How to insert real-time news in PowerPoint?

With PowerPoint alone the user can create their own news show in PowerPoint by copying and pasting the news headlines from the news source and display news in the PowerPoint slide show. But after a few hours this news was already an old news. The user can use our Dynanic NEWS add-on for PowerPoint to display news in real-time within the running PowerPoint presentation.

Set up a link to your news paper or news source

Click to open the Dynamic ELEMENTS menu option in PowerPoint and click the News button to open the Dynamic NEWS task pane. The user can add one or multiple news feeds to the presentation. Normally one would be sufficient but the system doesn’t know what to be displayed.  The user can use one news channel for worldwide news and another news channel for sports or business news.

The user can enter the RSS news feed URL and name the channel. For the RSS news feed the user should not just enter the home page URL of a given newspaper but the user need to specify the URL of the page that holds the newspaper RSS feed. Open the home page of a news source and try to find a link to their RSS feed. Typically the user will just search for the word RSS in the search box to find the link. Click to open the link.  The URL in the URL text box of the browser, is the URL that is needed for the news source in the PowerPoint.  Note: Not all the news sources have a public RSS feed.

For the user convenience we are evaluating the url and we will display a check symbol at the Valid RSS feed option.

At the RSS feed the user will typically find those in 20 or 25 last published articles of the news source. When the user visit their home page, then the user will also see those articles that was posted as last articles, thus at the top of the news source. Typical for a RSS feed is that the user have a title or news headline and some more text about the article at the description field. Some news papers also include a link to a featured image. That is handy for the news presentation. A news feed with a headline and picture along is ideal for the news slides and a picture is also a perfect eye-catcher for the news presentation.

The option named With usable pictures will give an indication that the news source also includes pictures that the user can use on the slides. When the user check the option Use articles with pictures only then the news articles without or with missing pictures will not be displayed on the screen. Sometimes it happens that a news paper has not yet assigned a picture to their story and that would result in an empty screen or at least in a missing picture. To avoid those empty screens with maybe text but no images, then check this option!

Every few minutes the add-on will check the RSS feed for new or updated articles. The user can influence this polling interval by changing the value of the Feed Update Interval.

The slider option Duration to Display Article indicates how long each article is shown on the slide. Dynamic NEWS will display each article for a number of seconds and then it displays the next article in order to display all articles of the feed. Check the news source for the longest text and try to read it while recording the number of seconds.

Click OK to close the RSS feed properties and the new feed will be added to the news channels. Nothing will happen now on the slide because the user has not assigned yet the news to the text boxes and pictures.

Display the headline in a text box

Now we are going to display the headline of the first article in a normal PowerPoint text box. Use an existing text box or insert a new one and in the Dynamic NEWS task pane that the user will see more options for this text box.

From the list at RSS feed to Display, choose the RSS feed to use at this text box. These lists are the copy of the names of RSS feeds to be set up at the My Feeds list.

From the chosen channel the user select the column of the RSS feed that the user wants to use at the Column to Display. A typical column to start with is the Title column.

The Transition option allows the user to specify how to switch from an article to the next article.

Options here are:

• No transition, the user will see the next article at once
• Delayed update where the current text is removed for a little while and then the new text comes in
• Fading where the text disappears and appears smoothly with the new content

Optionally, the user can bind a hyperlink to the text box so that when the user clicks the text then. the full article at the news source is opened automatically in an internet browser.

The user can add as many text boxes as needed on one slide. A typical use is 2 text boxes; one for the headline or title and another one for the content or description.

Real-time featured image

As explained earlier most newspapers add a featured image to their story. Look out for news feeds with nice and high resolution images in it. An image with a resolution of 120 pixels by 90 pixels is not something that the user can use full-screen on the slide. Just insert a new picture from the Insert > Picture menu option and use a local dummy image to display.

At the Dynamic NEWS task pane you now see news properties for images or pictures only. Just like for text boxes, choose the RSS Feed to Display and the Column to Display.

Set a hyperlink for a direct link to the full newspaper’s article.

Further enhancements

Now, work some more on the slide or presentation. Choose a nice font, a readable text size and also make sure that the text box can host the longest text possible. Sometimes a news headline will be spread out over multiple lines when using a larger font size.

Don’t forget to set a color fill with some transparency when place text on top of the images.

Run real-time news in slide show

Start the slide show. Visitors and people walking by in the office or shop will always look up to the created news presentation because the content is animated and always changing with real-time and hot news. Every x seconds, the next article will be shown on your slide and the news continues when it is automatically advance to a next slide. The user can continue to use news text boxes and news images on multiple slides.

In case news is not the main thing, add other slides with own information like products and services of the company, or promotions and the opening hours of the shop.