Creating an Eulogy to send in email

Hi everyone,

I need some advise. Due to that most my family and friends live all over the world I want to create something like an Eulogy to send in the email.

I am thinking that it should look like a booklet something like what one would get when attending a service but due to circumstances I would prefer to send emails.

Now I am thinking to design it as a slideshow with words, music and pictures and the receiving person all just has to do is open the document sit, listen and read.

For the life of me I dont know what program to use, if powerpoint or movie maker? Or someother program Adobe???

Repa... I'm thinking something like your Christmas Ecard

I think the best I can do is use photoshop to create each sheet then use movie maker to add music and effects then convert it to an MP3 making it easy to send for people to open and view

Any ideas pleaasseeee

I'd make it in powerpoint - make the slide images in photoshop, all that good stuff, then in the email make sure you put if they cant view then download powerpoint viewer program with the link or whatever.

Sam,

That sounds like a great idea. I wish I could offer some suggestons, but I am no good at that type of things. Hope you can get it all figured out.

Fay

Sam, I used dreamweaver to create the webpages for that Christmas e-card. I've used Windows Movie Maker for some of my presentations, and it works well but makes big files. Whatever you do decide to use, you could just put your presentation on your website and give everyone the address in an email. That way you don't have to be concerned about file size for email Here's a few memorials I did in Photoshop on my High School message board for classmates that had passed away - might give you some ideas:

@Wwe,
Thanks... I was able to concentrate and found that powerpoint will do the trick for me, it has all the bells & whistles I was looking for... lol.
There are programs out there that convert files to what ever file "mode" one needs. I have one but I havent tried converting a .pptx to .MP4... I hope it will.

@Fay,
Thanks Fay... think I am getting there

@Repa,
Thanks for the ideas!!! those are nice! I did think that if mine are too heavy to send in the email I would upload to my website, but I also remember that you had to lower your cookies to be able to get there.... so I might try using the cloud system to host it... who knows... so far I have all the words I need, now I have a lot of scanning and photomanipulating... plus learn to use powerpoint.... oh boy!!!

Thanks for the ideas you all.... keep 'em coming

PowerPoint is a handy program I really like using it and you can always put a Windows Movie Maker Video in it and have it play with music etc. I did that as a practice thing while honing my skills for the great job that never showed up LOL . I think I "googled" how to put a video into PowerPoint Crabby Lady had something on it too I think.

Thanks for the tip Holly but I have no videos what I am trying to achieve is a "video" feel out of my presentation.

Power point is pretty easy to use for begginers... I am sure there are many tweaks in all the settings I see in there. Pity there is not the page peel transition effect between slides, not even a plug-in. Wanted to have it design in a booklet form... Oh well

How large a file have you created? How did you share it? Did any body had problems opening a PowerPoint due to diffente versions? If so how did you correct that?

Lol.... I know many questions!!

Hi everyone,

Well after many many obstacles here it is. This was my biggest project yet I think I learned to use at least 9 programs in the making of it and used 4 in the end. I didn't have any problems in learning powerpoint quickly it was the converting to video.

- Powerpoint allowed me to have all the animations you see
- Photoshop was used to fixed the photos
- Audacity is an online program that does music editing. I needed to "stretch" the song
- Xilisoft is a free PPT to MP4 converter. My Powerpoint is 2007 but the 2010 has a new feature that allows to covert ppt to .wmv (windows movie video). There are many other programs that offer free trials but they all leave a HUGE watermarks and this is just a one time thing I am doing. At least Xilisoft offers 10 slides to convert, mine has only 7. I needed to keep it at the length of the song as one never knows how quick or how slow a person reads and therefore the viewer has the power to press the pause button.

Please click on the link below to view the video. I have stored it on a cloud(dropbox) so it will download online as it was to large to send by email.



Please let me know if you encounter any problems to view it.

Sam,

It is beautiful - you did a great job.

The only thing - for me and my bad eyesight, the font was a little small - hard for me to read.

You are a very talented and creative person and your love for you dad was evident.
Good job.

Fay

It was beautiful - made me cry.... I agree with Fay; the fonts are too small is the only thing - very hard for me to read. I'd make the fonts bigger, using a fade of the text for transitions from one set of text to another for the same page art, or use scrolling text with bigger fonts. But if you use scrolling text, it's hard to gauge how fast to move it for different readers, if the software gives that option - which I haven't found in software like Windows Movie Maker. Very, very nice Sam!

I want to see it too Sam, sounds REALLY good!! For me, all I see is a blank space under -


Please click on the link below to view the video. I have stored it on a cloud(dropbox) so it will download online as it was to large to send by email.

Am I doing something wrong?

Nevermind, now I see it.

Wow Sam!! That was so beautiful!! Very nice job!! Made me cry also!!

I'm so impressed...even though I shouldn't be...you always do great work on everything!! Your dad is looking down, also impressed and thankful for your PowerPoint!!

ruthsollid wrote:

I want to see it too Sam, sounds REALLY good!! For me, all I see is a blank space under - Am I doing something wrong?

No Ruth, that is the hidden spoiler only those posting in the thread can see it, once you make a post in the thread its reveiled... so therefore its also hidden to the outsiders as this is an open forum. I think its a great feature for personal or sensitive items.

Thank you all for your beautiful words it means a lot and I am pleased that you liked it.

I also appreciate the feed back on the thecnical part as always. It makes me ask:

- When the Mp4 opens, how does it opens? Within a browser or a video player?

If it opens a player there are features where one can get different sizes to view, if it opens in a browser I was told they use the zoom feature. The part where I wrote the "eulogy" it has a font size of 12pt as well as the poems, the Psalms and Ecclesiastes are smaller as we all know them.

I ask cause I did try to make it big, its HD (high definition) 960x540 and of 52.7mb creating anything else larger would make the file size almost 400Mb.

Remember my parents fam and friends are in the older group too... lol... had to think of their eyesight too... lol

Repa,
All the Art work are 72dpi jpg the powerpoint slideshow is only of 4.48MB, converting it to the MP4 resulted in a higher MB output. The larger I put the screen resolution the larger the MB output was.

I'm sorry you had to download a program to view it. Dont you have the feature in the "view" section in which you can see it in its full resolution of 960x540? or to "full screen"?

I thought I could have sent it as a Powerpoint slideshow but when sending in the mail it did not keep the music nor transitions, much less had no "pause" button. Thats why I had asked Holly all those questions... lol

And yes, my mom whom only has one good eye said she can read it without any problems

That's ok, I've been meaning to put Quicktime player back on my system anyway. Just haven't done it since I had to re-install Windows back in the spring because I haven't needed it until now. I can see full screen, and the computer I was using is at screen resolution 1024X768. The problem is you have to have an application on your system that recognizes and opens an mp4 file, and I didn't. I haven't checked my Windows 7 computer to see if it would play it without having to download it to that system. On my xp desktop, that was the only choice I had. Now that I have Quicktime player, it will download to that app and play it in the browser instead of asking me if I want to save it to my computer. But, there is nothing you can do to change the font size of your video to make it larger in the browser or in the Quicktime app. Going to full screen doesn't change the size of anything in your video, nor does using the function to increase text size in the browser.

I understand your problem about the file size. I run into the same thing with Windows Movie Maker. It makes really big files out of not so much input. I just try to keep my individual images and other files that make up my video under 80KB each. That helps some.

Thanks Repa.

mp4 is a more compressed format than .wmv that's why I opted in using it. Though it is said that flash is even more compressed.

Oh well.... my family were pleased with it and who knows when I'll experiment again.

Thanks again!!!

You did a great job, Sam. I'm sure your family is pleased with the result and proud of you for doing it. I am! There's not much I can do about these tired old eyes of mine. Not too many years ago I could have seen those fonts just fine.

Many thanks Repa!!

I do regard your technical inputs highly! Thats why I ask for them!! lol

I did think of making the fonts larger but that would only produce more pages and I wanted to keep it as small as possible. I did consult my mom and she said it was fine for her, she has only one eye and it's developing cataracts

What I don't understand is why for some it opens in a browser and for others it opens in the player which I intended it to as we should all be able to play movies in the computer.

There has to be a way where one can share powerpoint slideshows in an easier way. I was pleased to see that my ppt was such a small file size, but then when I converted it to the mp4 it was just so huge!

Anyway... thanks again Repa!

You have to have an application on your computer that will open the file type you use for your presentation, and has the file type defined and pointing to that application in Folder options. Also, the application has to have a working interface with your browser(s) for it to play in the browser. Some applications that do this are Quicktime Player, Windows Media Player, Microsoft Word, Excel, Powerpoint, the Open Office Applications, Adobe Acrobat Reader, etc. Windows Media Player does not open MP4 files, but Quicktime Player does, and now that I have it installed on my computer, your presentation opens in my browsers.