The slides show who someone was, the music sets the right tone, and at the moments when someone is speaking, the picture stays still. With this tool you create a slideshow like this yourself; the technology behind the slides is already taken care of for you.
With music and video the slides change automatically, in time with the file.
During an address the picture stays still until you click.
At the final farewell the music keeps playing, however long it takes.
Fades let the photos flow into one another, rather than switching abruptly.
A slideshow for a funeral, burial or memorial service is not an ordinary presentation. There is no one who can keep pressing a button at exactly the right moment, so the slides have to behave by themselves: advancing when music is playing, standing still when someone is speaking, and repeating when the room slowly empties at the final farewell. It is precisely this behaviour that is built into every presentation from this tool.
You build the service from blocks that together form the running order of the funeral: the entrance, speakers, music with photos, live music, video and the final farewell. Each block knows for itself how its slides should behave.
The difference between a calm service and a restless one lies in the moments of change. That is why, for each type of block, it is set what the slides do:
Between the slides there are gentle fades, so that the photos flow into one another rather than switching abruptly. You choose a fitting background yourself: a restrained colour or an atmospheric image from the selection provided. Photos that are not quite cropped to fit, you crop directly in the tool. A fixed memorial photo that recurs between the parts is possible too. How you select and order the photos yourself is explained on the page about the funeral photo presentation.
Crematoria, funeral halls and cemetery chapels almost always work with Microsoft PowerPoint. The tool therefore delivers a real PowerPoint (.pptx), which runs on the venue's equipment the way people are used to there. The final version comes with a shareable download link for the venue and an instruction document listing the click moments, slide numbers and the music for each part. Whoever operates the technology then knows exactly when to click and when not to. How the handover works in practice is explained on the page about the memorial service presentation.
Always play the presentation in Microsoft PowerPoint on Windows or on a Mac. Programs such as LibreOffice or Keynote do not reproduce the timing and the music correctly. You will find more practical tips in the checklist for playing at the funeral venue.
About how the slides behave, how long it lasts and the handover to the venue.
Where they should, yes: with music-and-photos and with video the slides advance automatically, exactly in time with the file. With a speaker and at the final farewell, on the other hand, the presentation stays still until you click. This logic is built into every presentation as standard.
The result is a real PowerPoint (.pptx), the format almost every funeral venue works with. You do not need to be able to operate PowerPoint yourself: you build the presentation online and download the finished file.
The music decides that. A musical moment lasts as long as the chosen piece, usually 3 to 5 minutes, with about 8 seconds per photo. A full service with several musical moments, speakers and a video often lasts 20 to 45 minutes; the presentation follows that running order.
The final version comes with a shareable download link. With it the venue downloads the presentation and the instruction document with all the click moments, without an account or sign-in. See also how to deliver a funeral presentation to the venue.
Building it and viewing a trial version with a watermark is free. The final version costs 1 credit per funeral service.