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ProPresenter

Instructions for performing any task that may (and will likely) be required of media volunteers on ProPresenter during our Sunday morning services.   You are highly valued as a brother/sister in Christ, and your contribution to this ministry means the world!



Startup

  • Wake the computer from sleep by clicking on the mouse or pressing any key on the keyboard.  Username and password for the computer are both Haggai.
  • Turn on the rear projector (that vocalists use for lyrics) by pressing the power button on the top.
  • Open ProPresenter by either clicking on the app icon on the bottom-screen dock (2nd from left), or by double-clicking on the shortcut icon on the desktop.

Understanding the Main Screen

  • Once ProPresenter is open, you will see multiple windows scattered across the screen.   

  • Top left window is the aptly-named Display Preview, which is a preview of what is being sent to the main sanctuary projector.
  • Middle-left window (below the Display Preview) is the Library; a collection of .pro5 files (song lyrics, sermon notes, Bible verses, etc.) that have been used in a presentation.
  • Bottom-left window (below the Library) is the Playlist library; a playlist, marked by the date of the worship services to be used for, is what it sounds like - a list from top to bottom with the worship service announcements, song lyrics, sermon notes, and any other media used during the service.
  • Middle (main) window contains a preview of each slide in the current file selected.
  • Right window is the Audio Bin, which contains the audio files to be used before and after the worship service.
  • Additionally, there are a variety of buttons along the top of the screen.  The buttons that might likely be used by the media volunteer are:
    • Clear All: This kills everything going on in ProPresenter at the time - lyrics, backgrounds, messages, and audio.  Use this if you need to get everything off of the screen in an emergency.
    • Editor: This button will bring up the Editor screen for whatever song or sermon that is currently selected.  You can add slides, change formatting and fix spelling errors, etc. in the Editor (learn more about how to work within the Editor here).
    • Video/Image: This will bring up the Video/Image screen to access our library of background videos and images to be used in songs, announcements, sermons, and more.
    • Messages: This brings up the Messages window, which allows you to display the countdown at the bottom of the screen (learn more about countdown messages here).

Accessing A Worship Service Playlist

  • As noted above, the worship-service playlist section are in the bottom left-hand corner of the screen, listed by date.  
  • Simply click on whatever worship service date is needed; all the files within that playlist will show up in the Playlist window, and preview slides will show in the center display window.
    • Note: Make sure that the “Contiguous” button is engaged in the Playlist window, which allows you to see the preview slides of the entire playlist in sequential order, rather than only being able to view preview slides for one file.  You'll be able to tell the difference between the two real quick!
  • Click on whatever slide you'd like to show first on the projector, and go from there!
  • You will see " *kill screen* " slides placed throughout the service playlist.  These are exactly what they sound like: when hit, they will fade all lyrics/ videos/ backgrounds to black, and will fade all audio to silence.  These are placed throughout the playlist so that all backgrounds will re-set when appropriate, and that there won't accidentally be more than one thing going on the screen at once.  (The applications of this are listed below, and will make more sense as you keep reading!)


Navigating Song Lyrics & Sermon Slides

  • In the center display window, once a service playlist has been selected, click on the first slide of a song or sermon.
  • Press the space bar to advance from slide to slide.
    • Note: There are other triggers to change slides, such as using the arrow-keys or even by clicking on each slide with the mouse, but these other methods are unreliable and can easily cause the wrong slide to be shown, confusing the congregation and interrupting the worship-service flow.  The space bar will walk through all songs and sermon notes smoothly.  Please only use the space bar to advance from slide to slide!
  • At the end of a presentation file (song, sermon, etc), pressing the space bar once will transition to the next file in the worship service playlist; pressing the space bar again will then activate the first slide of that file.  This is a built-in system that acknowledges, with two clicks, that you are changing to the next file in the playlist.
  • Most songs will typically have blank slides (no song-lyrics on them) in three places; right after the title slide, at the end of the song, and if there are any instrumental sections during the song.  Blank slides (no song-lyrics) simply exist so that that the congregation knows there aren't words to be sung at that moment.  Leaving lyric-slides on during an intro/instrumental/outro can be confusing for those who aren't as familiar with the song, and we want to do everything possible to avoid distraction & confusion (so that they can embrace Jesus without any obstacles we might be throwing at them!).
  • Some sermon-note slides have underlined text in them; you will notice that slides with underlined text also have a "dot" at the bottom of the preview slide.  The dot indicates how many extra times the space bar must be pressed before it moves on to the next slide.  At first click, the underlined-text slide will appear on-screen with the underline showing up, but the text invisible.  Another press of the space bar will reveal the underlined text.  Additional space-bar presses will activate additional underlines if there is more than one per slide.
  • As a general rule, you can use the space bar to navigate the entire service from top to bottom.  There is one exception, though: announcement files, unlike song/sermon files, are set to repeat themselves without having to press the space bar.  Once the timed-announcements are done, then the space bar will run the rest of the service (learn more about the announcements loop here).


Pre-Service

Announcements Loop

  • The announcement slides will always be the first file on any service playlist, and at the very top of the center preview window.
  • Simply click on the first slide of the announcements file, and the slides will automatically loop from one to the next; it does all the work for you.

Countdown

  • Once the announcement slides are running, add the countdown-message at the bottom of the screen that says when the service starts.
  • Press the Messages button in the top-center of the screen, and make sure Countdown is selected.
  • Type in the start-time of the appropriate service (9:30 AM for first service, and 11:00 AM for second service), then press the Refresh button (circle-arrow) twice.
  • Press the Show Message button, and the countdown should appear on the screen (seen on the preview window and on the projector screen).
  • When the countdown has reached 0:00, you can press the Hide button to take the countdown off the screen, or you can simply press the *Kill Screen* slide which will turn off the countdown, music, and announcement slides.
  • Note: Once the countdown has been sent to the screen, the Messages window does not have to stay open on the screen.  You can close it by pressing the X in the upper-left of the green Messages window, or you can press the Messages button at the center-top of the screen again.  The Messages window only needs to be open in order to turn the countdown on and off.

Prelude Music

  • The Audio Bin (right-hand side of screen) includes a Prelude playlist and a Postlude playlist.  Click on the Prelude playlist, then click once on the single song in the playlist.  This will play the music throughout the announcements.
  • Check that the computer is at 100%-volume by pressing the volume-up button on the keyboard (top row, second-from-right; speaker w/3 soundwaves) several times.  


End Of Service

  • There will typically be a song at the end of the service before the pastor's benediction and dismissal.  After you've done the lyrics for the last song, you'll arrive at yet another *kill screen* slide.  Stay on the kill slide while the pastor gives the benediction.
  • After the benediction, go to the final slide - "Thank You", as the people exit the sanctuary.
  • Once the pastor gives the benediction, the worship team will play instrumentally for 60-90 seconds.  After the worship team is done, go to the Audio Bin (right-hand side of screen), click on the Postlude playlist, and click on the song to start playback.  
  • After first service, let the postlude audio and thank-you video play until 10:50... then go to the top and follow Pre-Service instructions again.
  • After second service, let the audio & video roll indefinitely to allow for the sanctuary to remain a welcoming place for people to visit after the service.  The worship director will then come shut down ProPresenter once most people have cleared out.


Advanced Operations

The items listed below are items that aren't 100% necessary to run the media for our Sunday services, but they can certainly help out in different situations, and they can also make your ProPresenter experience a bit more user-friendly.  

Changing Song-Slide Arrangements

  • A song-slide arrangement is exactly what it sounds like - how the song-slides are arranged so that they show up on the screen in the correct order.
  • As a general rule, each song will typically have two arrangements:
    • "Master" - contains a single copy of each slide section - such as verse 1, verse 2, chorus, bridge, etc. - and has color-coated labels attached to each different section.
    • "Main" - the arrangement we will use during Sunday services - contains the correct order/amount of repeats we use during the song (i.e. verse 1-chorus-verse 2-chorus-blank for instrumental-bridge-chorus-chorus).
  •  You can make arrangement changes by clicking the song arrangement icon (icon of 1 slide above 3 slides - top right of song panel), then click on settings (gear icon - top left of song panel).  At this point, you can drag song-section bubbles around to re-order them, add or delete them, etc.  
    • Note: All of the arrangements will be in supposed correct order before Sunday services occur - it is not the responsibility of the media-volunteer to correctly arrange & order the slides.  However, if any editing or changes need to happen, it's good to know the above information.

Personalizing the Center Slide Preview Window

 There are a couple personalization-edits you can make to the center slide preview window to make it function more to your personal tastes.  These edits DO NOT change any of the service playlist order or song arrangements - these edits are just visual customizations that might make it easier for you to operate ProPresenter.
  • On the small gray border (between the library/playlist window and the center slide preview window), there is a small gray dot in the middle of the border.  You can grab that dot with the mouse and resize the middle window to make it bigger or smaller to your own taste.
  • There are a few buttons at the bottom-right of the center slide preview window that lets you adjust view-scale and view-type.
    • The view-type buttons let you decide between preview images of each slide, or smaller preview images with the slide text (for those reminiscent of MediaShout view).  There is no right or wrong view; it all depends on personal taste.  
      • If you are having trouble following along with the text, the slide-text view might be better for you.  
      • If you are following along just fine, the preview-image view might be better for you.
    • The view-scale slide is a left-to-right sliding scale that lets you change the size of the preview slides.  You can make it as big or as small as you want to.
      • If you make the slides bigger, you can read them more easily, but you won't be able to see as much of what's coming next in the service.
      • If you make the slides smaller, you can see a lot more of what's coming next in the service, but you won't be able to read them as well.

Working with the Editor

If you need to add slides to a sermon presentation, adjust spelling or spacing, etc., then the Editor is what you'll need to use.
  • Simply press the Editor button on the top bar, and the Editor display will appear.
  • There is a small "+" sign at the bottom-left of the Editor display; this will add a new slide to the current presentation.  Select the slide that you would like the new blank slide to come after, then press the + sign.
  • In the right-hand portion of the Editor display, the text editing window should appear.  You can adjust font, size, color, alignment, outline color & thickness, etc. in this portion of the window.
    • Note: There are three other tabs on the right-hand portion of the Editor display besides the Font tab - these are for extremely-advanced operations and are largely unused for what we use ProPresenter for.  Need not worry about them.
  • When any & all edits are done, press the X button in the top-left of the Editor display to exit Editor mode (or you can re-press the Editor button on the top bar).  You will note that, in the service playlist window, any files that have been edited but not yet saved will be appear in orange, and all up-to-date-and-saved files will appear in the normal white.  Press command-S to save any files you have worked on in the Editor.

Troubleshooting

  • If the main projector is on, ProPresenter is open, but you’re seeing the milky-way desktop background instead of what’s going on in the preview display (the top-left corner of PP5), press command-1 to see if perhaps the second display was accidentally triggered off.
  • If the video projectors aren’t receiving signal, make sure the small white cable in the back of the iMac is securely connected, and that the video-splitting cables below the computer desk are securely attached to the splitters and signal boosters.  Also, double-check that the splitter & signal booster’s power supplies are secure.


Thanks much - blessings to you, and thank you for your contribution to the ministry!


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