ProPresenter Overview I

This information comes from ProPresenter’s website.

What is ProPresenter?
ProPresenter has been the preferred lyric presentation system for churches and ministries around the world for years. Now with a fresh new look and incredible new video engine, ProPresenter has never been easier or more spectacular. ProPresenter 3 has been completely re-written from the ground up and is now a Universal binary which means it fully supports both PowerPC as well as Intel processor Macs natively. Thus, it’s very fast and very responsive. The whole program is scalable to adjust to any size display and allows for slides and backgrounds to grow or shrink easily. This looks beautiful on all those new Macs with high-resolution displays and comes in very handy when you want to see a lot of slides or clips at one time.

Dynamic Scripture Look-up                

Quickly search your favorite version of the Bible for one or more verses for nearly instant display. So when your Pastor makes an unexpected call for a verse, you’ll be ready with the built-in database of bibles. You can also save sets of looked up scriptures as well as format found verses into a sequence of slides by paragraph, verse, or custom delineation.

Video Playback

Video playback has never been better as we’ve incorporated the video playback engine of ProVideoPlayer into ProPresenter 3. Now you get gorgeous, high-quality cross-dissolves between backgrounds while text is displayed over them. Whether you’re using background video loops or foreground presentation videos (i.e. a sermon), you’ll find ProPresenter’s video playback functionality outstanding. Most any video you can play in QuickTime Player can be played smoothly and reliably within ProPresenter. Unlike some of our competitors, you can switch video backgrounds as often as you wish within a song, and even switch them dynamically on the fly!

Plus, when playing back foreground presentation videos, the operator has accurate elapsed and remaining time indicators to make the smoothest transition possible to the next cue of your program. Foreground videos are different than background videos in that they may contain an audio track, will remove any text overlay, and don’t loop. They are depicted by the movie camera icon in the top left of the slide.

Song Automation

Now you can add an audio track to a song and sequence the slides of that song to the attached audio track! A new audio tab has been created where all audio clips will be stored. As an added bonus, sound effects can also be stored and triggered here to create foley functionality (such as funny noises, laughter, applause, door slam, etc. - as denoted by the pink speaker icon vs. the green tune icon).

This is a fantastic solution for any environment without a band, such as a children’s program, a small church, or traveling ministry. After connecting your Mac to your sound system, ProPresenter becomes your all-in-one audio, lyric, and video playback tool!

For those without ProPresenter try using iTunes to simplify the audio aspect of your service.

ProPresenter Overview II has even more information about this amazing software.

Good to Great: Onscreen Lyrics and Notes Part I

This article was originally published on The Worship Community

Open your software of choice. Add the lyrics. Play.

So is the preparation of the typical church using lyrics presentation software. It works. The lyrics are on screen and God is sung to and about. But what if a few simple treatments could be applied between “Add the lyrics” and “Play” to take these good presentations and turn them into great presentations?

Praise God “what if” is a reality. Here are a few things to try.

Go Bold for Contrast

A thin font usually finds itself blending into the background. Even with a stroke/outline and drop shadow, the weight of the characters contrasting with the background is what makes them stand out. Even thin white text on a black background still doesn’t create enough contrast to really stand out. Try using the bold face of whichever font you have chosen and see if it becomes more readable. Now, if it looks bad bold, start looking for a new font. Whatever the case, contrast is the goal.

See these images. On the left, a normal slide. On the right, the same font bold. Of course, the bold is easiest to read but notice how much the text pops and lends itself to readability.

Branch Out

A typical church will most likely use one of these fonts - Verdana, Arial, Trebuchet MS, Lucida Grande, or (gasp!) Times New Roman. If I may suggest (beg), don’t use these ever again. There are so many other amazing fonts to use. Why use one that is seen so often that it has lost its punch? We never want to be so crazy that we distract or lose readability. We just want to add that edge of newness to relieve the stagnancy that can so easily creep into churches.

If you’re lost, look through the many free font sites on the interweb. My personal favorite is DaFont.com. Start in their “Basic Sans Serif” category. It’s got some thick, easy to read fonts your church can use to help the onscreen lyrics stand out.

If you want to learn more about typography and all the “why’s” for what I suggested and more, read the book The Non-Designer’s Design and Type Books, Deluxe Edition by Robin Williams (not the actor).

Here are some personal favorites on the left. And on the right, some fonts I’d suggest avoiding like the plague. Avoid them mostly for their unreadability but also because of their overusage and frequent bad usage. They, in a way, scream unprofessionalism.

Align to Center? Left? Right? Justify? Top? Bottom? Middle?

Do what looks best in your situation. I’m a center/middle guy (like above). But in our main services it seems to work best left/bottom. Our youth use center/middle. My last church was left/middle. It’s all preference. I will say that right aligned may work for something that is read like sermon notes but the inherent lack of readability of right aligned text causes problems for lyrics because of how fast they have to be read.
The tip here is to just try new things. Try different arrangements of text and see what best fits your church/event.

You are now ready to move on to Part II of “Good to Great: Onscreen Lyrics and Notes” as we explore choosing good backgrounds and simplifying the text for maximum readability.

Written by Chris Moncus

Chris Moncus is a design and photography nut. He spends his days creating media for St. Simons Community Church and operating Aventia Media. He is married out of his league to a beautiful lady named Amanda.

« Previous Page