LiturgyTools.net: PowerPoint 2007: including songs from master files into your slideset

A master set of PowerPoint files with the words to your hymns, song and prayers lets you get the content right, and use it over and over again,

This is described in Organising your Template, Song and Prayer files, which calls the files a "Library".

However the 2007 version of Powerpoint expects file-libraries to be set up in SharePoint - this is nice, but not essential.

If you use this approach, you need to include slides from your master when you make the slideshow for each service. Copy-and-paste, from the master file to the service will include the content, but it won't pick up the same format as the rest of the service.

A better approach is to use PowerPoint's "reuse slides" feature.

To do this in PowerPoint 2007

Open the PowerPoint file where you want to put the hymns etc for this service.
Hint: you may want to start from a service-template, as this helps to get things in the right order

Choose the small arrow beside New Slide on the Home ribbon,

Choose Reuse slides, which is the item as the bottom of the list: A Reuse Slides toolbar will open - by default it is on the right of the screen, but you can move it around.

Choose whether to open a Library (which applies if you're working on a corporate network and a library has been set up using Microsoft SharePoint) or from a drive location.

For each place in the service PowerPoint where you want to include some material from the library:

Use the Browse drop-down at the top of the Reuse Slides toolbar to select the source file (ie hymn, song or prayer) that you want.
Find the specific parts of the song that you want to use: hover your mouse over the "body" of a slide in the Reuse window to see a slightly larger view of the slide.
Single-click on the coloured zone to the right of a slide in the Reuse window to insert it.

This puts the slide into the slideshow, at the point where the cursor currently is, using the theme/layout that currently applies to the main slideshow.

Repeat this as many times as you need to put all the songs, hymns and prayers into your service presentation file.

Hint

While you are working, you may notice problems with your file library. In the short term, it's quicker to fix the problem right in front of your. But in the long term, you can save a lot of time by fixing problems in the "slide library" as you see them.