The last few years has seen the emergence of small devices that plug into the HDMI port of a TV, connect to your wifi, and allow you to stream from online services such as Netflix and Amazon.
What you also can do is “cast” content from a mobile device to the stick, content that includes movies, photos and music.
What isn’t currently possible is to cast documents to the stick and onto the screen which is a shame as it would be good to do so in situations where you might not have your laptop but do have the stick and a HDMI enabled screen. However, with a bit of foresight it is actually possible and I will show you how.
The following method is, I admit, a bit convoluted but it does work and involves converting a PowerPoint presentation to either a series of images or a video.
As a video
Choose Export from the File menu (where this appears depends slightly on the version):
Select Create a Video:
Choose the options – the defaults are probably fine.
Now copy the exported file to your device (I did this via Dropbox).
For the actual casting I used Allcast which is available for both Android and iOS. Here is the app with the presentation running as a movie:
And on the TV:
If you have an Amazon Fire TV you will find that you can stop and start the video as needed.
As a series of images
Choose Save As from the File menu:
Choose where you want the exported files to go and choose “PNG Portable Network Graphics” from the “Save As Type” drop down list.
When asked choose to export all slides rather than just the current slide:
Confirm the export:
As before transfer the older of images to your device and cast through AllCast:
Neither of these methods is perfect but they do serve a purpose until casting is added to native applications.