Serching for songs in PPT problem

[Ron J.]

Hi guys I don't talk very ofter on here but we have run into a problem with PPT. We changed the way we had our slides setup from everything in one show to show for each song. Our worship leader tries to give a list of songs he is doing but he is not always able to stick with the list. We would like to be able to search for a song by the words in the song as apposed to words in the title. Is this posable?

[Gene]

There's a way to do it from within Powerpoint, but I don't have it on this system to tell you the step-by-step. You can also do it from the Windows search window (Start menu, Search, All Files and Folders) by entering 'a word or phrase in the file' as part of the criteria.

[cjlowe]

If you install Windows Desktop Search on the presentation computer, it'll index the entire text of all the shows and give you instant search results (unlike the standard Windows find, which can take hours).

Edit: But to be honest, this is one of the limitations of working with PowerPoint - sounds like you're about ready to try moving into some proper worship software. Have you considered moving to EasiSlides or OpenSong? They're both free, and they give you a lot of the live jumping options that you just don't get with PowerPoint.

[[Director] Joseph B]

Bottom line it's going to be slow doing a word search like that.
I love how worhsip leaders who can't stick with their own plans foist the problem off on the media guys.
The best answer is to get a worship program which is designed to do what you want. I'd suggest Media Shout (since I sell it) but having said that the proper way to pick out worship software (in my opinion) is to download the demos and see which works best for you. If it's Media Shout, PM for a great price. If's it's easyworship (well someone on here must sell easyworship). I can't see the few hundred dollars being that big an issue if it resolves your problem. Media Shout also has an "Express" version if you don't need all the bells and whistels.

[cjlowe]

No no, Windows Desktop Search will give you the results in under a second. Won't be slow at all

Anyway, as for worship leaders, there are moments where the Holy Spirit does things and we just have to go with it, right? It's not them "foisting off their problem", it's part of the job of serving the church.

Not to mention that a lot of our last-minute songs are called by the pastors, not by the worship team

[Ron J.]

Thanks guys, I will try Window Desktop and see what happens. Thanks cjlowe your right on. We must follow the Holy Spirits leading because He is in charge. I haven't tried Window Desktop yet but we were talking about it tonight with WP and we would have to import the file into the presentation and that would take longer. What about creating one show of all the songs? Or would that take up to much resorce on the computer and slow it down? Yes it is an older Dell computer I was told it was at least 5-6 years old.

[cjlowe]

Well yes, you could create one show with all the songs, but it would probably run a bit slowly on a computer that age - not to mention the speed of searching within a single PowerPoint file for lyrics will probably be quite slow.

Do you run dual-screen? (If not, you really should!!). If you're not using "Presenter View", you can run more than one show at once, switching between them with the taskbar. In fact, even with presenter view, as long as you end the current show (i.e. press escape), you can have as many open as you want.

Just a warning - given the age of your computer, Windows Desktop Search might actually slow it down a bit. Now would be a good time to start raising funds for a new PC - yours is reaching the end of its life, but it'll probably keep you going until you've bought a new replacement if you start planning now.

[[Director] Joseph B]

While I might believe it was the Holy Spirit if it was something that happened occassionaly (and it sounds like this is a regular occourance) that's about as realistic as the pastor who wants you to put together your sermon slides on Sunday morning cause he doesn't hear from God about what to preach on till late Saturday night.

There are too many people in leadership who blame their lack of planninig and consideration for others on God.

If God was only going to speak to us at the last minute there would be no reason to plan ahead.

As far as windows desktop taking only a second to find a file, (I think it would be longer) you still have to load it into powerpoint. You might be able to put a 5 or 6 songs into a PPT but your entire library? I don't think so (unless it's a very sparse library - mine is over a thousand songs and getting bigger couple of weeks).

Worship software is the way to go - it's designed to handle a song database and will let you get stuff up faster then a file search and loading a new file into powerpoint.

[kbob]

We had our ppt worship song file set up with everything in one. With white text on a black background it worked fine-but we only had around 400 songs or so.

Never tried to do a search though-we had an index with slide numbers on it to be able to go straight to slide number 345 (or 347 if he started on the chorus).

However almost all worship software has the ability to search by song title or lyric already built in. Much faster, makes it easier to add graphic backgrounds, videos, scriptures, etc....

One note about any search software designed to run on a desktop:

It's the system resources I'd worry about. What makes the search software good is that if indexes the drive. When it does that though, your system will slow down, as it's using your hard drive (it has to-that's where the data is!).

Since I typically turn as much off on my worship pc as feasible, I don't like the idea of adding in another process, even if it's not indexing while worship is going on.

[cjlowe]

Originally Posted by Joseph B

While I might believe it was the Holy Spirit if it was something that happened occassionaly (and it sounds like this is a regular occourance)

There are too many people in leadership who blame their lack of planninig and consideration for others on God.

If God was only going to speak to us at the last minute there would be no reason to plan ahead.

Congratulations! That's my God, my church's worship team, Ron J's church's worship team, AND mine and Ron J's attitude as worship facilitators that you've managed to insult. You win a shiny star. Wear it with pride.

Seriously, you really believe God is against our worship services being anything but straight-forward, planned and linear? Heaven help us if your church ever loses power during a service. (Anyone ever had it happen and had people break out into dance and song because of it? So so cool).

The spontaneity generally happens with us whenever we have our "worship events", that is, special happenings set aside specifically with all kinds of worship forms. Occasionally sneaks into the Sunday services too. Quite awesome, really, when someone says "I really feel we should sing (song x)"...

I happen to know that (either Hillsong or Planetshakers, can't remember which; I believe it's Hillsong) have a hand sign which means "get those words I just sung typed into the lyrics system pronto, we want everyone singing them".

Originally Posted by Joseph B

As far as windows desktop taking only a second to find a file, (I think it would be longer)

On a decent computer, shorter. The delay on older computers is actually the interface loading, not the search itself. Try it sometime, then you'll actually know what you're talking about before you comment.

Originally Posted by Joseph B

you still have to load it into powerpoint.

Which will take another couple of seconds (again, perhaps slightly longer if the PC is very old). We're talking four or five seconds instead of four or five hundred dollars, which is NOT a trivial expense for most mid-sized churches' media budgets.

Sorry for being so grumpy, but I can't let you box my God in and "tell off" my worship team for allowing the Holy Spirit to move without saying SOMETHING.

With regard to indexing speed:
Windows Desktop Search slows down its indexing (note: does not STOP) whenever the computer isn't idle, so it shouldn't be a significant performance hit - but you can just turn off the indexing during services (I think you can even schedule times it shouldn't run) - this won't stop you from being able to search just as fast, it just won't pick up on any changes you make until it's enabled again.

[Ron J.]

I didn't mean to steer up any thing in the comments I made, I'm sorry for any misunderstanding.
I will be talking to the WP this week about this. I will relaying your suggestion and see if we can come up with a sulution.

My WP said they want to try one slide show methed to see what happens. I will suggest to shut down as many resorced a posable to make it run faster.

I would love to get some WS when we can afford it but for now we have to use what we have.

The computer we have only has 1 RGB out so a 2 screen setup will not work right now. I am looking to if I can find someone that would be will to donate a newer computer.

Thanks for your help.

[[Admin] osborn4]

The more spontaneous your worship service is, the more you will appreciate Worship software.

PPT is very good at linear, preprogrammed displays.

If you can't afford anything now, you can try Easislides or OpenSong for free.

There are many free ones around, but I understand these are two of the most widely used ones.