PowerPoint in the WorkCast Platform - Best Practice Guide

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Items to Avoid | Video Guide | Best Practice | Embedded Video |Uploading | Useful Content

Introduction

The WorkCast platform allows PowerPoint presentations to be uploaded in the format they were created in, including any embedded videos and animations.

• Presentations are hosted on our cloud based infrastructure and then streamed as video to your webinar landing page
• Presentation slides should only be uploaded as .pptx format.

Items to Avoid in Your PowerPoint Presentation

• Security Warning - If your slide deck contains a security warning or similar, then you MUST check each slide and remove any hyperlinks or images that are referenced from other locations. Please ensure your slides do NOT contain security warning before supplying or uploading your slides within the WorkCast platform.
• No 'hidden slides' – make sure no 'hidden slides' are included within your presentation. These may cause your upload to fail or result in certain slides skipping while presenting.
• Image Reference - Images should not be referenced or added to your presentation from shared network computer drives. This includes any images you add, but also any images used as part of a company template.
• Embed your content – DO NOT reference external content from the web; embed any videos, images, fonts, etc. Remember: External links and/or referenced external content will prevent your slides from uploading.
• File Size - The WorkCast Platform can accept all file sizes but you may experience issues uploading very large files if your network has upload limits. We would advice PowerPoint file sizes total no larger than 700MB.

Watch Our Video Guide

Best Practice

• Choose your slide aspect ratio – choose from either 16:9 (widescreen) or 4:3 for your slides (we recommend 16:9 to make the most of your content space)
• Use colour well – a viewer's computer screen resolution, quality or colour settings may be different to yours; use clear colours for text and avoid any that could contrast, blend into backgrounds, clash or be restrictive for viewers.
• Avoid small content – viewers are likely to be watching on laptops or mobile devices so avoid using small or difficult font sizes and images. For example, please do not use a font size lower than 10px.
• Choose your fonts – be sure any fonts you choose are easy to read and embed any custom fonts into your presentation. PowerPoint will otherwise fall back to the nearest font family and may effect your content layouts/positions (this option can be enabled within PowerPoint's save settings).
• Use animations sparingly – include simple animations in your PowerPoint but don’t let them detract from your content or distract viewers.
• Include videos – set any embedded videos to auto-play when the slide begins. If you wish for the video to repeat then be sure to set the video to loop within the settings.

Video

You can include videos in your PowerPoint deck, however, the following guidelines must be followed when doing so:

• Videos should be .mp4 format and set to auto play within PowerPoint.
• During the playback of your video you should not transition your slides as this will stop the video and move the presentation to a different slide. 
  Tip: You can use the Lock Slides function in the Media Hub to deactivates slide controls for presenters to avoid accidental slide transitions.
• If your first slide contains a video then we highly recommend adding a static slide into your presentation before the slide containing the video. This will allow you to control the start of your video playback by simply transitioning to the second slide to trigger the video. The slide, for example, could display the title of your event or a 'welcome' image.
• All video, content and images within the PowerPoint should be embedded; do not include externally referenced content as these will be identified as security risks and will prevent your content from being loaded.
  - Further information on how to identify and remove referenced content can be downloaded here (PDF).

Follow these guidelines when creating videos to include in presentations:

• Video bitrate: no more than 750kbps
• Format: mp4, h.264
• Video frame rate: 25 (FPS)
• Audio bitrate: no more than 128kbps
• Audio profile: AAC
• Audio Sample Rate: 44100/48000

Uploading and Adding to Events

Slides can be loaded through the following routes:

• The Slides tab within your event setup.
• The WorkCast Studio which is accessed by clicking the Present Now button in your session.
  Once in the Studio, navigate to the Media Hub pod and 'Session Content' tab with this pod to load your slides.  You can then view and control your slides in the Present tab of the Media Hub.
  
• (Producer access only) You can also use the Media tab at the top of the platform.

Useful Content

• [Webinar] - From Boring To Brilliant: How To Create Dynamic & Engaging PowerPoint Presentations:
  http://www.workcast.com/register?cpak=9351426448208823

• WorkCast Insite Media Guide:
  http://insite.workcast.com/what-is-media