2 Ways to Add a Video to a Powerpoint Presentation

Videos in a Powerpoint Presentation?

Why add videos to a powerpoint presentation? This Forbes article recommends videos as a way to keep an audience engaged while this Prichard Communications article indicates video content in a presentation may be processed faster and retained longer than text content. Whatever your reasons for adding a video to your presentation we’ll walk you through how to include a video in your powerpoint presentation.

There are two ways you can add a video to a powerpoint presentation. You can link to the video (create a shortcut to the video’s location) or embed the video (paste it into the presentation file). There are advantages and disadvantages to each method:

• Link to the Video
  • Description: Create a clickable link in your presentation which will play the video on the internet (ie: in youtube) or in a video program on your computer.
  • Pros: The powerpoint file size isn’t affected.
  • Cons: If the location of the video changes your link will be “broken” and it won’t work anymore.
• Embed the Video
  • Description: The video is, in essence, pasted into the powerpoint presentation and plays within the presentation screen.
  • Pros: Changes to the video file or its location won’t have any affect on your presentation and the video plays within the same screen, no additional windows are opened during the presentation.
  • Cons: The powerpoint file size will be larger which could affect your ability to share it (ie: may be too large to email).

How to Create a Link to a Video in a Powerpoint Presentation

To create a link to a video in your powerpoint presentation you must first find the location of the video you’re linking to. As an example, we’ll walk through the steps to link to a video on YouTube. First, go to the video page on YouTube that you’d like to link to. Below the video, you’ll see a horizontal menu that says “Add to”, “Share” and “More”. Click “Share” and more options will appear. Within that new section you’ll see a web address for the video you have displayed. It will usually start with “https://youtu.be/” followed by some numbers and letters. With the entire address highlighted, right click on it and select copy.

Now that you have the link copied go into your powerpoint presentation to the slide where you’d like to create the link. You can make a word, phrase or picture a clickable link. Choose where you’d like your link and highlight it (ie: highlight the text or picture you’d like to make clickable). Then go to the insert menu and within the links submenu click on hyperlink. In the dialog box that opens put your cursor in the address box, right click and select paste. You should now see the “https://youtu.be/…..” address you copied above displayed in the address bar. Click ok. The text or picture you selected will now be a clickable link to the video in youtube.

To test your link go to the view menu and select slide show. While in the slide show mode click on your link and youtube should open and display your video!

NOTE: Remember, using this method, if the owner of the video on youtube removes it or moves it your link will no longer work.

How to Embed a Video into a Powerpoint Presentation

To embed a video into a powerpoint slide first open powerpoint and go to the slide where you’d like to add your video. Go to the insert menu. In the media clips submenu click on the movie button. In the window that pops up go to the folder where you have your video stored, select your video and click open. Powerpoint will then ask if you want the video to play automatically or when clicked.

• Automatically will play the video as soon as you go to the slide with the video on it.
• When clicked allows the presenter to control when the video is displayed as it’s not played until the presenter clicks on it.

Select which option you’d like and the video will be added to your slide. You can now change the size of the video by dragging on the corners of the box around it and stretching it or making it smaller. You can also move it around on the slide.

To test your link go to the view menu and select slide show. While in slide show mode if you’ve selected “when clicked” click on the video box and your video should play. If you’ve selected the video to play automatically then as soon as you open the slide with the video in it your video should start playing.

Conclusion

Have you found the addition of videos to your powerpoint presentations a useful way to keep your audience engaged? Have you ever received a powerpoint presentation and wanted to extract the video to save it for later? If so, then check out the article: How to Remove a Video from a Powerpoint Presentation.