Mac Book to external monitor

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JOhnH

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An associate has to give a presentation shortly. The presentation is in PowerPoint on her Mac Book, but the display is too small for a presentation. Her Mac doesn't seem to have a VGA output. How would I go about this? Can she copy the powerpoint file to a USB drive and then to a PC that has a large monitor? We will try that shortly, unless someone says we will be wasting our time.
 
If she doesn't already have an adapter from her Mac to HDMI, DVI, or VGA she'll want to invest in one for the future.
 
Most of the recent memory macbook pros and the current macbook airs all have mini display port connectors. For under $30 you can get an HDMI adapter for one. Mine doesn't even come from Apple. It's a "rocketfish" and I got it at BestBuy.

The older MacBook airs have a proprietary external monitor connector (and if I recall properly, a VGA and DVI adapter CAME with the unit).

The mac version of power point will load up in most windows Powerpoints of recent vintage. Going the other way isn't always reliable as Windows Office version compatibility is always haphazard.
 
Good answers so far.

My desk monitor is an older VGA, so I use the mini-port to VGA adapter, and keep my late-2008 MacBook Pro on as a second monitor and trackpad, though one can also select "mirror", which it sounds like is more appropriate here.
 
The other really nice way to fix this in the future is to keep an AppleTV around that's already configured for your company WiFi and move it to the conference room, or better just put one in each conference room.

They've even added a "Conference Room Mode" specifically for this to the AppleTV.

AirPlay works great to attach wirelessly to the conference room TV/projector/whatever.

Seems like overkill but it makes everyone's life much easier for a pittance, dollar wise. Can get Refurbs for $70 if $99 is too rich for your blood.

We're about to install a couple. We'll have multiple people using them every day once I have them installed.
 
JOhnH said:
An associate has to give a presentation shortly. The presentation is in PowerPoint on her Mac Book, but the display is too small for a presentation. Her Mac doesn't seem to have a VGA output. How would I go about this? Can she copy the powerpoint file to a USB drive and then to a PC that has a large monitor? We will try that shortly, unless someone says we will be wasting our time.
Click to expand...

You need one of these if your Mac is not too old (<4-5 years old). This one is for an HDMI connection to a Samsung monitor.
 

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Thanks for those suggestions. I'll pass them on to her.

In the meantime, the Mac PP file copied to a USB drive, and then to the PC where installing the Free PP reader seems to work fine. The only problem is that she will have to be at the PC keyboard.
 
denverpilot said:
The other really nice way to fix this in the future is to keep an AppleTV around that's already configured for your company WiFi and move it to the conference room, or better just put one in each conference room.
Click to expand...

Good choice.

But it does require either an i-device or a Mac or iMac of relatively recent vintage.

My late-2008 MacBook Pro can't do it, but Karen's 2104 iMac can.
 
FastEddieB said:
Good choice.



But it does require either an i-device or a Mac or iMac of relatively recent vintage.



My late-2008 MacBook Pro can't do it, but Karen's 2104 iMac can.
Click to expand...


While Macs do tend to get used longer than PCs in our environment, I don't think we will have many users running 6 year old hardware. Depreciating computers on a 7 year cycle ended over a decade ago, let alone how bad they'd be to use for the types of things our Mac users do with them. There may be a few but they won't be around much longer.
 
I just started fooling around with AppleTV - very cool. However, I've experienced a number of failures using AirPlay (the function you'd use for a presentation). It seems that the failures occur when trying to view a video which may be due to a less than robust WiFi system. I saw one note saying to kill Bluetooth on your Mac Air while running Airplay. In any case, I'd want to dry run Airplay a good bit before committing to use it for presentations.
flyingron said:
Most of the recent memory macbook pros and the current macbook airs all have mini display port connectors. For under $30 you can get an HDMI adapter for one. Mine doesn't even come from Apple. It's a "rocketfish" and I got it at BestBuy.
Click to expand...
I randomly bought the lowest cost cable on Amazon. Worked fine for 48hours then failed. I went to the AppleStore to get the real thing but ended up with AppleTV.
 
The answers suggesting Mini DisplayPort to HDMI or VGA are correct, as is the AppleTV suggestion.

I'm posting to add that if you're going the USB stick route to move it to a different computer, save the file as a PowerPoint show instead. This not only means it is saved as a self-running presentation that doesn't need the host computer to have the same version of PowerPoint (or any version of PowerPoint at all for that matter) but it will preserve the fonts and formatting. Often, moving from Mac to PC there are font differences and formatting differences that can crop up.

Process is simple. File>Save As then in the file type box under where you can edit the file name, change to PowerPoint Show (*.pps or *.ppsx).
 
Thanks,
We already moved the file and downloaded a free PP viewer, but your way may turn out to be better.
John
ettsn said:
The answers suggesting Mini DisplayPort to HDMI or VGA are correct, as is the AppleTV suggestion.

I'm posting to add that if you're going the USB stick route to move it to a different computer, save the file as a PowerPoint show instead. This not only means it is saved as a self-running presentation that doesn't need the host computer to have the same version of PowerPoint (or any version of PowerPoint at all for that matter) but it will preserve the fonts and formatting. Often, moving from Mac to PC there are font differences and formatting differences that can crop up.

Process is simple. File>Save As then in the file type box under where you can edit the file name, change to PowerPoint Show (*.pps or *.ppsx).
Click to expand...
 
Apple TV is great - you can also run a stereo connection to it and output the HDMI to a receiver.

USB drive also works for this

Others have mentioned the connectors from the mini display ports to monitors.

most businesses do not have apple tv installed at their projectors - so the main choice becomes the mini DV with a HDMI or Composite Video - that said - most of hte older projectors still have S video given when they were installed.

I have a mini-DV that outputs both S-video and composite - but if you are using a projector you really need to project the HD signal using HDMI
 
I moved the PP presentation to a windows workstation with a 32 inch monitor. I used a wireless mouse so the presenter was able to stand around 12 ft away from the workstation and use the mouse to control the presentation. It worked great.
 
I've been lugging my RocketFish around to every place I do presentations... sure is holding up better than some of the Apple CRAP (like the bloody MAGSAFE power cords which I've lost several of over the years and APPLE has a god awful monopoly on those).
 
FastEddieB said:
Good choice.

But it does require either an i-device or a Mac or iMac of relatively recent vintage.

My late-2008 MacBook Pro can't do it, but Karen's 2104 iMac can.
Click to expand...

It can be done on both older Macs AND PCs with http://www.airsquirrels.com/airparrot/

We probably have at least 10 AppleTVs throughout our corporate office for this use and PC users use them as well.

Getting them to work across multiple subnets however is a giant PITA.
 
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