PowerPoint for Listing Kiosk

Imagine having an application that would allow you to turn your notebook computer into a kiosk. You could run a continuous slide show of your current listings or possibly the amenities of a particular area such as schools, shopping, recreation, and the like.

It would certainly be a valuable marketing tool but the cost would probably be expensive. You’re probably thinking that once you invested in the hardware, it would be expensive to develop the slide show to run on it.

Wrong, technophile-breath. You probably have what it takes right now without buying another thing. If you own Microsoft PowerPoint, a digital camera, and a notebook computer, you’re in business. If you have a notebook computer, you can take your kiosk on the road.

The steps are really very simple and you can actually make the entire presentation in just a few minutes. Once it is completed, it will just be a matter of adding new listings as they are taken and removing listings when they sell.

Using the features of PowerPoint, you could rearrange the order of the homes for a particular presentation or if you wanted, could “hide” others. Music could easily be added to the background or transitions between slides for an additional touch.

Think about how you could use it. You could run it during your open houses to show the other listings that you have available. You could have it running in the reception area of your office for people visiting to see. If you have an office that has foot traffic, you could place it in the window for passer-bys to see. I’m sure you can think of others.

Microsoft has made it really easy for you to put one together in PowerPoint, one of the components of Office.

1. Make a folder called “Current Listings”
2. Copy a picture of each of your current listings into this folder
3. Open a new presentation in PowerPoint
4. Insert, Picture, New Photo Album
5. From the Photo Album window, click on Insert picture from File/disk
6. Select correct folder, select all pictures, Click Insert
7. Select Picture Layout, one picture with title (there are other options)
8. Click Create
9. Once the pictures have appeared on each page of the presentation, edit the text box with address, size, and price
10. Click Slide Show, Set up show…, Select Browsed at a Kiosk, Click OK
11. Click Slide show, Slide Transition, Check Advance Slide automatically after, use the spin buttons to select 3 to 5 seconds for each slide, Click Apply to All Slides
12. You’re finished, Run Slide Show. It should loop continuously until you stop it by tapping the Esc button on your computer.