The easiest way to embed a YouTube video directly into a presentation, if running the presentation with good Wi Fi connectivity, is to download the free YouTube Wizard plug-in from skp.mvps.org. This will add a new Insert YouTube Video command to the PowerPoint Toolbar.

As the plug-in is on the toolbar, the YouTube video will recognise this so all that needs to be done is to type in the URL and follow the wizard to add the YouTube video player to the current slide. The YouTube player can be resized and repositioned anywhere on the slide.

Playing YouTube Videos in PowerPoint without Internet

Download the YouTube video locally in either Windows Media or AVI format since PowerPoint is incompatible with the default YouTube formats of FLV or MP4.

Add YouTube videos for offline PowerPoint Presentations

Once the video is saved as an AVI or WMV file, go to the Insert menu, Movie and select Movie from file to put the YouTube video on to the current slide.

Insert YouTube videos from Google Docs into PowerPoint

GoogleDocs allows you to share your work online and access your documents from anywhere. It does provide an Export as PPT option, but the clip then becomes a series of static images. To avoid this, publish the presentation in GoogleDocs as an HTML slideshow and then insert it like a web page in PowerPoint using the liveweb plug-in. This will allow you to play YouTube videos inside PowerPoint as though they were part of the actual presentation.

Disclaimer information

Always show vigilance when inserting videos from the internet into a presentation. YouTube states in its terms and conditions that the usage of its videos are strictly for non-commercial purposes and without the author’s permission to modify or commercially revise the videos a presenter would be in breach of IP (Intellectual Property) law.

By Kelly Foxhall