ProPresenter 4: Fully compatible with Mac OS 10.7 (Lion). Be sure you're using the latest version.
ProPresenter 3: May work with Mac OS 10.7 (Lion), but it's not officially tested or supported. Please stay with Snow Leopard or lower for this version of ProPresenter.
ProVideoPlayer (PVP): We're testing a version of the application that is Lion compatible and will hopefully release that soon. So please stay with Snow Leopard or lower for now and stay tuned to the site for the update.
ProPresenter is a cross-platform lyric and media presentation package built from the ground up to help make powerful worship productions easy. Taking full advantage of the latest technologies, ProPresenter allows an operator to control a presentation on one screen, while dynamically affecting the visuals and lyrics experienced by an audience on one or more screens. Used by ministries all over the world for years, we have taken our valued users' feedback to create ProPresenter version 4. Boasting over 100 new features, it is our most expansive upgrade to date. We invite you to explore our compelling solution by clicking on the features at the left, or watching the product videos and tutorials.
ProPresenter is designed with an intuitive layout that makes powerful presentation capabilities approachable and easy to use. This comes from years of experience working with novice (volunteers) and professional operators.
The Tool Bar at the top of the screen provides you instant access to all the most commonly used features of the program. This area is customizable, so you can arrange the available functions in the manner most useful for you, as well as add your favorite or most commonly used extras.
Movie controls are under the preview window. Announcements and count downs are triggered by dedicated tool bar icons at the top and are just one click away. Our video and image media resides together in the bottom center window. This panel can be opened or closed by clicking on its associated tool bar button.
The Audio Bin is located in a dedicated column on the right side. Since there is no visual element to an audio clip, there's no need for them to have a traditional thumbnail. Therefore the Audio bin is viewed in a list manner. Having it on the right side allows for a long list of files that can be selected easily.
We've given this interface a great deal of thought based on a lot of experience and user input. We hope you will enjoy it as much as we do.
The heart of ProPresenter has always been its display engine, and with the all new ProPresenter 4, you have more display capabilities than ever before. Let's start with the slides. You have the ability to put multiple objects on the slide so you can arrange it the way you want - with multiple pictures, video loops, and text boxes that give you precise control of alignment, style, leading, spacing, and margins. All while maintaining the incredible ease-of-use you've come to expect from ProPresenter.
Object layout and typography have been completely re-engineered and now mirror many of the capabilities found in traditional desktop layout programs. Adjustments for kerning, leading, line color, fill color, corner radius, shadow (angle, length, and radius) are a few examples. It's now a breeze for ProPresenter 4 to create and display many elements at a time offering a great deal of flexibility over what any one slide can output.
There are a lot of options in the Editor Panel (screen shot above). In general, the buttons in the red square allow you to add one or more different kinds of elements to the slide such as text boxes, images, videos, etc. You can also raise or lower an object, lock an object, or turn rulers on/off. The tab buttons in the red oval allow are object specific attributes where can manipulate objects (rotate text, setting an objects transparency value, or add other effects such as outline, bold, size, etc.).
The Song Automation capability of ProPresenter 3 was the first of its kind in the worship software market, offering the ability to easily pre-sequence slides to an audio track for synchronized playback. We wanted to make it better.
In ProPresenter 4, the timeline feature has a new interface that is intuitive and easy to use. Create a timeline based on a manually entered duration, or link the timeline to an audio file to set the duration automatically. You can zoom in and out on the timeline to better visualize your presentation and edit from a macro view (minutes) or a micro view (seconds). Sides can be dragged and dropped onto the timeline to create cues, and each cue can be moved around easily to precisely adjust when they are triggered. Cues can also be created in the traditional ProPresenter manner by starting the timeline (again, with or without a soundtrack), pressing "record", and clicking on slides in sequence.
We've also added the ability to apply an offset to all slides at once (for example, if you want to display each slide a 1/2 second earlier so the audience will see the text a moment before a verse is to be sung).
Presenting scripture is easier than ever with the new live update capability of ProPresenter 4. Simply select the Book, Chapter and verse from a pull down menu, or type the search range manually. This enhancement lets you dynamically build scripture slides during a presentation in the case where you get an unexpected "live" call out from stage. If your speaker wants to reference passages on-the-fly, you'll be ready to add scripture in the format you want, quickly and easily.
Slide View
Along with improved display of verse superscript and reference options, a template is used to generate the verse layout. If a verse contains more text than will fit into the text box of a single slide, the remaining text will be flowed into a new slide. This greatly simplifies the job of keeping scripture properly aligned and formatted on each slide, especially when utilizing lower third backgrounds!
List View
Search results can be saved into presentations. When a verse range is found, just click the "Create Presentation" button to create all the necessary slides. In addition, ProPresenter 4 gives you the ability to add previous or next versus to a saved document.
ProPresenter 4 allows you to view all presentations in one long, contiguous window. There is no need to click on the next item in the play list since at the end of one presentation, you can see the slides of the next presentation and continue with ease. In addition, users told us it would be nice to view presentations in a more linear fashion. Our new list view is also capable of viewing presentations in a contiguous manner. A snapshot of both views is shown below:
Slide View
List View
ProPresenter 4 ships standard with a highly customizable confidence monitor feature. We call it Stage Display. Now you can share and communicate important information with the people on stage (band, pastor, etc.) using a third independent display from ProPresenter that the audience does not see.
The customizable view allows you to display the current slide's text, next slide's text, clocks, timers, notes, and even an alert message in a layout you configure. Text can be enlarged for easier readability and fields can be arranged in a manner that best suits your team. This view will not provide video playback, but will show still images of backgrounds as a preview of what is shown to the audience.
While this feature is standard in ProPresenter 4, it does requires an additional video out. Since most all computers only come with two by default, a third video out is required to send the Stage Display information to. You can now take advantage of a secondary graphics card installed in a MacPro (the first card supports two displays), or use an inexpensive USB video output device which will work on almost any Mac. We sell one on our website that works great and only costs $89.95. When connected and enabled, just run the signal from this card or adaptor to your flat panel on stage or rear wall projector.
A new addition to this capability is our ProPresenter Stage Display App (only supported by the Mac version of ProPresenter 4). This exciting enhancement allows ProPresenter to broadcast the Stage Display data stream via a WiFi network (text only, no images) to any iOS device running the Stage Display App.
Upon logging in, all layouts defined on that system will be downloaded to the device. The user can choose which ever layout they prefer, regardless of what the main system has selected. Now the Pastor can be looking at one layout on his/her iPhone while the band can be seeing another. Everyone can have their own layout using this system simultaneously.
Since iOS 4 allows you to connect most iPhones, iPads, or iPod Touch devices using Apple's specialized HDMI output connector, you can feed the content of the Stage Display App to any flat panel or projector within range of the WiFi signal. Imagine wanting to put a Stage Display anywhere in a sanctuary and not having to worry about the effort, cost, and difficulty of running a line to it! This feature can eliminate the need for 100 foot plus cables, signal boosters, or Cat5 converters to feed the display, which can really add up in costs.
Note: This capability is now supported on both Mac and Windows versions of ProPresenter (Windows version 4.0.3.8 and later). The viewing of formatted slides is not currently available - all fields are text only.
Note: PowerPoint 2011 is required for ProPresenter on Lion (OS 10.7 or later). For all previous versions of OS X, PowerPoint 2008 for Mac or later must be installed on the machine being used to import such presentations to enable this process.
Importing PowerPoint documents into ProPresenter 4 for Mac is mostly the same as it is for the Windows version, with the exception of one additional capability we are able to provide now on the PC. Since Microsoft offers a PowerPoint viewer for Windows applications, we can take advantage of this feature and play actual PowerPoint slides from ProPresenter (no conversion). This allows ProPresenter to essentially maintain all the native slide animations and transitions that are embedded in the original presentation and play out the same as if it were being run from PowerPoint itself.
In both versions, we have made more efficient the importing and conversion of PowerPoint documents directly into the program. In the past, this has been a manual process requiring you to copy and paste text from each PowerPoint document to a new ProPresenter presentation or export all your PowerPoint slides as JPEGs and import these images. ProPresenter 4 automates this process for you in one simple step!
Under the Import Menu is the option to import a PowerPoint document. From the dialog box that appears (shown below), you'll see three selections to choose from that automate the importing of a PowerPoint document into ProPresenter 4. Each option creates a new ProPresenter presentation and populates it with slides according to the option selected. The first creates slides that are JPEG versions of each slide (thus retaining the formatting and layout precisely as they appear in PowerPoint). The second option extracts all text elements from each slide of the PowerPoint document and creates corresponding slides in ProPresenter 4 with the text from these elements. The third option brings in all objects, including graphics, that appear in the PowerPoint slides.
Much as we would love to be able to offer similar import capabilities with Keynote files, the only support we can presently offer is if you manually export your Keynote presentation as JPG documents and bring them into a ProPresenter presentation. Unfortunately, Apple offers little Applescript or AppleEvent support with Keynote and even less document support.
As in ProPresenter 3, you can run PowerPoint or Keynote at the same time as ProPresenter 4 for more advanced slide shows. With these new options, however, it has never been easier to create a ProPresenter presentation from a PowerPoint slide show. You can even import multiple PowerPoint documents with any of these options in a single batch process.
Note: Custom transitions and slide builds are NOT able to be replicated on our Mac version since Microsoft does not provide a PowerPoint API for us to use. The import merely converts all the PowerPoint slide objects into corresponding ProPresenter slides and objects.
This sophisticated new props layer opens the doors to a whole host of possibilities in the all new ProPresenter 4. It offers a solution to that long sought after feature request... "How do I put a my church logo as a graphic bug in the lower right corner?"...and so much more! A prop can remain on stage for just one slide, multiple slides, or for the entire presentation. This layer is independent of other layers allowing props to be triggered at any moment for any length of time, and props adhere to transparency settings for those graphic formats that support them.
The Props panel is readily available by clicking on its icon in the main ProPresenter menu. From here, it's very easy to see what props are on or off and trigger them accordingly.
Clicking the Edit menu brings up the Props Editor panel where Props can be created, edited, and saved as seen below. Depending on the power of your machine, you can even do a picture-in-picture (PIP) by playing a video or run a live feed into a prop.
ProPresenter 4 offers template functionality with a robust mechanism for designing and applying templates to any Presentation in your Library. Any slide you customize can be saved as a template.
Through a process we call "Refactoring", you can apply this template to a single slide, a whole Presentation, or a group of Presentations in one step. Templates can even have varying resolutions since "Refactoring" is smart enough to figure out how to resize text and object location accordingly (otherwise 50 point text on an 800x600 resolution would appear much smaller when placed on a template with a resolution of 1280x1024).
Clicking the Edit Template Group menu brings up the Template Editor where you can edit and place elements.
Do you want to set a new in or out point for a video? How about changing that background loop from green to blue without having to edit it? With customizable video attributes, it's no problem!
This adds a great deal of flexibility on how you work with videos. Now you can customize the thumbnail of a clip, modify its in/out points, speed it up or slow it down, scale it, flip it, customize the volume level, and change its hue, saturation, contrast, and brightness.
You can even have mulitple instances of a clip in different play lists and customize each one, so one clip could have many versions. It's also a good place to find details about a clip such as its name, location, size, format, length, etc. This is all done via the new Cue Inspector window which allows you to save these settings for the video clip or image.
ProPresenter 4 offers an enhanced messaging window that's still simple to use. Now you can save multiple sets of messages that you can quickly access and send to the screen. These messages can contain dynamic data, so formatting and editing custom messages can be quick and easy.
Looking at the full message window, dynamic data is managed by a new element we call Tokens. As evident by their names, Tokens are placeholders for variable data such as clocks, timers, and text. You can interlace static text with Tokens to expedite data entry for your operators.
When clicking on the Messages button the first time, only the variable fields for the selected Message are seen for quick configuration and firing to screen.
We've also added several different types of clocks. There's a system clock, an elapsed time clock, and multiple countdown timers that you can give custom names. These clocks can be set or started in this panel or in the messages window.
Ever struggle keeping the Libraries of multiple ProPresenter stations in sync? We have a solution for that! ProPresenter 4 offers the ability to synchronize to any central repository, whether it's a local drive or over a network. A central repository is simply a ProPresenter Library that is made available publicly on a network volume that other machines can access. With this in place, every system on your network can upload and download song files across the network and so changes made on one machine are available to all machines on your network.
The Library Synchronization feature resides in ProPresenter's Preferences panel. In this panel, you identify what folder (whether local or on a mounted server) with which you want to synchronize. You can opt to just download from the server, upload to the server, or do a bi-directional sync.
In all cases, ProPresenter will compare the contents of each folder, present what files are more recent, and allow you to choose which files you wish to replace either locally or remotely.
In this modern day, so much information and content is on the Web. ProPresenter 4 allows you to easily share a live web page with your audience. The software provides a web browser within the interface that is mirrored to the output display — without all the extra interface pieces such as address bars, bookmarks, and other distracting elements — so the focus remains on the content of the page itself.
You can also use this feature to easily display content from YouTube or to present any Flash-enhanced websites.
Bloated song Library driving you mad? Are people from different groups within your organization changing the songs you've laid out in ProPresenter? There's a solution for this. ProPresenter 4 allows you to have multiple Libraries to segment your content. Now the Youth Department can have their own Library so changes they make to songs will not catch you off guard when Sunday rolls around.
Once a Library has been set up, it's easy to switch between them.
To create a library or add a new one to the list, just choose "Manage Library". A Library is just a folder on a local or external/remote drive. Choose the one you want and it will be added to the list.
ProPresenter 4 is now document-based (prior versions relied on a single database for all presentations). This change means more information can be reliably stored within a single document and presentations can be shared more easily since each document is just a file within a folder. This facilitates the easy export of songs and playlists via simple drag and drop operations and also makes the new server synchronization capability possible.
With the new document model, you can now just drag and drop songs or entire playlists to the desktop (or any other mounted volume) to export them.
Excited about ProPresenter, but don't know where to start? We've got you covered. Built right into ProPresenter is the "Info Center", where we give you some direction and provide answers to all the most frequently asked questions.
Need more videos or want to download song lyrics? No problem! Conveniently built right into the ProPresenter interface is the Renewed Vision Store (for media) and the SongSelect site! We partnered with our friends at Worship House Media to constuct a store inside ProPresenter to make finding and downloading new content a snap.
Searching for and downloading song lyrics has never been easier. Just go to the Resources section within ProPresenter, click on the "SongSelect" tab, and enter your SongSelect login information. You'll have access to the whole site and when you download song lyrics, they'll be automatically imported into your library and formatted.
ProPresenter comes bundled with a small sampling of songs and still images as well as a premium set of 50 video clips! We've selected an excellent variety of clips from five leading vendors for you to begin using with your purchase (including some high-definition clips). Purchased separately, these clips have a value worth the cost of the software alone! Best of all, these clips are available immediately upon purchase within the Renewed Vision Store embedded in ProPresenter. Look for the "Resources" button located in the top center of the interface to get started.
We have five fantastic partners helping us to provide some of the best clip samples in the industry. When you need to augment your clip library, be sure to browse through their vast libraries of top notch, top quality footage.
 Igniter Media |
 12 Inch Design |
 WorshipFilms |
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To view a snapshot of the bundled clip library, click here
Note: Clips included are subject to change or be withdrawn without notice. Bundled sample clips are specifically licensed for use in Renewed Vision products ONLY and cannot be used in any other application without the express written consent from each producer.
Use ProPresenter for all your DVD playback needs! You can create as many clips as you like from any disc by navigating the DVD and setting in and out points on any part of it to define a new clip. These clips will then be saved in your DVD bin for easy, random access. This great new feature also prevents the need for a separate DVD player, which conserves space as well as the precious input port a DVD player consumes on your switcher. This is particularly ideal for small and traveling ministries eliminating one extra piece of equipment to buy and carry around.
Below is the DVD Player window found in ProPresenter. It's very simple to add pre-designated clips that you want to be able to pull up on demand during a presentation so you don't have to navigate through the DVD interface.
Our DVD preferences panel has two convenient settings. Since DVDs are not the most reliable of sources because of damaged, scratched, or improperly authored discs, some users prefer to disable this source to avoid this feature. The other option is to prevent the disc from spinning down, which is a default behavior of computer DVD drives. This features keeps the disc spinning at all times, so you will not encounter a 10-15 second delay while the drive spins up. Instead, your media will begin playing right away.
ProPresenter supports a live feed whether it's live from a camera or other video source offering you the ability to present a live feed from FireWire, SDI, or USB input. While this feature is convenient and well priced (included free), it does have some drawbacks with respect to latency when using FireWire (delay). It's best suited for overflow rooms or small services where you may have a single camera and cost is more important than latency. It's not recommended for larger, multi-camera venues that are served best by a multi-port switcher. Please see our FAQs page for more detail.
To configure what video and audio source you want to utilize, just go to the ProPresenter Preferences pane and choose the "Live" tab.
There are a few extra settings in this panel. The first allows you to force the playback to its native aspect ratio. This prevents an image from being blown up to fill the screen and therefore won't be distorted. The second allows you to prevent that unknowing, yet click-happy volunteer from turning on the live video feed only to show themselves full screen in the auditorium via a built-in iSight! This setting is there for one reason only - it happens!
Mac Only! This feature is only supported by the Mac version of ProPresenter. We'll be looking to implement this for the Windows version at some point in the future if possible.
Control ProPresenter from anywhere in your church with the ProPresenter Remote for iPhone or iPod Touch! This application takes remote control to the next level by displaying all playlists, presentations, and slides via a Wi-Fi connection. You can "observe" or "control" presentations from the stage or other remote location where having a computer is inconvenient. The application can control any copy of ProPresenter available on the network.
To use ProPresenter remote, you begin by downloading the application from the iTunes Store.
Download Pro Remote from iTunes
The ProPresenter Remote Interface is clean and simple, allowing you to monitor or control any song of any playlist.
Note: Having Bluetooth enabled is known to slow the app down a great deal, so it's recommended Bluetooth be turned off for optimal performance.
Mac Only! This feature is only supported by the Mac version of ProPresenter. Quartz is an OS level technology and not available on the Windows.
ProPresenter 4.2 and above supports a more complete implementation of Quartz. Quartz is a high-end graphical rendering mechanism built into Mac OS X. Whereas a background movie is just a sequence of saved images played back quickly, images and motion are calculated and rendered on-the-fly versus read from disc.
In Quartz, what we think of as movies are called "compositions". Several benefits occur from this difference. First, Quartz compositions don't generally contain or require any images, so they can be extremely small and consume very little disc space (4k versus 4mb or far higher). Second, they are manipulatable. Quartz compositions can react to the input of a microphone or camera or the author can provide for variable input fields and allow users to alter these parameters to change a compositions color, pattern, motion, or variety of other elements. Despite these differences, they may appear as just another Quicktime movie or as a ".qtz" file that you can drag-and-drop into the media bin of ProPresenter.
As can be seen from the screen shot above, when you inspect the properties of a Quartz composition it is different than that of a movie. In this simple example, the author has created a composition that renders concentric circles that move past one another. The user is able to adjust the hue, saturation, luminosity, and alpha (transparency value).
In this example, the author has provided for an audio input so the composition acts like a sound meter with equalizer bars. However, this also rotates and allows you to customize all the colors and the speed of the rotation.
If you're an author or content producer, we encourage you to look into this exciting new capability of ProPresenter. You can use Quartz Composer (available from Apple) to create custom compositions and help build a new marketplace for this new type of dynamic visual that you can sell your work to. Also, please feel free to share with us anything you're particularly proud of. To learn more about creating Quartz Compositions, go here:
A new feature introduced in ProPresenter 4.2 allows you to configure a full-time mask for the output window. This allows users block out sections of projected light on whatever surface you're shooting on. This is particularly useful for large, environmental projection which is a new trend that's catching on with some churches full-time or for special events as seen below.
This is what the church looked like before starting anything.
With all the lights off and the projectors on full, this is what the sanctuary looked like prior to any masking.
The masked area blocks projector light from screens, choir area, main seating, balconies, and ceiling elements.
The final result is a perfectly projected image that does not show content on top of any inappropriate areas.
The video of the process is compliments of Camron Ware who is responsible for setting up the solution for this church.
The mask feature is a whole new layer that is persistant and everything sits below it so no objects can appear over it. It also doesn't clear with any of the clear buttons as would be expected. The only way to turn it off is to go into the Mask panel and turn it off manually. You get access to the panel by choosing it in the "View" menu as seen here:
You then create and edit masks in the same Editor interface used in other parts of the program. Checkerboard area represents transparent area that video shows through and black area is where light is blocked out:
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