If you’re looking for an easy way to turn your TV screen into a live presentation board, you’re in luck because you're only a few steps away from making it happen through digital signage. Setting up digital signage PowerPoint on your screen is now almost as easy as setting up a regular PowerPoint presentation.

There are tons of easy ways you can do it (we're talking everything from simple slides to multi-page signage presentations) and helpful tools that basically hold your hand through the entire process. The best part is that you won't need extra wires or the entire IT department.

So let’s go down a list of all the things you need to know, starting with the easiest of them all –  setting up your hardware.

Setting up your digital signage for presentations - step-by-step

Step 1: Get reliable digital signage software

The very first step is to sign up for a reliable digital signage solution like ScreenCloud; it’s the easiest way to share presentations on your screens. What’s great is that you can get started without commitment. 

You’ll then need to download the ScreenCloud app to your device, and that’s it; you’re ready to begin sending presentations directly to your digital screens. 

Read more: The Best Digital Signage Companies.

Are you using smart TVs for your PowerPoint presentations or screens without wifi? Don’t worry because they are both really easy to set up. If you’re using a regular TV, you can easily connect it to the internet using an Amazon Signage Stick or a similar device. 

If you're looking for a powerful digital signage player with features such as remote device management, check out our own ScreenCloud OS devices including the PIXI and Station P1 Pro. ScreenCloud OS offers optimal control, enterprise grade security and more reliable functionality (no more blank screens or errors).

If you have a smart TV, you don’t need any other hardware; simply turn on the wifi, and your PowerPoint for digital signage is ready to go. You can also learn more about turning a TV into digital signage here.

Step 3: Prepare your PowerPoint presentation

The chances are that you already have your presentation ready to go. This may be an update for the next team meeting to get everyone on the same page or a slideshow to update the rest of the company on what your team has been up to.

We also see a lot of companies using digital signage for everything from retail wayfinding to healthcare center waiting room displays. Whatever your goals, just have your powerpoint digital signage slides ready as we move on to the specific ways you can share presentations.

3 ways to share digital signage presentations

Option 1: Native upload, best for PowerPoint, Keynote or PDF

For Powerpoint presentations, Keynote and PDF files you can upload your presentation directly to the ScreenCloud Signage content management system. You only need to head to your Content Library and click “Upload”.

Next, you can select your presentation and upload it to your library. ScreenCloud supports powerpoint files including JPEG, GIF, PNG, SVG, PDFs and Office/iWorks formats to make uploading your presentation easier.

The best bit about this option is that there’s no middleman, no converting files or uploading onto USBs. Just a simple, cloud-based formula for taking your presentation and putting it on your digital signage display.

If you use your ScreenCloud CMS for digital signage content creation, this may also be the best option for you as it uses an interface you’re already familiar with.

Next, we have what many consider to be the holy grail: An app made solely to display Google Slides presentations on your digital signage displays. 

Google Slides is a free and often brilliant way to create slides and presentations. It's intuitive, supports graphic images, and comes with tons of powerpoint templates. It’s one of our favorite tools at ScreenCloud, as everyone can be in the document at once, making collaboration super easy and trackable.

We have a Google Slides app integration with all our digital signage software plans. That means you won’t have to visit your CMS first before connecting to your screens. This integration, coupled with the Google slides’ functionality, is one of the easiest ways to create web-based slides and digital presentations that can be sent directly to your digital signage screens. It can be used for anything from a corporate presentation to a company update, a report or even just a series of text and image displays.

With the ScreenCloud Google Slides app you can:

Publish any Google Slides presentation to your screen

Set the duration per slide in seconds and the total duration to show

Make live updates, which filter through automatically to your screen

To start, install the ScreenCloud Google Slides integration here. You’ll need to make the presentation you wish to share in Google Slides publicly visible (more info on how to do that here). Once visible, you can add your Google Slides presentation to the Google Slides app in one click and preview how it will look once up on the screen.

The true beauty of Google Slides app is that once your powerpoint content is live you can make changes to it at any time and the results will automatically update on screen.

If you use Microsoft PowerPoint, this option isn't ideal for you. You could consider a direct upload instead.

Read More: Use a Slideshow Player to Grab Audience's Attention

If you need a bit extra with your PowerPoint for digital signage content, there are other apps available, like the Microsoft Power Bi app. This app takes company data and turns it into a visual display, before allowing you to publish your report online.

It takes a little playing around with, but for visual displays of information, this app gives a lot of scope to what you can do.

Potential challenges with PowerPoint digital signage presentation

If you’re using option 1, you could run into some compatibility issues if your presentation isn’t in a supported format. The solution is easy though; simply save the file in a format like PDF or JPEG and try again.

You may also find managing the presentation remotely to be a challenge depending on the nature of your setup. The solution is as simple as logging in to your screen cloud CMS and controlling the presentation from there.

Sometimes, you may experience interruptions with your powerpoint for digital signage that don’t make sense. You have everything set up right, but for some reason, there's significant lag in the responsiveness, or nothing works at all. One solution you could try is to double check your internet connection. Restart your router, and make sure the wifi network is strong. 

Once you have everything set up, you can use Powerpoint with your digital signage to do everything. That includes

Display jpg and png images, and even pdf documents

These may seem like hyper specific use cases, and they are. But keep in mind that with ScreenCloud’s digital signage solution, there are no limits to the kinds of presentations you can get on your screen.

Start your 14-day free trial and see how easy it is to create digital signage content.

From Microsoft Excel to Google Sheets and many more, there are various ways to share a presentation using digital signage. Find out how in our guide.

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How to create presentations using digital signage

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