Slide decks

A deck is an ordered set of slides: this week’s notices, a sermon outline, a QR code for giving. Decks live in folders in the Library, beside songs, videos and images, and a folder can hold folders. Decks in the sidebar opens the Library showing decks only. One card that is no deck’s is a slide.

Making a deck

Create › New deck starts one with a blank first slide, in the folder you are in, and opens it. Double-click a deck to open it the same way: the picked slide fills the view with every slide in a strip under it, and Edit Slides opens the slide editor on the one you picked. Double-click a slide in the panel under a picked deck to open the deck on that slide.

Import from File turns a PDF or a PowerPoint file into a deck:

• every page of a PDF becomes a slide showing that page, up to 200 pages;
• a PowerPoint slide that is a single picture comes in the same way, and a slide with text on it is left out. Save the presentation as a PDF first to bring every slide.

Add Images adds one slide per picture to the deck you have open.

An imported slide is still a slide you can draw on: open it in the editor and put a caption over the page.

In Bible mode, the verses you select can become a deck of their own, split across slides so that none shrinks past what reads from the back of the room.

Videos and images

Create › Add files brings videos and pictures into the folder you are in. Dropping files on the page does the same; dropped on an open deck, pictures become its slides. The file stays where it is on disk, so keep it there: a moved file shows as missing.

Double-click a video or an image, or press Enter on it, to open it full size, with its details beside it; the arrow keys step through the rest of the folder. Show there, or Show now in its menu, puts it on the wall in place of slides. A video shows play, pause and its time in the live controls, and plays once through. The same picture or video in the Backgrounds folder plays behind the words instead, see background folders.

Add to service on a deck, a video or an image puts it in the order of service. Pick several with Shift or Cmd (Ctrl on Windows) held, and add, move or delete them together. The panel under the files shows what is inside a folder; double-click any of it to open it.

What you delete goes to Trash, the last folder in the tree, and stays there for 30 days: songs, services and themes too, and whatever was in a deleted folder. Nothing asks first; Undo on the message that follows brings it straight back. Drag something onto it to delete it; double-click something in it, or pick Restore, to bring it back where it was.

To get rid of something sooner, right-click it in the trash and pick Delete forever, or press Empty trash at the top of the trash. Both ask first, because nothing brings it back afterwards. With the cloud library, it goes from the web and the church’s other computers too.

Nothing live can be deleted, whether it is live on this computer or another of the church’s. The same goes for a service that is still running and for a folder holding either. The message names the computer: hide it there, or end the service, then delete it.

Showing slides

In an open deck, click a slide to see it full size beside its hold and notes, or step through the deck with the arrow keys. Show, or Enter, takes it live and closes the deck. Next and previous then move through it.

Arranging slides

Pick several slides in the strip with Shift or Cmd (Ctrl on Windows) held, or Cmd+A for all of them. Drag them to a new place in the strip, right-click them for Move to Deck, which adds them to the end of another deck, or press Delete to delete them after one question. Save as slide on one slide’s right-click menu copies it out as a slide of its own.

A slide with a Hold moves on by itself after that many seconds. Leave it empty and the slide stays until you move on. Pause in the dock holds the count where it is, Loop goes back to the first slide after the last, and Shuffle takes the slides in a random order. The deck remembers Loop and Shuffle.

Show as background puts the deck behind the words, where it moves on every 8 seconds unless a slide has a hold of its own. See Playing a folder. A deck never goes over the wall as an overlay. For a card that sits over a verse or a song, such as a QR code, make a slide of its own, or use Save as slide on one of the deck’s slides.

Notes for the speaker

Every slide has Notes. The wall never shows them. A stage screen does, beside the name of the slide that comes next, so whoever is speaking knows what is coming.