Subj : Re: Power Point
To   : Charles Scaglione
From : Alan Zisman
Date : Fri Sep 09 2005 12:55 am

-=> Charles Scaglione wrote to August Abolins <=-

 CS> On Tue, 6 Sep 2005 23:41:38 -0400, "August Abolins -> Charles
 CS> Scaglione" <1:229/2000> wrote:

 AA> PP came up in conversation tonight with a pastor-friend. What exactly is
 AA> involved to get a PP slide show from a laptop onto a big screen?  Is the 
th
 CS> e
 AA> output at the external video connector? ...or is it via USB? ...something
 AA> else?   He would be using OpenOffice, btw  ...and probably needing a way 
to

 AA> control the show via "remote".  Is there a special cordless device for 
that
 CS> ?

 CS> The output is taken from the video output (external monitor connector)
 CS> from the laptop via a digital quality cable to the video input of the
 CS> projector.

 CS> The projector becomes an external monitor for all practical purposes.
 CS> The whole process is really very easy to setup and display.  Of course
 CS> for a large audience (church sanctuary) a projector with enough lumen
 CS> output is required so the display will be bright enough to fill a
 CS> large screen and be viewable from the last row.

 CS> Most modern projectors come with a remote that can be used to control
 CS> the show, change parameters, setup, and so forth.  We keep a person in
 CS> our sound booth at the computer terminal to control the Powerpoint
 CS> presentation.   I'm not familiar with the presentation software that
 CS> comes with Open Office but my understanding is that it's file
 CS> compatible with Powerpoint.

As far as actually projecting, there's not much difference between using OO.org 
or PP... (Note that F8 is OO.org's shortcut key to Show a presentation).

 There are a couple of slightly-tricky parts:

1) What happens when you plug in the projector to the laptop's external VGA 
port varies with the laptop... in many cases, you'll need to restart the 
laptop. In some cases, you need to go to the Display control panel and fuss 
around with settings to enable the external 'monitor'... in other cases, you 
may have to press a key combination-- often the laptop's FN key along with one 
of the F keys-- often it will have a rectangle icon on the key (to indicate a 
monitor)... you may have to press the proper key combination a couple of times 
to enable both the external device and the LCD panel at the same time.

2) It can takes several (3-5 minutes) for the projector to warm up before it 
shows anything on screen... and if you don't know if the projector is working 
AND you're not sure if your laptop is set up to send signal through its VGA 
port, it can be confusing!

3) If you're looking to purchase a projector, and it will be primarily used for 
PP (etc) presentations, you can save a couple of hundred dollars by buying an 
800x600 (SVGA) one rather than a 1024x768 (XGA) model... PP presentations look 
identical at either resolution.
.... Inet mail to: alan at zisman dot ca
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