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A few years ago, after a lengthy search for a good Macintosh based song presentation program, I decided to create an exhaustive list of programs, both for Mac and PC. You'll notice that I have not tested some programs, this is mostly due to time (I run a consulting business and don't have time to test every one of these apps). You'll also notice that some of these are NOT presentation programs, but I have included them since they either help with song management in the creation of presentations.
If you have a good (or bad) comment for one of the programs on this page, if you're the creator of a software package and the details are wrong, or if you find one NOT listed here, drop me a line!
NOTE: We are an all mac shop, but we've recently upgraded our machines to the new Intel models, so we use BootCamp to natively test software under Windows XP (with true dual screen support). We may also test app functionality under Parallels, but it currently doesn't support extended desktop, so it can't be used for projection (yet). Lastly, we haven't tested anything with Vista yet. If the product says XP Only, it means it doesn't work on anything OLDER than XP, it doesn't mean it can't run under Vista (for most products that's still up in the air).
Updated on May 15, 2007 |
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Mac OS 9 |
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Mac OS X
Universal |
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Works only in Pre XP |
Works in XP |
Works in Vista |
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Works
with PPT |
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PPT
Plug-in |
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Layout
Tools |
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Loops |
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Chord
Charts |
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Bible |
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Song
Library |
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Image
Library |
(Click the product name to see more info about it)
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http://www.apple.com/iwork |
| This presentation program from Apple isn't geared toward Churches, but if you currently use PPT for the mac for your worship, you might want to give it a look. Keynote is known for its amazing animations and transitions that PPT just can't match. Keynote can display your current and next slides, a timer, clock and notes field as long as you have a true Dual Screen (or Extended Desktop) setup. This means you can't do that on an iBook (without a firmware hack), but all the G4 Powerbooks, and all the new intel laptops will work fine. Also, while it CAN do text over video, it's not built for doing this with song lyrics as the video changes with each slide. One work around some have used is to put builds of ALL your song lyrics on one slide, but this can turn into a big mess. We've tagged it as supporting a library since it's very easy to create a file as a master library and drag songs over to a new file to create a worship set. This technique is used all the time in PPT. It's also tagged as supporting PPT since it can open and save PPT files. Lastly, we've tagged it as having an image library since Keynote can be tied directly to your iPhoto or Aperture library. |
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http://www.renewedvision.com/pp.php |
| The new version of ProPresenter has been rewritten from the ground up as a native Cocoa app. It's even a Universal Binary, so it works on both PPC and Intel Macs. The interface has been given a much needed overhaul and this looks like it could shape up to be THE app of choice for Mac users. New features include background switching that is independant of the slides, slide editing on the fly without having to close the edit window to change the screen to a new slide, a new video rendering engine, and of course a vastly improved interface. V3 is still in the preview stages, but new features are added with every update and so far the app seems very solid for a preview release. If you're on a Mac, this app is one to watch. |
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http://www.sundayplus.com/ |
SundayPlus has a VERY different interface from most of the other products on this list, and many people LOVE this program because of it. Most of the programs on this page use a "list" view to display your show, while SundayPlus uses thumbnails to display all the slides in your show, and then breaks out a seperate secion of the screen to show you all the parts of the current song. NOTE: Grass Roots has discontinued the mac version of this program. You can download it for FREE from their site.
Read my Review of the Mac version. |
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(Click the product name to see more info about it)
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http://www.liveworship.com |
| This brand new multi-platform app is a bit different than most. It resembles Oratorio to a certain point, but has some unique features that set it apart. The entire program is built on a database that not only holds your song library, but can hold images, bible verses, other text slides and even holds your actual shows. This means you don't end up with a little file for each service, they're all in a list inside the program. In addition, this is the first app to have the ability to allow you to edit a slide, while still continuing to cue other slides, without having to close the edit window (Pro Presenter 3 now has this ability). Version 1.2 includes text over video and can even parse PPT files into the LiveWorship library (it can't cue PPT files, it just imports the data for you). Version 1.3 adds DVD cuing, custon screen resolutions, live camera feeds and many other enhancements. The LW team is a bunch of great folks who are very open for suggestions. You can go join their online forums HERE and make one yourself :) |
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http://www.neooffice.org |
| Another MS Office alternative. Impress is the presentation portion of NeoOffice. In our tests, the interface of this app (the OS X version that is) was much more Mac like than many of the other MS alternatives. Our only complaint was that no amount of adjusting got the presentation to display on a second screen, so there may be a few bugs in the product still. |
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http://www.opensong.org |
| Another program introduced to me by a reader...wow, a totally free app that runs on OS 9, OS X, and Windows! This is a pretty cool app too. The interface isn't the most robust, but it's clean and actually looks NICE. OpenSong also holds all your chords, allowing you to use just one app to manage your presentation lyrics and chord charts. If you're on a really tight budget but want to get OFF Powerpoint, check out this app, especially if you're running OS X. The set list interface isn't quite as nice as Oratorio's thumbnails, but it still works. |
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http://www.graymattercomputing.com/products/oratorio/oratorio.htm |
| Oratorio is doesn't do as much as some of the more expensive apps, but if you're looking to spend a little and get a good, solid lyric presenter, take a look at it. Oratorio supports dual screen mode, song library, saved shows and quick editing. Because it is cross platform, you can share song or show files between a Mac and a PC. The thumbnail view is different than most apps out there, and this makes it VERY easy to train new operators (though other apps, like Pro Presenter have taken to this thumbnail cueing system). It DOESN'T playback video or sound yet, but I see this as a minimal drawback. You can download a 45 day demo from the website. |
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http://www.microsoft.com/office/powerpoint/
http://www.microsoft.com/macoffice/
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| Ah, the old faithful. Most people know how to use it, and it has great layout tools, but if you want real control over your shows (and a built-in library), PowerPoint won't be your best option. Versions 2003 and higher (for win) and 2004 or higher (for mac) havae true dual screen support, meaning you can easily scroll through slide thumbnails and click them to cue them to the screen. If you've got one of these versions of PPT and you're NOT using this function, turn it on!. Anyway, PPT is just too universal NOT to have in your arsenal, so even if you hate Microsoft, it's probably smart to own at least one copy of Office (word, excel, ppt). |
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http://www.songscreen.com/
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| This is a dual screen program for Win 2000 and XP and now OS X. It's pretty much got the same laundry list as the other big programs, plus the ability to play through an audio play list (including MP3 files) for pre-service music. There are some screen screen shots on their site, and overall it looks like a very clean interface (though the Mac version has many different windows, which can be confusing). Not only can it do text over LIVE video, but it has a sort of mini video mixer built into it, allowing you to adjust the transparency of the video layer and an overlay. The benefit of this is you can lay your song lyrics over a semi transparent strip across the bottom of your screen and use the rest of the screen to display live video, such as in a large conference setting. I did a quick test on my G4 Dual 867 tower with Radeon 9800 card and sure enough, I got almost real-time video with a text overlay. The delay was so minimal that it should be useful in a service. The Mac version seemed a bit buggy (though the newest demo seems to run without crashing now), and I thought the interface needed a bit more tweaking (it was not exactly the same as the windows version). The only other issue with the Mac version might be that it is still not Universal, and hasn't been updated in a long while now. |
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| Worship Leader |
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http://www.jesusreigns.co.uk/
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| Worship Leader is a bit of an oddity. It's really made to manage your songs, plus print chord charts and overhead sheets. It will also handle medleys or "Rotas", has a built-in calendar and can even handle your membership records! There's an added "projector" feature to project lyrics, so it technically can run dual screen...but the lyrics are put in a scalable window that you must place on your second screen and resize yourself...and there's a visible title bar on the window that you can't remove (at least we couldn't). |
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http://product.thinkfree.com/
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| We're listing this because some folks just don't like running Microsoft programs. Think Free Office is a "nearly free" alternative to Office. The Show module is a presentation app similar to PowerPoint. There's even an "iPod Edition" that lets you export the slides as images and dump them to your iPod to present (if your iPod supports photo or video). We haven't used this product much, so you'll want to download it yourself and mess with it to decide if you want to use it. |
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(the new format is coming soon, for now click More Info to get info on these apps)
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http://product.thinkfree.com/
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| We're listing this because some folks just don't like running Microsoft programs. Think Free Office is a "nearly free" alternative to Office. The Show module is a presentation app similar to PowerPoint. There's even an "iPod Edition" that lets you export the slides as images and dump them to your iPod to present (if your iPod supports photo or video). We haven't used this product much, so you'll want to download it yourself and mess with it to decide if you want to use it. |
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