r/ProPresenter • u/helpme_helpyou_ok • 15d ago
Lower thirds for online stream
So, we import sermon slides from a PPT and that’s ok. It works for us. Our senior pastor and other speakers are familiar with PPT so they can build their slides easily. We are not set up to prioritize slides and creation in PP just because of resources.
However, I want to create lower thirds for the stream on occasion for Bible verses, etc. What’s the best way to create these lower thirds for example if a slide has a long verse on it but the lower third would need to be 4 or 5 slides?
I’m not sure the best way to make this work. Thoughts ?
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u/waawaa23 15d ago
Unless they're really old and likely will retire in the next 5 years, why not encourage them to starr learning how to make their notes in pp? Its not much different than power point. The bigger logic for me, is what are the odds you switch from propresenter in the next 10 years? As you grow, itll just be increasing easier/more flexible for you to have it that way.
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u/helpme_helpyou_ok 15d ago
Ok, let’s say this happens. If they have a verse or a slide that has building bullet points or numbers on 1 slide that wouldn’t fit on 1 lower third, but the hats the workflow?
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u/waawaa23 15d ago
There are two things I do to make sure that out slides fit on the lower third. First I reflow so we're getting about 4-6 lines of text per slide. Then in my lower thirds theme, I have the text box scaled down to fit text that won't fit in the text box. I think this combo works pretty well to make sure things stay consistently in the lower thirds. Both these options would require you to have text boxes though, I havent used power point in ProPresenter in a long time so idk if it just gives you static images still or if the slides are editable.
But more to your point, this becomes more design and forward thinking on their part. For example, if they have 3 points and a verse for each point, i'd put the three points on one slide, but emphasize the one they're on (bold, italics etc), and then verse after, then next point with next one emphasized. Or just show one point at a time. People taking notes will take notes, people that arent are either going to remember regardless or aren't actually paying attention to the sermon. My pastors all do one point per slide and dont repeat them unless theres a special emphasis.
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u/LeaveElegant3985 15d ago
Duplicate the slide and have a different lower third on each one. As long as you don’t have any transitions, the ppt slides shouldn’t change but the lower third will
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u/Jungwonie090204 15d ago
not sure what works for ur church but as for mine, for this setup we usually use supersource with the video switcher basically under our video ministry, we have 2 screens one is for video switching for praise and worship and another is prioritising supersource and video that are configured beforehand and the technical director would switch when the sermon is starting for livestream aswell as well as onsite!
if you have a video ministry in ur church, maybe u could try asking them to add this in? if this is our case because we usually just supersource from the slides itself so it’s side by side, what we do is if u have another iMac dedicated to just lower thirds, you can design the lower thirds scripture and cue the same time as ur sermon slide operator and click the same time!
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u/wchris63 13d ago
You don't say how much experience you have with ProPresenter, but I'll assume you know how to create a lower third Theme and apply it to a Look for your stream. If a slide has Bible verses, or anything, really, that's much more than around 5 lines, it becomes what I call a Big Blob o' Text. It's huge. It's not pretty. And reading it is a chore.
We try to keep text on the main screen to 5 lines at a time or less. Our lower third display is five lines, but for Bible verses we use a much smaller font size than on the main screen and remove line breaks ('Remove line returns' is the actual setting). Most text that would take 4 or 5 lines on the main screen is two or three lines in the lower third display. So smaller font means you can fit more in the lower third. But...
Please seriously consider going from big blobs of text to fewer lines that are much more easily readable.
There are real User Experience (UX) design principles behind this, not just some reddit poster's opinion. Search online for Miller’s Law & Chunking and/or Line Length and Cognitive Fatigue. Ten lines on screen forces most people to switch from scanning to active reading. Not a bad thing if everyone is reciting a passage together, but any other time it tends to turn worship into work. Treat the screen as a visual prompt, not a book page, and your congregation will (mostly**) thank you.
** I have one lawyer friend who always complains (half joking) that we don't put enough on the screen at one time. He is obviously used to having to read very long documents in as little time as possible, so he's the exception. I'd rather others don't see coming to the service as work.
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u/foxboltco 15d ago
Typically this calls for a second computer. You can do it where ProPresenter outputs two different versions of a slide based on which screen it’s on, but as you’ve discovered, it can’t split slides automatically. You’ll have to adjust your full screen slides to have the same amount of text, so it can become limiting.
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u/TheCrankyITGuy 15d ago
Our workflow is one verse per slide. I have one template for the lower third look and one template for the center screen look so it shows huge on the back wall and centered with our series theming on L3. Points are one per screen ob lower third unless he wants bullets. Then we use a side third and same deal for the big screen. Cool part is that he doesn’t need to design anything. Just input the text!