PowerPiont in vegas
 

How to open / use PowerPoint file in vegas???

Power Point and Vegas are two totally different types of programs. You cannot open one with the other.

You can save Power Point slides as individual image files and use those in a Vegas project but you cannot edit Power Point presentations in Vegas.

Marius,

Take a look at Camtasia or some of the free alternatives (names escape me at the moment).

Camtasia works either standalone or as a Powerpoint plugin that allows you to capture a Powerpoint presentation, adjust timings to suit and then render a video which you can then edit in the usual way in Vegas.

I don't know if the free apps will allow you to go further than just capturing the screen.

I have used this technique a few times (to save time) and the results have been pretty good. Be wary of very fine graphics, small fonts etc. If you have the time and resources I would render at double the required frame size then reduce it in Vegas.

Stan's (free) alternative is an excellent way of getting the content in. Of course all animations, transitions etc will be lost (not necessarily a bad thing - Powerpoint transitions are mostly dreadful!).

CamStudio is a free alternative, which works reasonably well.

The only issue I had with it, is that it does not capture the mouse pointer shape: it always capture it as the standard arrow, even though it takes other forms (caret, resizing arrow, waiting symbol, ...)

You have to take care of the output format/codec, so that the compression level matches your needs.

I did a demo and 2 tutorials with it, if you want to have a look:

http://www.fbmn-software.com
http://www.fbmn-software.com/en/free-resources.html

Hope this helps,
Frédéric

I believe it is Maya (or something sounding like that), a free program that lets you put power point into video stream.

That's the free on I was thinking of, thanks Frederic. One advantage of Camtasia is that you can choose your cursor or whether to have it hidden.

Maya is one of the "least free" packages around - ie quite expensive - and it's a 3D animation program to boot. I wonder what package you're thinking of???

I think Dale is thinking of this one: Moyea PPT to DVD Burner

Keep your eyes on Giveaway of the Day as programs like this come up periodically.

If all you need is the slide(s) and no PP animations, do a FILE/SAVE AS out of PowerPoint to your preferred image file format. I used TIFF and imported the resulting image files into Vegas. Only issue was the slide aspect ratio didn't match the rest of the show and the original art was, well, busy. And you can create new transitions with the regular video editing methods.

Why do people try to jam so much info into one slide?

Anyway, that's my tip.

There's a huge difference between data and information. I always suspect that too much data on a slide implies a lack of information. Either that or it's something that ought to be printed out and handed out as reference material. Eye tests in Power Point SUCK! And through a thin straw at that.

Good references - anything by Eward Tufte (I took a course from him years ago) His books are really worth looking at.