PowerPoint presentation into Final Cut Pro?

[Michael Sacci]

You cannot bring in .ppt files but you can export files into movies and then you have to convert those movies to a proper editing codec.

If this is a major thing for you you may want to take a look at keynote, Apple’s presentation software. You have a lot more control over exporting movies, you can use any QT codec, so it is a one step process.

[Nicole Haddock]

Another option is to export still files out of Power Point, or even better, Keynote. The iWork Suite is sold by Apple for $100 or so I think? And Keynote is worth the price of admission alone. It will auto-resize your slides for proper video dimensions. As a general rule, Power Point’s default slide sizes are not video friendly especially when you consider that Video Safe is the inner 80% of the screen.

So the first step is to really make a slide template to work with FCP’s settings (10×6.66inches for a slide dimension should work with DV size video- 720×480 pixels). Within that template, mark out title safe areas and make sure that all of your text, graphics, etc are inside of title safe, and then the next step would to be to export a movie file or graphics of your slide, then cut in FCP. Either PowerPoint or Keynote can be used, but Keynote has a reputation of being snazzier when it comes to transitions, animations and default tempaltes.

[Lisa Olshanski]

I opened a Power Point presentation in Keynote and saved as a QT movie. In QT it looks fine but in FCP it’s not looking too hot. I also made tiffs from Power Point and those look fine in the Viewer window but look bad when I put them on my 720X480 timeline. Please help!
Thanks!