PowerPoint: Turn Your Presentation Into a DVD

The other day I was asked about creating a DVD from a Microsoft PowerPoint presentation. There are a lot of different utilities online that can help you do this, but you don't need any extra tools if you're running PowerPoint 2010 on a Windows 7 machine. Here's how.

First, make sure that you have set up any timings, animation, or narration that you want in your presentation. PowerPoint has defaults that it will use for how fast it will transition between animations and slides, but you might want to go in and adjust the timings to better suit your content.

When you're ready, use PowerPoint to export your presentation to a video file format. Click here to find out how to do this.

Now, open up a program called Windows DVD Maker. If you don't know where it is, click on your Start menu and type in 'Windows DVD Maker'. You should see it appear in the list of programs in the Start menu.

If it's your first time using Windows DVD Maker, a wizard will appear. Follow the instructions on your screen and it will guide you through the entire process.

Click on the 'Add items' button, and choose the video that you have created from PowerPoint. At the bottom of the window, type in a title for your DVD.

If you click on the 'Options' link in the bottom right-hand corner, you can choose playback settings, the aspect ratio, the video format, and some additional settings for how you would like the disc to be burned. It is also in here that you can disable video filters.

When you are done, click the 'Next' button. If you have not changed your playback settings to exclude a menu, you will now see options for different styles of menus. You can choose one from the list on the right-hand side of the window, and then click the 'Menu Text' or 'Customize menu' buttons to further customize it. The 'Slide show' button is more for if you are adding photos to the DVD and you would like it to play them all in a slide show. Since we are working with a video, this won't be necessary.

When you have finished, you can use the 'Preview' button to make sure that everything is set up properly. Place a DVD in your disc drive, and then click the 'Burn' button.

There you go! From PowerPoint to a DVD, with no extra software or hassle.
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