We have 2 possible scenarios for displaying a PowerPoint clock.
- This is a dedicated time add-on for using a PowerPoint clock to display the time or date in a presentation. This is very easy to use and can use a clock, calendar, count down, timer etc. If you need to display a clock or date only then, use this option.
- When you need to display more than just the time, try our DataPoint solution or combine with other Dynamic Element add-ons. It can display a clock and date too. This is very easy to use and can combine information from other data providers like database and Excel information.
This blog article covers option 2.
When you use PowerPoint to build your information screens for your company then, you must add the current time to all slides. The minimum of information that you put on an information screen or television, is a PowerPoint clock with the current time. We promote our DataPoint product to display real-time information like RSS news, weather information, your product or sales information, and any other information that you might want to show.
Click the DataPoint menu option of your PowerPoint ribbon to open the DataPoint menu. Insert or select a text box and click the Clock button of the Shapes group.
At the clock properties form, select a proper date format. Select for example the second option here, to display the current date in full, with name of the day and the date with the month in text. Click OK to close.
The current date, in the selected format, is now set as text of this text box. Whenever you open the presentation or slide show, it will automatically update the text box with the current date.
Use a second text box and click DataPoint and then the Clock button.
At this time, you select a format with the time in it. Click OK to commit.
The current time is now copied into the text box. Note that at this stage, the clock will not advance. This is because we are designing the slide. The clock will start running when we would start the slide show.
Let’s illustrate the capability to display the current time of another time zone. Use another text box and open the Clock properties again. Set the desired clock format.
Check the option Convert local time to time zone: and choose the time zone. Here we choose to display the (UTC-05:00) Eastern Time (US & Canada). Click OK to close.
And again the current time of that chosen other time zone is displayed in the text box and linked dynamically.
Let’s prepare this presentation now for our television or information screen. We want that the slide show is running forever.
Click to open the Slide Show menu option and click the Set Up Slide Show button.
Set the Show type to Browsed at a kiosk (full screen). You will see that the show option named Loop continuously until ‘Esc’ is checked automatically. That is what we need. Click OK to close.
Start the slide show now and you will see that the clock is updated continuously.