ProPresenter MasterClass: Part One – Setting Up Libraries
The goal of this series titled, ProPresenter Master Class, is to help you set up your Graphics/Lyrics computers for success at your church events, from start to finish.
I hope to pass along tips, tricks, and things I have learned that can help and serve you in your local church environment.
In this article we will discuss how to setup your library for success. These are the three Keys I follow in setting up my workspace in Pro Presenter:
- Organize content in a consistent manner
- Preparation is key to setting up a lyrics operator for success
- Save everything
The first step is setting up your song library.
Now if you are just beginning then you won’t have a song library to manage. If you have been going for a few months or longer then you will start to develop a large song library. The key is to create a song once and then if your band/choir chooses to change the format of the song, you can make the changes in the arrangement tab.
If your church has two different services (i.e. a traditional and a contemporary service following), I have found it helpful to create a song for each service if both services have overlap. You then can utilize different formats without conflicting with another service if they choose to do the same song. If you are a church with only one service type then try to create one library entry for the song and then if there are changes to the arrangement to a given song, change the arrangement. Of course, there can always be exceptions but if you follow this you will have a easier time finding and pulling back previous songs for future use.
Suggested Tweet: "3 Go-To Tips for your ProPresenter workspace - Organize consistently, prepare your library and save everything! @stevodirks"
For other media such as videos, presentations (sermons), and prayers, etc., I find naming them with the date you use them helps for cleaning out your library frequently. For example, if I have a one-time video about our recent baptism Sunday I would title it “Video – Baptism Recap 10-18-17”. This naming allows me to easily search “recap” in the search bar and get access to all the VIDEO files I have created and then delete the files that are no longer needed, as long as I have saved my files for backup.
Having an organized library will help you to find songs and items quickly and efficiently. Always keep your songs so that over time you build a library that will help save you time. Organization is key. Setting up your library is the foundation to getting yourself set up for success in leading worship in your local church.
In the next post we will look at setting up and organizing your Video/Image Library.
