Start a song/powerpoint with other than the first slide?

[LexLuthor]

I was wondering wheter it is possible to get a preview of a songs slides before it is projected on the screen and without turning off the text completely.
Because it happens a lot that our worship leader starts with a verse or chorus other than the first slide of the song.
I think it would be best if it were possible to display any item in the playlist under "current item" without interfering with the secondary screen output. The same would be nice for ppt presentations.

[brainier]

Sorry, do not understand.

PowerPoint shows the selected presentation in the thumbnails section of the PowerPoint tab without doing anything special.

The current song does not appear on the output unless you are in projection mode (F12 pressed). If the projection screen is blank (as it would be before any songs are sung) then you can select from the Current Item list the starting verse.

[LexLuthor]

yes, this is true for the first song. But lets say I have song A on the output and the worship leader jumps directly to verse 2 of song B without a break.

Afaik, there are only two possibilities: -doubleclick on song B in the playlist, search the correct verse in the right column, open that verse -> for a few seconds the wrong verse (1) will be displayed.
or -fade out all the text, double click on song B, display the correct verse, fade in the text again -> there will be an empty screen for several seconds which interrupts the flow.

maybe you know other programs like easislides, there you always have a preview screen where you can prepare the next slide to solve this problem.

[ChrisClark]

Thank you for the clarification. You are correct - these are the only two possibilities at this stage.

[Jonathan Hills]

How about F4, then then number of the pane required and enter to show that verse? should only take 3 or 4 seconds.
If your worship leader is likely to do this, then the operator needs to be on the ball and familiar with the songs.