How to insert a YouTube video into a PowerPoint presentation

Posted on September 7, 2007 at 8:52 am

Make sure to read other posts from the Video Tutorials series!

Download videos from YouTube and play them on your desktop or iPod
Download videos from YouTube, Google, iFilm using Firefox
How to insert a YouTube video into a PowerPoint presentation
Convert DVD to iPod, MPEG, MP4, PSP, 3GP, and AVI for free
Convert video for any mobile gadget including PSP, mobile phone, or iPod

Here’s a quick tip for anyone who has to do a PowerPoint presentation and would like to insert a video from a video-sharing web site like YouTube, MySpace, iFilm, Break.com, MetaCafe, etc into their PowerPoint presentation. There are a few different ways you can do this, one of which is to get a program to download the video from YouTube, then use another program to convert it to a format that PowerPoint will accept, and then finally insert it into your slide.

However, that’s a real pain and takes up too much time! There’s a much easier way to go about doing this and it doesn’t require downloading a single conversion program! Of course, the video still has to be converted, but you can use a very cool free online file conversion web service called Zamzar.

Zamzar is by far the best place to go for any type of file conversion you need. Using Zamzar, you can convert any text document to another other type such as to DOC, PDF, HTML, TXT, RTF, etc. You can convert between all image formats also, including JPEG, GIF, PNG, ICO, PCX, PS, TIFF, etc. And that’s not the end of it! You can convert your music files to and from AAC, MP3, FLAC, M4A, RA, RAM, WAV, and WMA. And finally, for our purposes here, you can convert to and from all video formats including AVI, 3GP, FLV, MP4, MPG, WMV, VOB and more!

One of the coolest features of Zamzar besides the conversion, however, is the fact that you can simply copy and paste the URL for a YouTube video (or any other video site), choose which file type you want to convert it to and Zamzar will automatically get the video, convert it, and send you a link to it via email! It’s pretty impressive and great for downloading just about any video you can think of off the Internet.

To get started, first go to the video you want to download, let’s say from YouTube:

Go ahead and copy that link onto your clipboard (Cntrl + C) and then open the link to Zamzar that I posted above. When using Zamzar, they actually have two “pages” for converting, a regular one if you go to Zamzar.com and one that will convert only videos from video sharing sites at Zamzar.com/url/, so make sure you go to the second link.

Paste the link into the text box for Step 1. Click on Add URL and then choose the file type you want to convert it to. Scroll down and choose MPG. You can also choose WMV, MOV, etc also since PowerPoint supports most of these formats. Type in your email address and then click Convert and watch the magic!

The upload/conversion process is pretty fast and it only took about 1 minute for a 5MB video. You should receive an email with a link to your file, download the video and now it can be inserted into PowerPoint.

To insert a video or movie file into PowerPoint, click on the Insert menu item and choose Movies and Sounds and then Movie from File.

Go to the location where you saved the converted Zamzar video, select the video and click Insert! And that’s it! You have successfully inserted a video from YouTube into PowerPoint. Any questions, post a comment!

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» Filed Under Computer Tips

7 Responses to “How to insert a YouTube video into a PowerPoint presentation”

Doug Cornelius said on : September 8th, 2007 at 6:08 am

What about copyright?

It sounds to me like this technique is downloading someone’s work and re-purposing it. I do not think this is permitted by YouTube.

akishore said on : September 8th, 2007 at 8:55 am

Hi Doug,

You definitely need to be careful, but it’s like downloading a picture off the Internet to show in your presentation, if it’s from a stock photo site where you have to buy it, then maybe it’s not a good idea to use it.

Also, I think the copyright issue comes more into play if you’re using the videos for commercial purposes. Personally, I think if YouTube had a problem with people downloading the videos, I think they could easily block all these web sites if they wanted to.

If you’re using it harmlessly for fun or to make a point to some co-workers or friends, I think you’ll be alright. Just don’t try to go make money off of it!

Aseem

Amanda said on : October 22nd, 2007 at 12:51 pm

Great idea, thanks for saving my co-workers alot of boredom during my next presentation! Great site too!!!

peace said on : November 26th, 2007 at 10:22 am

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~ i find using “zillatube” faster way to download and convert videos to mpg to be used in powerpoint and movie maker, and more..

it really works quick. just ensure those videos are not copyrighted.. got it from http://www.zillatube.com

:):):)