3/1/2011 7:58:27 PM

I had pretty much given up using the Import From PowerPoint Presentation as a means to create SSP songs.  Our archive uses multiple pages for most verses.  I could assign the lyrics on the first slide to verse 1, but when I assigned the lyrics on the next slide to verse 1 as well, they wiped out the first lyrics.  Support had no suggestions.

One of our staff realized that you can cut and paste in the Slide Text window.  So I go to the 3rd slide in a three-page verse, copy those lyrics, paste them onto slide 2, copy all the lyrics on slide 2, and paste them onto slide 1.  Now the whole verse is on one slide for labeling.  When I edit the song, I break up the pages again.  It is only marginally better than simply cutting from ppt and pasting into the lyrics window, but every little bit helps, when you have hundreds of songs to convert.

Hope this can help someone else.

3/1/2011 9:17:51 PM

Another suggestion for this is to go to the Tools > Preferences > Song Parts list and add the most common multi-part labels you will use. These will then show up in the PowerPoint import tool for you.

3/2/2011 7:01:48 AM

I think she is talking about putting all of verse 1 in Verse 1, but showing it on three screens. With PPT you do that on three slides. In SSP you do that with ^P

3/2/2011 7:14:51 AM

In SSP you do that with ^P

What is ^P?
Yes, I am importing ppt songs that spread the lyrics for verse 1 (or chorus, or verse 2..) over multiple slides.  I need to get all the text for verse one imported under the verse 1 song part, but the import tool did not cooperate without this trick.  Is there a better way?

3/2/2011 7:41:33 AM

^P or control-P is how you put page breaks withi an SSP song part, as long as you have the display properties to show Page by Page rather than Verse by Verse or # of Lines.

I don't know if this would work, but you could give it a try.

1. In powerpoint, File (or Office Button, depending on what version of office) -> publish -> handouts in Word -> outline only view.
2. In the Word handout that powerpoint created, select all (^a) and copy (^c) putting the entire document into the clipboard.
3. In SSP import from clipboard. That might be worth trying.

3/2/2011 9:10:27 AM

Posted By Joel Osborn on 02 Mar 2011 07:01 AM
I think she is talking about putting all of verse 1 in Verse 1, but showing it on three screens. With PPT you do that on three slides. In SSP you do that with ^P

I get it. I see the complication. I suppose it is a good question about whether those buttons should replace the text with the new text or simply concatonate the the text.

3/2/2011 9:34:10 AM

Posted By Doug Reece on 02 Mar 2011 09:10 AM

Posted By Joel Osborn on 02 Mar 2011 07:01 AM
I think she is talking about putting all of verse 1 in Verse 1, but showing it on three screens. With PPT you do that on three slides. In SSP you do that with ^P

I get it. I see the complication. I suppose it is a good question about whether those buttons should replace the text with the new text or simply concatonate the the text.

Or some sort of copy append.

3/2/2011 11:04:22 AM

Does ^P work differently than ctrl-enter, which is how I have been inserting page breaks?

Hey, changing how that button works would be way better than passing on this trick!

3/2/2011 12:31:55 PM

You got me. 

I was misremembering.

Of course I meant cntl-Enter that puts a paragraph mark there. 

Thanks for straightening me out. 

3/6/2011 2:36:28 PM

^p is actually a carriage return. I use it frequently in MS Word for 'find and replace'. It's very helpful (combined with excel) when trying to make batch files, or colapsing lists that you don't want to sort. I use MS Word for carriage returns and notepad for everything else, as notepad cannot use the ^p option. MS Word has a tendancy to add in coding when pasted into excel, so I only use it for the ^p.

5/14/2013 7:53:28 PM

After a couple of years of ignoring powerpoint and importing all my songs from songselect, I found that all our VBS songs are available in one big ppt file. But powerpoint import of songs still does not allow for song parts that take multiple pages. Back to copying the last page and pasting it on the next to the last, etc.
Another difficulty was that powerpoint labels slides 1,2,3...10,11,12 instead of 001,002,003...010,011,012. As a result, the import window for this very long ppt file showed slides in a very scrambled order. Given that powerpoint does indeed label slides this way and isn't about to change, perhaps SSP needs to adjust how it reads slide numbers in powerpoint import.

5/15/2013 6:18:26 AM

A couple of suggestions. When I did this, I imported the PPT into a slide show and just showed it that way. You can't change anything once you do this (text, font, background, etc), but it's just click and go. You could then go in and name the slides approriatly and/or break the slide show into different shows for each song.

The other option would be to save the powerpoint as an rtf, then open the rtf and copy the text into the clipboard and import from clipboard.

5/15/2013 7:24:28 PM

Posted By Joel Osborn on 15 May 2013 06:18 AM

A couple of suggestions. When I did this, I imported the PPT into a slide show and just showed it that way. You can't change anything once you do this (text, font, background, etc), but it's just click and go. You could then go in and name the slides approriatly and/or break the slide show into different shows for each song.



The other option would be to save the powerpoint as an rtf, then open the rtf and copy the text into the clipboard and import from clipboard.

I would have never thought of doing this. BRILIANT! I'll have to try that this year, as we probably have the same VBS coming soon.

5/19/2013 2:24:24 PM

Thanks for the tips, Joel. I can't use the PPT as is, unfortunately. Text is way too small and background is unsuitable. I can try the rtf file. I just really wanted the SSP Powerpoint import to work. Oh, well.