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Sunday, March 1st, 2009
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How to Convert Articles Into Videos

How to Convert Articles Into Videos

recordingvideos 150x150 How to Convert Articles Into VideosWhen you use screen capture software for rapid video creation and record Camtasia videos with PowerPoints or MindMaps, the presentation process becomes super simple.

A video presentation reduces the reading time of a blog post from 5 to 10 minutes, to three minutes or less. That means you get a wider audience, more comments and more exposure.

To get more mileage out of an article, convert into a video using this very easy method that requires less than one minute of preparation per article. It relies on PowerPoint’s ability to import text files.

In just a few seconds, you can take your article, apply a couple of simple search-​​and-​​replace actions, import the individual sentences as individual slides, record, and dictate. Here’s the exact procedure:

Step 1: Copy and paste your article (INCLUDING the title on the first line) into a text editor like EditPlus that allows for a multi-​​line search and replace.

Also copy your article title as the LAST line of the article so people will remember what you just told them.

Step 2: Search and replace the end of each sentence to force a new line so that every sentence appears on its own line. Replace “.” (a period) with a period, and a newline.

In EditPlus, go to Search -> Replace, then click the “More” button to show the multi-​​line search and replace boxes. In the “search” box, type that period. In the “replace” box at the bottom, you can simply type a period, hit Enter, and it will add the newline for you.

Now you should have an article where every sentence is on its own line.

Step 3: Save this list of sentences as a text file. Then open PowerPoint and choose File -> Open. You won’t see the file you need at first.

Go to the dropdown that says “All PowerPoint Presentations” and change it to “All Outlines.” Browse to the folder containing the text file you saved, and double click it. This will set each sentence as one slide.

Step 4: Select all slides by hitting Ctrl+A, right click and change the slide layout to “Title Slide.”

Want to change the layout of the slides easily? Go to View -> Slide Master to change the appearance of all the slides in that presentation. Then click “Close Master View” to switch back to the presentation.

If you want to knock out a bunch of article videos at a time, simply place seven of your articles (with each article title at the beginning and end) in one big text file.

Start the PowerPoint presentation, record your presentation in Camtasia. Stop, save, and start a new presentation once you’ve reached the end of the article.

Don’t have the article written? That’s no problem, just use my mindmap technique to create the presentation. But if you only want to convert a text article into a Camtasia video, this is the fastest way to do it.

About the Author

Robert Plank is a computer programmer and Internet marketer. Even master copywriter Michel Fortin quadrupled his signups by adding Robert's simple exit pop-up email form to his blog. How many more subscribers and sales will it get you?

Category: Productivity
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March 5, 2009
Forrest Bivens

That is sweet Robert…kudos on a huge value-​​add.


March 5, 2009
Robert Plank

Thanks Forrest! :-)


March 5, 2009
Andy Catsimanes

Thanks Robert!

I’ve been working a lot on my video skills, both from a writing and presentation standpoint and this helps on both counts.


March 5, 2009
Jeff Mills

You might want to make the first slide have a URL in it for reference and last slide offer them where to get a freebie reports, item, files, etc… and so there is a place for them to go get something next, rather than just getting a 4 minute slide show.


March 5, 2009
otto ruebsamen

This is SUPER timely.

I’ve got 114 articles that I’m looking at turning into videos right now.

Thanks man,

Otto


March 5, 2009
Diane Corriette

I will definitely be doing this with a few of my articles Robert. Is it difficult to add a design background and change the font color? Or is that something I will need to do individually?

Diane


March 5, 2009
Robert Plank

Jeff, that’s why I said in the video you should add a watermark in post production (when converting the camrec to FLV)… that way you can repurpose it later.


March 5, 2009
John Deck

I do something similar though it is not this quick.

I start with a pre-​​built PowerPoint template.

Open the article (for me it is Word).

Add the article title to the “title page“
Create a new slide and copy and paste the first sentence or paragraph.
Create another new slide and copy and past the next sentence.
Continue until done.
Then record (for me with Camtasia)

This will take longer than Robert’s quick method, but I end up with a presentation that looks better but has my domain in the template.

John


March 5, 2009
Lou

Excellent and “uber’ useful Robert.

Thank you…Lou :)


March 5, 2009
Jay S. Fleischman

Great idea, but I can’t seem to make this work on Office for Mac. :-(

Thoughts?


March 5, 2009
Diane Corriette

Hey Robert. I created a video using what you taught.

inspirationalguidance.com/personal-growth-videos/improve-you...

I added a design background so fiddled with positioning the title so it was in the middle but it will still really quick to do it all.

If I do the 7 articles in one go like you suggest that would mean I could churn out loads of videos in no time!

Great stuff

Diane


March 5, 2009
Gilbert

Robert,

I have one critic. I think reading your slides “textually” is insulting the intelligence of your audience.

Create the slides with pointers and expand your narration ala story telling. Then, it will make the presentation interesting.

Gilbert


March 5, 2009
Jack Humphrey

Robert,

I take back everything I ever said about you. I have to take back everything because it was all bad. This rocks. And it totally makes up for all the stuff you said to me in Warriors years ago. :)

Really — this rocks!


March 5, 2009
Eric Su

Wow, I came up with an idea of doing something similar to this but your method is definitely 3 times faster.

Thanks
Eric


March 5, 2009
Tatiana V

Hey Gilbert, you seem to be forgetting that there are some blind people online too, and also people who prefer reading than watching and listening to videos. And maybe someone has no sound on? :)

Originally Posted By GilbertRobert,

I have one critic. I think reading your slides “textually” is insulting the intelligence of your audience.

Create the slides with pointers and expand your narration ala story telling. Then, it will make the presentation interesting.

Gilbert

And thanks a lot Robert for such a valuable video presentation! It saves lots of valuable time indeed — kudos :)


March 6, 2009
Robert Plank

@Jack: Thanks!

@Gilbert: I do that too, but sometimes I don’t feel like putting in the time… you can always ad lib if you have more to say (even I did that a couple times in this video).

@Diane: Great stuff. I noticed some of the title slides were the same text size as the big chunk slides… if you can edit the main text box in your master slide you can set it to autofit the text to the box… so the title slides with one or two words will appear in HUGE text and look better. But you did a GREAT job!

@John: You can take the PowerPoint design with your URL and everything (if you do it in the master slide) and save it as one of the designs… so it only takes one extra click to change it to your PowerPoint template after you import.

@Jay: I hate the word “work” :-) What do you mean, does it not give you the ability to import text files into PowerPoint on a Mac?


March 6, 2009
Rolf

Robert,

That was pretty cruel and cool as such! It is useful. Thanks.

Would you please elaborate on why this would be faster and reaching a wider audience than reading it from a blog post.

Certainly you read faster than you watch and/​or listen to a slide presentation?

Best regards


March 6, 2009
Robert Plank

Rolf,

If you were reading a paperback book for enjoyment, that would probably be faster than listening to a book on tape.

But with how-​​to, you can talk about something, and then SHOW it, so the person reading doesn’t have to read it multiple times. That’s why I said reading would take 5–10 minutes compared to 3 minutes watching to get the system DOWN, especially with technical stuff.

Since we’re on a computer screen here, people skim the text and don’t get everything the first time around. You have to re-​​read the steps to actually get it.

(You can see this from the blog comments where people said I “forgot” to mention watermarking the URL into the presentation, which was something I mentioned in the video but not in the text.)

As far as reaching a wider audience: some people prefer to listen/​watch instead of read, some people prefer to just read… and if the video mathces the text word-​​for-​​word as it does here, you can do BOTH at the same time!


March 6, 2009
Shirley Grant

Wow, Robert you made it sound so easy! I will just have to give it a try. I have been looking into creating videos for my blog but was having a hard time coming up with ideas. This is great!


March 7, 2009
Judy H. Wright aka Auntie Artichoke, the storytelling trainer

Hello from beautiful Montana:

Wow, I am super impressed. I loved Dianne’s article. I have stacks of articles in my files that need to be shortened and re-​​purposed. This is such a cool way.

Thanks for sharing ideas and skills to help all of us succeed. There is plenty of success for all.

Judy H. Wright aka Auntie Artichoke, Life Educator and author


March 7, 2009
Dan Foley

Robert,

Thanks for this article/​video about integrating articles into a video. With modifications, this is is a nice technique and is a great way to re-​​purpose articles. Kudos to you!


March 9, 2009
Devasish

This is great idea. Thank you very much. I always wanted to create videos and submit it to video sharing sites, but since I don’t have a cam, the fact that I can turn articles into videos is awesome.


March 12, 2009
Karen McGreevey

Hi Michel

Thank you for posting this “how-​​to” video on how to turn articles into video. This is something I’ve heard about a lot but wasn’t quite sure how to do it.

I also appreciate that you’ve included step-​​by-​​step instructions.

Karen


March 23, 2009
Article2Video

Don’t put every sentence of the article to the slides. Just put important sentences and read the rest to your microphone as narration.

You can also use music and images to make your video more interesting.


April 28, 2009
Navneet

Hi Robert,
I was searching for this site and we’ve basically created a way to automate this whole thing.. If you have got a minute please try my app here: http://articlevideorobot.com/eza_wizard.html

All you have to do is paste a link to your article and click convert. The rest is 100% automatic. There is an advanced editor too but this EZA Wizard should work pretty well.

Thanks,
Navneet.

P.S. It is a Direct Link To Software: No registration, No Credit Card, Fully Browser Based — No Download Or Installation either. I’m only posting it because it is related to the article. Please give it a try and let us know what you think of it. In case you need more info please feel free to drop me a line. I’ve added my email in the above frm.


May 28, 2009
Pearl White

This is an excellent resource. I never thought about using this process. Thanks for sharing this with us. Really very easy and doable.


June 18, 2009
DeVictor

@Forrest Bivens -
Someone sent to me a sales letter about how to convert articles to video, a software selling for ONLY $121.

I did a search and found THIS article that saved me the cash.
Thanks a million (or at least $121 worth!).


August 3, 2009
emagazine

Thanks for the tutorial I am looking for ways to drive traffic to my site and I am sure your method will help me a lot.

Thank you


November 23, 2009
Sean

Hi Robert,

Appreciate you sharing how to use PLR to Video. Will use some of my articles to do this and add the watermark URL with the presentation.

Thank You,

Sean R.


November 24, 2009
Sean

Hi Robert,

Appreciate you sharing how to use PLR to Video. Will use some of my articles to do this and add the watermark URL with the presentation.

Thank You,

Sean R.


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