This recipe walks through scheduling a PowerPoint presentation to begin playing without needing human interaction. The presentation will automatically launch and begin when you need it to.
Previously we discussed how to start a PowerPoint presentation using Power Manager and an AppleScript. Since then, Power Manager has gained new presentation Schedule Assistant tasks. The task we want today is called, Play a PowerPoint presentation daily, and this task makes setting up your PowerPoint presentation even easier.
Create an Automatically Playing Presentation Event
Let’s create an event to play a presentation at 9:00am each weekday.
- Launch Power Manager.app
- Click Add… to create a new event
- Select the Play a PowerPoint presentation daily task in the Schedule Assistant
- Choose or drag and drop your presentation onto Drop a presentation here
- Continue to the When step
- Adjust the time and days of the week
- Continue to the Constraints step; we will skip the constraints for this recipe
- Continue to the Why step
- Name your new event and provide any notes
- Add to create your new presentation playing event
You can combine this event with others to create your ideal schedule. Consider using Power Manager to power on your Mac shortly before the presentation is scheduled to start. With Power Manager you can create a series of events that powers on a Mac, starts a presentation, waits for the day to pass, and then shut downs – all without needing anyone to look after the computer. Perfect for Macs in window displays or trade show installations.