Carousel Digital Signage: Create a Set of Slides from a PowerPoint Presentation

Overview

This procedure will show how to take a PowerPoint presentation and convert it into a ZIP file of JPEG images which can be uploaded as a slide set to the Carousel Digital Signage system.

Procedures

Saving a PowerPoint presentation as an image or group of images:

Begin with a PowerPoint presentation that you have opened in PowerPoint.
Choose the File menu, then select Save As.
Beneath the name of your document is the File Type field. Click on the drop down, and select JPEG File Interchange Format (*.jpg) from the list.

[A dialog box with the JPEG File Interchange Format highlighted and selected, and an arrow pointing to show it.]
Note the location where you are saving (Documents, Desktop, or another location of your choice) and click Save. (How to select where to save may change based on your version of Office).
A dialog box will be displayed asking which slides you want to export. Select All Slides.

[A dialog box with the All Slides option selected.]
Your slides will be saved in a folder inside the save location you selected (if you selected Documents, they will be in the folders Documents\NameOfPresentation). A message will be displayed to show where the files were saved. Make note of this location, then close PowerPoint.

[A dialog box which explains how and where the slides from the presentation will be saved.]

Creating a Zip file out of a group of JPG files:

If your original presentation had multiple slides, you must create a zip file which contains the multiple image (JPG) files which have been exported from PowerPoint. If you only had one slide and now only have one image, you may move on to the next section

Open your File Explorer and navigate to the folder you selected for saving the JPG files. Do not open the Folder that PowerPoint created that is named for your presentation.

[File Explorer and the file folder in which the presentation slides were saved.]
Right mouse click on the folder named after your presentation. Choose Send To from the menu, then choose Compressed (zipped) folder.

[The folder SamplePowerPointForCarousel highlighted, and the options Send To and Compressed (zipped) folder selected.]
The file will be created with the same name as your presentation as a .zip file type. This collects all of the slides in that folder into one file.

Uploading a single slide or zip file of slides:

Log in to the Carousel/FrontDoor portal using your RCS ID and password.
Select Carousel from the menu on FrontDoor in order to navigate to the Carousel portal.
In the top center, you will see a label with "Zone: zonename". Click on the zone name to display a list and select the zone to which you would like to post your slides.

[The Zone selection options in Carousel.]
Once you have selected a zone, click the New Bulletin button.

[A large button for New Bulletin.]
Select the Uploaded label from the left hand menu.

[The Uploaded menu option as selected, and the grey box into which uploaded files should be dragged in order to upload them to the system.]
You can either drag and drop your zip file into the grey box displayed, or use the link to browse and upload. You may see an error that the file is the wrong format. Upload the file anyway and it will work; this is a known bug.

[The error which may be displayed upon attempting to upload a zip file.]
The default schedule for all bulletins is to be Always Active (see schedule on the image below, selected as Yes). If this is what you want, click the Change Schedule button at the bottom of the dialog box.

[The dialog box displayed when slides are uploaded with the default settings of Always Active and all days selected. The Change Schedule button is highlighted and selected.]
If you need the bulletin to run for a specified amount of time (for example: one week only) or only on specific days (for example: only on Tuesdays and Fridays), click the Yes under Schedule to change the bulletin from Always Active. In the image below, it will run from Monday March 2 through Thursday March 5 and only show on the days Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. When you have the dates and days of the week set, click the Change Schedule button at the bottom of the dialog box.

[The Change Bulletin Schedule dialog box with Always Active set to No and a specific start date and end date chosen. Daily Availability has been set to Mon, Tue, Wed, and Thu.]
This process sets the same start and end dates/times for all slides you uploaded. If you need to change the information for one slide out of the group, go to Manage Bulletins (note that you might have to choose Upcoming if your slide is scheduled to start airing in the future).

[Upcoming bulletins selected from the menu options.]
Click the pencil beneath the slide to edit the one you need to change. A screen will be displayed similar to the dialog above. When finished click Publish to submit your changes.

[The slide with four buttons below. The second button from the left is the pencil, for editing the slide.]
You are now done, and the slides will appear at the time you scheduled them, until the date you set to finish. If you did not select dates, they will display 24/7 for the future until deleted.