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Challenges of projecting PowerPoint multimedia presentations

© Anne Kellerman

In May, I wrote about giving a Microsoft PowerPoint presentation at a conference emphasizing bringing backups if you find your laptop presentation could not be projected on the available projection equipment. I would like to get a little bit more technical this month and talk about two challenges of using your laptop. The first is that what you want to happen when you connect your laptop to the projection equipment is that its screen will be cloned on the overhead projector for a presentation. An undesired situation is when the screen on your laptop decides instead of replicating itself to spread itself across the overhead projector so part is on your laptop and part on the overhead projector. Secondly you expect that every thing in your PowerPoint presentation, including any digitized video, so nice for a multimedia presentation, will be successfully displayed on the over head projector. An undesirable situation is when the digitized video shows up as a solid black rectangle.

Cloning instead of spanning:
Here are the directions for telling any computer that has an nVida display adapter to "clone" the computer's screen on the overhead projector. That is, using this procedure allows the students or audience to see the same screen that the instructor or presenter sees on the laptop's own monitor. (Sometime last year, nVida changed its drivers to make "span" the default support for 2-monitor setups. "Span" allows a user to see different windows on different monitors, which is desirable for a desktop setup, but is NOT what an instructor wants in a classroom.) Finding these directions took us about 6 months of part-time effort. Every step must be done just right or the cloning fails.

Turn off the computer and turn on the overhead projector.
Plug the computer into the cable to the overhead projector.
Turn on the computer and let it boot.
If your computer shows a different screen from the screen that the students can see on the overhead projector, then you need to do the rest of these steps.
Right-click a blank part of the desktop.
Properties
Settings
If monitor 2 is not gray, it is attached, which is bad. Click 2, un-check Extend my Windows desktop onto this monitor. (Alternatively, right-click 2 and un-check Attached). This turns the icon for monitor from blue to gray.
Apply
Click monitor 1
Advanced
GeForce2 Go, or whatever tab shows the name of your nVida display adapter (If this is absent, then you have forgotten to click monitor 1, as noted above.)

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