section below.

6. Add sound or narration, if desired.

   Add sound or narration according to your application instructions. The example below shows the song "Do You Believe in Magic" added to the timeline using Photo Story 3.  This example also shows where I've adjusted the timing of some of the images.  It's very important to adjust the timings to your images BEFORE you add sound.  You don't want your sound dragged out or speeded up in spots where you've adjusted the timings after adding sound.  Many of the applications I used also allowed for narrating the video as well as adding music and sounds.  Refer to the instructions that came with your software.

Save Your Video

Save your video according to the directions that came with your software.  I found that the applications I used all offered good guidance on how to save the video depending on my needs.  You need to consider whether you want to email your video, post it on the web, view it on your computer or create a Video CD or DVD and save your video accordingly.  If you are saving your videos for DVD/television, it helps to know the standards for televisions in different countries because they are not compatible with each other.  See What's the difference between PAL, NTSC & SECAM?  Most software gives you the option of saving your video to NTSC or PAL formatting for television.  Keep in mind that if you save your file for viewing on a television, the resolution may appear blurry on the computer.  This was explained under the Before You Start section.  If you're going to be posting video with narration on the web, please do give some consideration to including captions.  Captioning videos is fairly easy to do with free MAGPie captioning software and it ensures that your message reaches everyone.  Equal Access to Software and Information (EASI) offers a very inexpensive course on creating accessible multimedia.

Burn To DVD

Create your DVD according to the directions that came with your software.  In most of the applications I tested, this meant clicking a button to Burn DVD.  If you're using one application to create the video and then a different application to burn it to a DVD, make sure you've saved the video in the format recommended by your software.  There is a difference between video CDs played on a computer and DVDs played on a television so make sure your read the instructions that came with your software carefully.

Create An Animated GIF

Creating an animated GIF file from your storyboard images is relatively simple and requires only a few steps.  How you do these steps depends on the software you use.  Read the instructions that came with your software.

1. Insert your GIF images in the appropriate order.

   Add each image as required by your software.  Animator9 lets you add the images as a group, but Microsoft GIF Animator has you add them one at a time. Make sure the images are in the proper order using the image name (Slide1.GIF, Slide2.GIF, etc.) as your guide.

2. Adjust desired output size.

   Set the size of your image to one that is reasonable for its use.  A bigger image means a larger file to download from the web.

3. Adjust the timing between images.

   Set the timing between images so that it's not too fast or too slow.  Microsoft GIF Animator allows you individual control over each image for these settings.  Animator9 sets the same time for all images.  The example below shows the timing on the first image set to .2 seconds (20/100s) using Microsoft GIF Animator.

   

4. Set rewind and looping options.

   Decide whether you want your animated GIF to rewind and/or loop.  Change the settings according to your software.

5. Save your GIF.

   Save the GIF according to your software instructions.  If the file size is too large for your needs, repeat the steps above but make the output size smaller.

Examples

PowerPoint Presentations

These presentations demonstrate changing an existing presentation into storyboard format.

• Before Presentation - (zip) 505 Kb PowerPoint 2002/2003 file, 10 X 7.5 inches

• After Presentation - (zip) 545Kb PowerPoint (any version) file, 40 X 30 inches

• Complex Animation Before - (zip) 19 Kb PowerPoint 2002/2003 file

• Complex Animation After - (zip) 17 Kb PowerPoint (any version) file

Video created with Photo Story 3 for Windows XP

Windows Media Player 10 is recommended.  If you play these video stories on computers that do not have Windows Media Player 10 installed, the Player will prompt you to download the required video codec from the Microsoft Web site.

• Small Video - 352 Kb Windows Media Player 10 file, 320 X 240 pixels

• Medium Video - 1 Mb Windows Media Player 10 file, 640 X 480 pixels

• Large Video - 2 Mb Windows Media Player 10 file, 1024 X 768 pixels

• DVD-TV Video - 3 Mb Windows Media Player 10 file, 640 X 480 pixels

Video created with Windows Movie Maker

• WMP video - 268 Kb Windows Media Player file, 160 X 120 pixels

• WMP video - 4.1 Mb Windows Media Player file, 640 X 480 pixels

• Complex Animation - 115 Kb Windows Media Player file, 640 X 480 pixels

Video created with Commercial Software

These videos demonstrate the different effects, transitions and sizes provided by different video creation software.   These versions of the video should play on most machines.  You can see the conversion to older video (codecs) adds file size to the videos.  If you're creating your videos for DVDs this won't matter much, but if you plan to share your videos through the web or email file size makes a big difference.

• QT video - 3.74 Mb QuickTime Player file, 320 X 240 pixels

  • Created with Camtasia.

• WMP video - 730 Kb Windows Media Player file, 640 X 480 pixels

  • Created with Camtasia.

• WMP video - 202 Kb Windows Media Player file, 160 X 120 pixels

  • Created with Pinnacle Studio 9

• WMP video - 1.8 Mb Windows Media Player file, 720 X 480 pixels

  • Created with Pinnacle Studio 9

• WMP video - 1.2 Mb Windows Media Player file, 640 X 480 pixels

  • Converted from Photo Story 3 version to version that runs on older versions of Windows Media Player

Animated Gif created with Microsoft GIF Animator

This animated gif will cycle through slides when viewed in your web browser or inserted into a PowerPoint presentation.

• Animation - 377 Kb animated gif file

• Complex Animation - 106 Kb animated gif file

  • Save and open these gif files in Microsoft GIF Animator to see all the frames and settings.

Copyright 2005 Glenna R. Shaw. Reprinted with permission.

Learn more about Glenna Shaw in our Contributor's section.