Visual aids like YouTube videos can make your PowerPoint presentation much more captivating and informative to its audience. This guide describes how you can easily embed YouTube videos in PowerPoint slides.
There are two approaches to insert YouTube video to PPT, depending on the internet connection environment where you are going to present to your audience. If you will be presenting to a live audience in a Wi-fi enabled conference room with good Internet speed, you need to embed YouTube video to PPT. But what if you have to deliver the presentation video in an offline environment (like a classroom)? Let’s see how we tackle each of them.
For this tutorial, we will be using Microsoft PowerPoint 2007. Thus, if you are using a different version of PowerPoint, some buttons and other elements may be located in a different spot.
Embed YouTube Videos Directly into PowerPoint [Good Internet Conversion]
This is the easiest approach and recommended if are sure that the presentation venue will have great connectivity.
To get started, launch Microsoft PowerPoint. Click the round Office button with the Microsoft Office logo and select PowerPoint options from the drop down menu. Click to check the option labeled Show Developer tab in the Ribbon. Click the OK button to continue.
Once you are on the according slide, click the Developer tab. Select the More Controls option. It is an icon of a wrench and a hammer.
Select Shockwave Flash Object from the More Controls pop up box and click the OK button.
Draw a box the size you want. Please note, this box will be used to hold the YouTube video, so draw it somewhat proportionately.
With the box selected, click the Developer Tab. Click the Properties button.
This will activate the Properties selection window, where you can adjust certain properties. Enter a name for your YouTube video in the (Name) field. Next comes the important part.
Open up your web browser and navigate to the YouTube video that you would like to embed. Copy the URL for the video. Here is an example:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EI34Vv0n-zQ&feature=topvideos
Now, this URL needs to be edited a bit before it can be used in the PowerPoint presentation. Delete watch? from the URL. Also, delete the = sign after the v and replace with a /. Our example edited URL would be:
http://www.youtube.com/v/EI34Vv0n-zQ&feature=topvideos
Find the Movie field, and paste the YouTube URL to the specific video next to the movie field. After you have done all of that, you can exit out of the Properties window.
Now, you may notice that the YouTube video isn’t showing up, and nothing really happened. That’s fine. You simply need to preview your presentation. Click the Slide Show tab, and select From Current Slide. This will start a full screen presentation. Simply click the esc key to exit out and return to the normal PowerPoint view. After you have done so, your YouTube video will be embedded and ready to go.
Add YouTube Videos to PowerPoint without Internet
While the above solution works great, the only problem is that it streams live videos so an internet connection is required to playback the video during the slideshow. If you plan to deliver a presentation without internet, take the following approach.
Since PowerPoint doesn’t understand the default FLV or MP4 formats of YouTube, so iTube Studio for Mac can be handy too to download YouTube videos on Mac to your local and convert it to AVI or WMV file. Once the video is saved as an AVI or WMV file on your computer, go to Insert –> Movie –> “Movie from file” to put the YouTube video in the current slide.
