Dual monitors on Mac

[thibaulthalpern]

Version: 2008
Operating System: Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard)
Processor: Intel

I am trying to do a presentation where I have two slide projectors. I want to display both projectors at the same time. Typically, one slide projector (let's say the Left one) will be displaying an image and the other slide projector (say the Right one) will be displaying some text. Both are for the audience to view.

I know that PowerPoint 2008 for Mac can use dual monitors in the sense of one monitor projecting for the audience and the other monitor projecting for the presenter showing her or him the notes etc.

My scenario is different. I want both monitors to be displaying different slides for the audience.

Can this be doing? OIV (Offline Image Viewer) which is part of ArtStor.org is able to do what I want, but can PowerPoint?

 

[thibaulthalpern]

Okay, so far still no response. For those of you searching for a solution, OIV (Offline Image Viewer) publicly downloadable from ArtStor.Org works.

However, OIV is only for images. It cannot incorporate sound which is unfortunate.

So, is there a PowerPoint solution?

 

[thibaulthalpern]

I just realised that rather than calling this "dual monitors" what I really should call this is "dual projectors".

 

[Steve Rindsberg]

Version: 2008
Operating System: Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard)
Processor: Intel

I am trying to do a presentation where I have two slide projectors. I want to display

both projectors at the same time. Typically, one slide projector (let's say the Left
one) will be displaying an image and the other slide projector (say the Right one) will
be displaying some text. Both are for the audience to view.

I know that PowerPoint 2008 for Mac can use dual monitors in the sense of one monitor

projecting for the audience and the other monitor projecting for the presenter showing
her or him the notes etc.

My scenario is different. I want both monitors to be displaying different slides for the audience.

Can this be doing? OIV (Offline Image Viewer) which is part of ArtStor.org is able to

do what I want, but can PowerPoint?

It might be simplest and most trouble-free to run the notes presentation from a
separate computer; it wouldn't take a very powerful one, so an old Mac or even PC
should be fine.

Some people use radio controlled remotes with several receivers set to the same
frequency to trigger multiple computers into changing slides at the same time.

 

[Corentin Cras-Méneur]

I am trying to do a presentation where I have two slide projectors. I
want to display both projectors at the same time. Typically, one slide
projector (let's say the Left one) will be displaying an image and the
other slide projector (say the Right one) will be displaying some text.
Both are for the audience to view.

I've never tried that setup, but can't you set PowerPoint to use one of
the projectors for its slides and set the image you want to display on
the other one as the desktop picture for that "screen"??
You could even use the System prefs to use a folder of images and have
them change every 5s, minute, 5 minutes, etc (not may options there, but
still…).

I'm even wondering whether you could create a flash animation, with the
images of your choice and the timing of your choice and use that as a
desktop picture.

Corentin

 

[thibaulthalpern]

It might be simplest and most trouble-free to run the notes presentation from a
separate computer; it wouldn't take a very powerful one, so an old Mac or even PC
should be fine.

Some people use radio controlled remotes with several receivers set to the same
frequency to trigger multiple computers into changing slides at the same time.

I'm not sure I understand. I'm trying to run a slide presentation that uses dual projectors--two screens displayed at once for the audience. I'm not interested in seeing my own notes. I'm interested in having the audience see two screens (i.e., two slides) at once. I'm in a media theatre where we have two slide projectors that can project different images at the same time.

As I mentioned, the software OIV, allows me to do this but I haven't found a way for PowerPoint to do this. Maybe it simply can't.

 

[thibaulthalpern]

I've never tried that setup, but can't you set PowerPoint to use one of
the projectors for its slides and set the image you want to display on
the other one as the desktop picture for that "screen"??
You could even use the System prefs to use a folder of images and have
them change every 5s, minute, 5 minutes, etc (not may options there, but
still…).

I'm even wondering whether you could create a flash animation, with the
images of your choice and the timing of your choice and use that as a
desktop picture.

Corentin

Well, now, that's a rather cumbersome setup. I'd rather use OIV then because I only need to be using one program at a time. OIV can display two slides at a time on two separate screens.

 

[thibaulthalpern]

Maybe PowerPoint is hopeless for what I want it to do?

 

[Steve Rindsberg]

I'm not sure I understand. I'm trying to run a slide presentation that uses dual projectors--two

screens displayed at once for the audience. I'm not interested in seeing my own notes.

You mentioned showing text on one screen. I was referring to that. Sorry for the confusion with PPT's
Notes feature.

I'm interested in having the audience see two screens (i.e., two slides) at once. I'm in a media

theatre where we have two slide projectors that can project different images at the same time.

Understood. But PowerPoint doesn't deal with that sort of thing gracefully, if at all. So feeding each
projector from a separate presentation run from different computers might be your best bet.

As I mentioned, the software OIV, allows me to do this but I haven't found a way for PowerPoint to do

this. Maybe it simply can't.

Since you have software that does this already, could you export the PPT presentation(s) to a series of
images and use OIV to handle them?

 

[thibaulthalpern]

Ah...I see. Too bad PowerPoint can't do what I want. It seems to be a very simple feature and a feature that some speakers would want. I can create my presentations on OIV and it also imports PowerPoint presentations. So, that's not a problem.

The thing is, OIV does not allow for moving images, video, sound and so forth. It only can display static images and text. In this presentation I'm doing, I would like to add some audio (but it's not required). So, I think I'm going to go back to OIV and let Microsoft figure out how to incorporate this feature into their next version.

OIV is a free program available through ArtStor.org. And the program is only about 16MB large which makes it amazing that such a simple feature PowerPoint can't handle.