ProPresenter

A choir can sound much better if lyrics are displayed somewhere in visual range. There are all sorts of applications on the Internet, which you can use in situations like this, but with ProPresenter, you can do much more than displaying a few lyrics on a separate monitor or with a projector. While showing a presentation, you can use the program's numerous controls to display messages, change backgrounds, organize and prepare the next song and lyrics and more. The program is intended mainly for church gatherings, but it can serve many other purposes, like sporting events, conferences and so on.

It takes several minutes to install ProPresenter on your computer. The setup wizard will install a series of prerequisite tools, like the Bonjour Print Services, Quick Time 7 and others. If they are already installed, the wizard will install the main application right away. ProPresenter works on Windows 7 and Windows 8, as well as Mac OS X Snow Leopard or later. It also requires a Core 2 Duo processor of 2 GHz or more and at least 4 GB of RAM.

The user interface has the same layout from previous ProPresenter versions, but with a few tweaks and adjustments, because it would be pointless to fix something that is not broken. The program presents an abundance of options and tools. You may need to look over its documentation or watch a tutorial, but it will not take long until you can master its controls.

All operations can be performed on the same window. You can organize lyrics slides and other elements in separate documents, create playlists, manage and insert backgrounds, foregrounds, media files and much more. Documents are categorized according to their contents. When creating a document, you may select a category, like song, presentation, Bible, speaker notes or PowerPoint. You can also select one of many templates, for the presentation's layout.

Slides can be created and edited one by one. You can also group and color code your slides, if you wish to make specific verses or chorus sections more visible. Backgrounds can be applied by clicking and dragging them from the lower region of the interface to one of the slides. The same background will be applied automatically on two or more slides, if they are grouped together. You can also add slides with videos or songs.

You can preview the presentation on the program's embedded player, if you wish to see what the audience is seeing. Messages and countdown timers can be displayed during the presentation. You just need to type your message on a small window and click different buttons to show or hide the message.

The software comes with other interesting features, which are too many to count. The possibility of retrieving songs and lyrics from Song Select, opening audio CDs or posting on Twitter are just a few examples. You can also install digital Bibles, after which you can manage their chapters, find them instantly and insert them in your project just as fast.