Presentation Player Client Setup Instructions and getting started

   

Instructions last updated: 22 June 2018

   

Your player computer needs to be a Windows based computer.   The Presentation Player Client software installs to the Windows Tray in the bottom right of the screen which looks like a little orange PP like:

 

 

For example, on Windows 10 it looks like this:

 

 

This program runs in the background and continually communicates with PresentationPlayer.com to receive instructions from your Presentation Player online account.  The most common instruction will obviously be to play a particular Microsoft PowerPoint presentation you have uploaded to your account.   It also allows you to see a screen shot of the playing computer and also perform a remote restart in the event of a problem (you need to disable the Windows login first).   It also allows you to select a PowerPoint presentation to start automatically when Windows starts as well.

 

If order to play Microsoft PowerPoint files you will need to install the free Microsoft PowerPoint Viewer software.  No other software is required.  

 

NOTE - The first time a PowerPoint presentation is played with the PowerPoint Viewer, it will bring up a licence agreement for that you have to agree to, so you need to play a single PowerPoint file after setup so that the Presentation Player  Client can run without any user intervention.

 

You can optionally set up the computer to automatically log into Windows when it is turned on.  This is ideal for player computers in remote locations that are dedicated to playing your PowerPoint presentations.

 

 

Client setup instructions

 

1.  Login to your PresentationPlayer.com account (or sign up for a free account if you haven't done so already and then Login). 

 

2.  Click on the 'Player computers' icon to take you to the Players list page of your online account.

 

3.  You need to find your Read-only account details:

 

 

and make a note of them. 

 

4.  On your player computer, download and run the Free Microsoft PowerPoint Viewer setup program.  This can be downloaded from:

 

http://www.presentationplayer.com/downloads/PowerPointViewer.exe

 

 

5.  On your player computer, you then need to download and install PowerPoint Viewer Service Pack 2 (SP2) from:

 

http://www.presentationplayer.com/downloads/PowerPointViewerSP2.exe

 

 

6.  You will also need need to the Microsoft Office Compatibilty Pack which allows the PowerPoint viewer to support Powerpoint 2013 and 2016 file formats:

 

 

http://www.presentationplayer.com/downloads/FileFormatConverters.exe

 

 

IMPORTANT - The first time the Microsoft PowerPoint Viewer software, runs, it comes up with a licence agreement screen.  So you will need to confirm this once and then the Presentation Player Client software

 

 

7.  On your player computer, download and run the Presentation Player Client software setup program.  This can be downloaded from:

 

http://www.presentationplayer.com/updates/PPClientSetup.exe

 

Note - The Presentation Player Client uses the Microsoft .NET Framework 4.0 which is built into Windows 8 and 10.  You may be prompted to install this on ealier versions of Windows.

 

8.  During the installation you will be prompted to enter your Presentation Player email address and password.  Don't use your normal one, but use the Read-only player acocunt details listed below and click on the Connect button.   Then use the Connect button to connect your Player to PresentationPlayer.com.

 

 

9.  Log back onto your PresentationPlayer.com account, click on 'Player computers' and you should see your player computer listed and ready.

 

 

Getting started with Presentation Player - Upload some PowerPoint files

 

OK, so you have a player online.  Next you need to log onto your PresentationPlayer.com account and use the File Manager option to upload some PowerPoint files to your account.

 

In order to use PowerPoint files with the free Microsoft PowerPoint Viewer, PowerPoint files need to automatically transition between slides and loop at the end.  The idea of a player computer is that no one is sat there clicking the mouse to move to the next PowerPoint slide, so your PowerPoint file needs to automatically move between the slides itself.  The PowerPoint file also needs to automatically loop at the end, otherwise it will just stop after displaying the presentation once.  You can either set up your PowerPoint presentations to  do this before uploading to PresentationPlayer.com or you can use the File Manager's 'Automatic PowerPoint file processing options':

 

 

which will set PowerPoint files (which have not been set to automatically transition and loop) to the ones that will, so that they are ready to send to the Player computers.

 

So upload a couple of test PowerPoint files and then continue on to the next section.   If you haven't got any PowerPoint files to hand, then we put a sample PowerPoint file called PresentationPlayer.pptx in your files folder when your account is set up, just for testing.

 

 

 

Sending PowerPoint files to your Players

 

Log into your online account and click the 'Player computers' option which will show you all the players you have linked to your account.  Use the SEND POWERPOINT option by clicking on the 'Send' button to start sending a PowerPoint presentaiton to your player computers:

 

 

By default, this will send to all of your computers.  You can use the check boxes next to players in the list to just send to individual computers.  You can also filter you players by using these boxes:

 

 

You can set groups and locations by clicking on the View button next to individual player records in your list and typing a location or group fofr each player.  For example, group could be 'Accounts Department' and location could be 'Building 1'.   Anything you like.   This then allows you to filter by group or location so that that you can send PowerPoint presentations to  multiple screens at the same time. 

 

 

 

Sending commands to Players

 

This is similar to the Send PowerPoint files option in that you can either tick a particular player to send a command to, or use the filter option (player group, player location or on/off line) to send to several players at the same time.  Most commands are self explanitory, such as RESTART COMPUTER, SHUTDOWN COMPUTER, etc.