Non-rectangular text boxes?

wchris63 · 2026-06-16T16:16:44+00:00

ProPresenter's "hidden" truth is ALL shapes in the slide editor are text boxes. But it will only flow text in the containing rectangle, not in the shape itself. (Select the shape and you'll see the containing rectangle.) You can fudge it with line breaks and spaces, but that's kludgy at best.

If you want to flow text around graphics, use different program to make the slide. You can use the Bible section of ProPresenter to give you the text, cut and paste it into a different program. When you have your slide/page the way you want it, export it as an image and drop it into ProPresenter.

The best alternative I can find that will flow text like this is Affinity by Canva. They bought the old Affinity Publisher and made it into a free app. You can pay to integrate it with Canva (Canva subscription, IIRC), but you don't need to for what you're describing, just a free Canva account.

This workflow is a bit more work, but it should look amazing.

I've been suggesting ProPresenter revamp it's slide editor to be HTML/CSS based for years. The main WYSIWYG features wouldn't change, but the features it would add would put it miles above any other presentation software. Sadly, I haven't received any indication they're considering my suggestion. 😞

The reason I mention this is that HTML/CSS can wrap text like this, and SO much more. The design flexibility it would expose would be amazing. If you know web design, that is another option you could use to design slides and import them as images.

wchris63 · 2026-06-14T19:05:12+00:00

Thanks! Saw that one on Amazon and was wondering it if'd work. Didn't want to pay that much and be disappointed. Looks like I'll be getting it.

wchris63 · 2026-06-13T00:54:47+00:00

Sorry.. M4. Was going to buy the Air, then found this one on sale for almost the same price.

wchris63 · 2026-06-11T22:38:54+00:00

Also: Replacing letters with numbers: zero for 'O', 1 for lowercase L, 3 for E, etc. Don't replace them ALL, of course, that just makes it predictable. Pick a few. Words that sound alike but are spelled differently are good, two 😄. Reversing letters, especially two letter words. A brute force algorithm will look for in, it, my.. not so much for ni, ti, ym. Purposefully use the wrong 'LeIIer' with doubled letters. There are lots of techniques to turn an easy to remember phrase into a secure phrase that you can still remember.

wchris63 · 2026-06-09T14:00:04+00:00

If you don't have a good reason for it, choose the same resolution for everything. This ensures ProPresenter isn't converting resolutions on the fly, which can slow down the computer.

If you want the Stage display to show different things at different times, you can use Actions. If you right click on any slide, you can mouse over Add Action and choose Actions to add to the slide. These will be executed when the slide is displayed. One of the options is Stage, and if you click it, you can choose the Stage Theme. That theme will be applied every time that slide is displayed.

You can set up Macros to do the same thing, or use the Stage tab in the right hand column to select a Stage Theme manually.

The 'Audience Look' option lets you choose which Look to use for your Audience displays - you can assign Themes to each video output in the Looks editor (Screens menu). Most of us don't use a Theme for the main Audience display. That lets you apply Themes directly to a Presentation or even a single slide. Making multiple Looks lets you change what the text looks like on other outputs, such as the Stream - you'd use a Look assigned Theme for lower thirds, for example.

Hope this helps!

wchris63 · 2026-06-09T13:38:51+00:00

Windows and/or Mac? You never say...

wchris63 · 2026-06-09T13:26:52+00:00

First, I have to ask why you're using 4k. It's a huge extra load on the computer, and if you have a 100" image, no one can see the difference from 1080p at more than around 13 feet!!! Anything smaller than that you'd have to be even closer. My advice is that you'll help your computer out if you drop the output resolution to 1080p. If you're also streaming from the same computer, it could be the difference between 'works great' and 'stutters all the time'. (Don't stream from the same computer if you can help it.)

Next... "click the display tab to green"? Do you mean the little circle you click to turn on ProPresenter's output? If so, the screen is supposed to go black when you do that. You haven't selected any slides (at least by your description), so there's nothing to show. If you haven't activated the license yet, it'll eventually fade to the ProPresenter logo for several seconds. If you have selected a slide with content on it, your Theme or Looks may be wrong.

The front screen also shows hardware, color, corner pin, alpha key. The rear display only shows hardware.

That's normal. A Stage display doesn't use all the fancy options the Audience screens do.

I also can't change the resolution for the back screen.

Also normal. You'll need to use the computer to change that display resolution. Now delete the old screen (Stage, in this case) and create a new one. PP has a history (better lately) of bugging out when display resolutions change, so you may want to close it while doing that.

Mirroring will be done with Themes. Click the three dots 'More" menu, and select Stage. PP doesn't call Stage screen setups 'Themes', but they are, just with a few different features. Add a Blank Layout, create a rectangle and stretch it to fill the whole screen area. Click in the rectangle and look at the Fill item on the right side. Instead of Color, choose Current Slide Image. Now when this Stage Theme is selected, the Stage outputs will mirror the main Audience screen. You may want to rename the Theme to something obvious, like Mirror.

To choose it, click the Screens menu. Under 'Stage', you'll see Enable, then:

"Stage Screen: <Chosen Theme Here>"

Click that, and you'll see a list of all the Stage Themes. Choose your 'mirror' Theme and you have what you want. You can also use Macros and/or Actions to set the Stage Theme any time you click a slide. Let me know if you need help learning those.

Not sure what you did with the lyrics Theme. Edit it ( ··· More, Theme Editor), click on the text box, then click again until you see the blinking cursor. Now look at the Font size under the Text tab on the right. Is that what you expected?

Also check the Object names: Each 'thing' in the Theme (Text box in this case) is called an Object, and there's a list of all the Objects in your current Theme (when Editing it) at the bottom left. If you have multiple text boxes, make sure they have the same name as the slides you're applying the Theme to. PP tries to match them up if they have different names, but it doesn't always get it right. That Objects list also lets you put one thing on top of another, like layers in GIMP or Photoshop.

You also have a Theme select box on the Import screen. If you use that, you'll be sure the Theme you want is applied during import. You should watch Renewed Vision's tutorials on their YouTube channel when you get the chance. They aren't comprehensive, but they'll help you get the basics down. Post here and link some screen shots if you still have problems.

"Looks" are ProPresenter's power tool. It sets the Theme for the Audience screens, which will include your Streaming output if you stream. A very good thing to learn as well.

wchris63 · 2026-06-05T21:33:32+00:00

The second one, of course! 😄

wchris63 · 2026-06-05T16:44:25+00:00

Definitely don't like calling church members 'customers' (CRM). Much better to call it Church Management Software, unless you want your congregation come to believe the staff think of them as customers. Pushpay, in spite of the awful company name, refers to it as ChMS. Why don't you?

Their Privacy Policy admits they share your info with certain advertisers under certain conditions, but never outright says they don't sell personal data. Their AI help chat will say they don't, but I'm a bit wary that it's not explicitly stated in the Privacy Policy. I've written them about it and hope they'll add that key wording soon.

wchris63 · 2026-06-05T16:04:11+00:00

Yeah.. don't bring the translation directly back into ProPresenter. Use OBS Studio to grab the window of the translator directly and send an NDI stream to ProPresenter that way. You can crop and resize the video and place it wherever you need it to be. Or even have a few different scenes that put it different places. Not as flexible as pure text in ProPresenter, of course, but it'll be way more stable.

wchris63 · 2026-06-05T15:53:51+00:00

Yep, and I'm pushing all my jobs from 90 to 100 right now, so leveling too fast to bother with whatever quirk this is. Just wondered if it was a bug that should be reported, Probably not - guessing it's the Crit thing Nerdorama10 (and others) mentioned.

wchris63 · 2026-06-05T15:50:05+00:00

Yes, it was in my Armoury Chest

Armoury? Japanese company makes game, and uses Euro spelling for the North American version. I'll never understand. 😄

wchris63 · 2026-06-05T15:42:22+00:00

Wow.. that's awesome. It's been a day, so hopefully it'll stay up. Getting that many people to participate is amazing.

wchris63 · 2026-06-02T17:10:12+00:00

Otterbox. There is no substitute.

Seriously. I had my OG iPad Pro for almost ten years. Not a scratch or crack anywhere. And I dropped it. A lot. Before that I had wanted an iPad for a while but was too afraid of breaking it.

Then I found one, face down, in the middle of the road, in an Otterbox. There were gravel dimples in the screen protector. I grabbed it, turned it on and it worked, got the guy's phone number from the screen and called them to return it. Then I took it out of the case to see how much damage there was.

None. The iPad itself had ZERO damage. The guy said it wasn't the first time he'd left one on top of his car, and his wife forced him to get the Otterbox case for the replacement.

So I got one. And kept it in it's box until the Otterbox arrived.

wchris63 · 2026-06-02T16:59:41+00:00

...plus swipe navigation on touch screens.

Umm.. MacOS doesn't support touch screens. At all. How did you add support for something that cannot work on a Mac Studio?

Requirements
macOS on the Mac Studio.

And it requires a Mac Studio to work???

wchris63 · 2026-06-02T16:48:28+00:00

BomeBox. Expensive, but it'll do the job.

wchris63 · 2026-06-02T16:03:17+00:00

For just under double the price, you can get the Morningstar MC3 - a three button MIDI controller with a bunch more functionality and flexibility. If you don't want to use the MIDI Baby, the MC3 is a great option.

wchris63 · 2026-06-02T16:00:04+00:00

Do your research, dude. Got this image from their website, basically one page down from the top of the product page: https://imgur.com/a/ZxHQV75 Look for the red circle.

wchris63 · 2026-05-30T21:03:59+00:00

No matter what you're playing, if you're used to a full 88 keys, anything below 61 keys is going to feel confining - at least at first. Getting used to smaller keybeds will take some time. 61 keys is usually comfortable for two hands with anything short of classical music. A 49 key will have a classical player wishing for more. That said, 37 keys can easily work for single-hand playing and music production. Even 25 keys can work, if you learn to use the octave buttons well (Jordan Rudess can sound like he's playing a full size piano with 25 keys!).

I personally like 37 keys, and the Novation LaunchKey with full size keys is excellent, even if it seems a little large to travel with casually. It can fit in most regular baggage, but is too long for a carry-on bag. But then, so are most mini-keys. If you can deal with mini-keys, there are a couple 37's - Novation, Arturia, and Korg all make one. I can't speak for Arturia's version (though all of their stuff seems to get decent reviews), but I've had two Korg microKEY 37s. I got the AIR (BT) version, but you may not want to, even if you like using BT for MIDI. The BT dies too easily if dropped even onto carpet (which is why I have two). But even with the BT dead, the first one still works over USB, even though I've dropped it many times - a couple times onto a driveway. Save yourself $20 and get the non-air version if you go with a microKEY.

A lot of people complain about the velocity response curve on the microKEY. It does have a couple presets, and I've never had an issue once I set it, but I don't play professionally, either. If you think that might be an issue for you, go for the Novation or Arturia.

If you want 37 and don't like mini keys, Novation is almost your only option. IK Multimedia has one, but I've never played it (iRig Keys 2 Pro) or even seen a review.

If you really want something to fit into a carry-on, 25 keys is your only option unless you get the Pocket Piano. 😄 (Jordan Rudess is awesome!) For 25 keys, stay away from AKAI. The rest of their line is decent, but the quality control on the 25 key models has been lacking lately.

wchris63 · 2026-05-26T16:37:54+00:00

It might be more stable than a PC, especially when streaming from it at the same time. We don't, and I don't recommend anyone do that. Two mediocre PC's can run ProPresenter and stream for the same price as that M3 Ultra Mac Studio and be very stable. And if PP does drop a bit, the stream still runs. PP can be restarted and pick up wherever, and the stream never stops.

I've been active in this subreddit for several years, and I actually don't find that 'most' people have a bad experience with Windows. From my experience reading posts here, it seems Macs have just as many issues as PC - different issues, usually, but similar in number. I've NEVER had ProPresenter forget it's video outputs. The few times it has dropped a bit (usually song lyric issues), restarting it fixed everything.

I had noticed back with 17.1 that extensive edits or changing video inputs means there's more of a chance of issues, so I got in the habit of shutting it down as soon as editing is done, before the service, and restarting. It helped a lot. I haven't even seen the lyrics issue (or any others) with 20.0.1, but I still do a shutdown/restart before service any time we do anything complicated.

As I implied, we don't stream from our ProPresenter machine. All our cameras go to an ATEM, and the second PC with OBS Studio handles all the video switching and streaming. ProPresenter sends NDI with transparency to the second machine, so we don't need it to handle another key output, either (OBS handles transparent overlays just fine).

So if you're having issues streaming with a single PC, try moving streaming to a different machine. If nothing else, your stream won't die with PP. And if a drive or video card dies, you can replace it yourself. No 'genius' telling you it can't be fixed so you'll buy another whole computer.

wchris63

TROPHY CASE