Have you ever wanted to present a proposal to remote sites or hold a team meeting with participants at multiple locations? Now you can broadcast your presentation in real time over the Web with Microsoft PowerPoint® 2000. If you have Microsoft Outlook® 2000, scheduling your presentation is easy, too!

Make a Real-Time Presentation to Multiple Sites

Sue is ready to introduce a new logo for a company with various sites, but she really does not want to spend a lot of time and money flying to all these locations and making multiple presentations. She decides to use PowerPoint 2000 to broadcast her slides across the company simultaneously.

Make Sure Everyone Has the Right Equipment

For presenting and viewing, Sue and her audience need PowerPoint 2000 and Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.0 or later. For broadcasting audio, she needs a microphone attached to her computer, and her audience needs sound cards and speakers in their computers. (Or they could just use telephones for conferencing.) For scheduling, they also need an e-mail program - in this case, her company uses Outlook 2000. Because she only has to broadcast to 15 computers, she just has to use a network server.

Note  If her audience required more than 15 computers to view the presentation or if she were broadcasting video in addition to slides, she would need a Windows Media™ (formerly NetShow™) server on a local area network (LAN) or a third-party Windows Media service provider for the broadcast. If she used a Windows Media service provider, she would have to follow directions from the provider on how to set up and schedule a broadcast.

Set Up and Schedule a Presentation Broadcast

Satisfied that she has the necessary equipment, Sue opens her presentation in PowerPoint. On the Slide Show menu, she points to Online Broadcast and then clicks Set Up and Schedule. For tips on setting up, as well as for a list of suggested things to do before, during, and after the broadcast, she clicks Tips for Broadcast. For Help on the elements in the dialog boxes, she clicks the question mark and then clicks the element. After getting a few pointers, Sue clicks Set up and schedule a new broadcast and then clicks OK.

On the Description tab, Sue fills in the information that she wants displayed on the broadcast's lobby page, such as the presentation's title, description, and speaker. She also includes her contact information by clicking Address Book, which provides a list of e-mail addresses from Outlook. To see how her lobby page will look in the browser, she clicks Preview Lobby Page.

She now clicks the Broadcast Settings tab. She is just broadcasting the slides and audio, so she selects the Send audio check box. Because she wants audience feedback via e-mail during the broadcast, she selects that check box and enters her contact information with the Address Book. To record the broadcast, she selects the check box and specifies a location where the presentation will be saved for future viewing. She also selects the Viewers can access speaker notes check box so that the audience can get more background information and details.

To set the server location, Sue clicks Server Options. Under Step 1, she specifies a shared location (folder) to which all participants have access and where PowerPoint will put the presentation. Since Sue is broadcasting to fewer than 16 computers and she is not sending video, under Step 2, she selects the appropriate check box and clicks OK.

Sue is now ready to start her e-mail program, so she clicks Schedule Broadcast. She uses Outlook to schedule the broadcast as she would any other meeting. (If she did not have Outlook, she would have to enter the broadcast date and time in the e-mail message, along with the URL of the broadcast site.)

Start the Presentation Broadcast

To prepare for her broadcast, Sue opens the presentation in PowerPoint about 30 minutes before it is scheduled to start. On the Slide Show menu, she points to Online Broadcast and then clicks Begin Broadcast. Her presentation is saved in HTML format at the designated server location, and a countdown is displayed. PowerPoint now checks to make sure that the audio is working. (If she were sending video, it would check that, too.)

When Sue suddenly realizes that the presentation is going to last 15 minutes longer than announced, she decides to send a last-minute update. To display this note on the lobby page, she clicks Audience Message, types the message, and then clicks Update. Sue is finally ready to begin the broadcast and clicks Start.

View the Presentation Broadcast

Eric is at a remote site where he has heard rumors about the new company logo. He usually feels "out of the loop" because of his location, so when he gets the invitation to Sue's broadcast with the specified time and date, he is very excited about experiencing a real-time presentation.

Because Eric uses Outlook and accepts the invitation, he is sent a reminder 15 minutes before the broadcast begins. He clicks View this NetShow on the message to see the lobby page. At the designated time, the broadcast begins automatically!

More Information

For more information, see Installing Presentation Broadcasting and Scheduling Broadcasts and Configuring Client Computers for Presentation Broadcasting.