Importing slides

Bring a slide deck into TCast and run it like any other playlist. Each slide becomes an image, the deck becomes a playlist, and Next Clip / Previous Clip advance through it — from the keyboard, a Stream Deck, or the iOS remote.

From a PDF

Drag a PDF onto the board, or use File ▸ Add Media… (⌘I) and pick it.

TCast renders every page at your stage resolution. A deck called Sunday Service.pdf becomes Sunday Service 01, Sunday Service 02, and so on, in order.

Where those slides land depends on where you put the PDF:

• Dropped on a playlist, or added from the menu with one playlist selected, TCast asks whether the slides go into that playlist or into a new one named after the deck.
• Dropped on empty board space, or added with no single playlist selected, they go straight into a new playlist named after the deck.
• A one-page PDF is just a picture, so it skips the question entirely and lands wherever you dropped it.

This works for anything that exports a PDF, which is every deck tool:

From a Google Slides link

File ▸ Import Slides from Link… (⇧⌘I), then paste the link from your browser's address bar. TCast downloads the deck and imports it into a new playlist named after the deck itself — whatever the title is in Google Slides.

The deck has to be shared with Anyone with the link — TCast fetches it as nobody in particular, so a deck restricted to your account or your organization won't come through. In Google Slides: Share ▸ General access ▸ Anyone with the link. You can set it back to restricted once the import is done.

If you'd rather not change the sharing at all, download the PDF by hand and drag it in instead. Same result.

Running a deck

1. Select the deck's playlist in the sidebar. The board now shows only that deck, so the numbered remote buttons and the arrow keys stay inside it.
2. Click the first slide to put it on air.
3. → and ← move through the deck. On a Stream Deck running the Companion module, that's the Next clip and Previous clip actions; on the iOS remote, the transport arrows.

Everything that works for an image works for a slide: transitions, Fit/Fill, sending it to the overlay layer, timed advance. Set a playlist to Advance automatically with a delay and the deck runs itself.

What doesn't come across

Slides import as flat pictures, so anything that only exists while the deck is running is left behind:

• Builds, animations, and slide transitions from the source deck. TCast's own transitions still apply between slides.
• Speaker notes.
• Embedded video and audio.
• Any live link back to the original. Editing the Google deck later doesn't change what's in TCast — re-import it, which lands in the same playlist.

Notes

• Fonts are safe. A PDF carries its own fonts, so a deck looks the same on the output as it did in the editor, even with fonts this Mac doesn't have.
• Slides count as media items. A 30-slide deck is 30 items, and the free version holds up to 15. TCast tells you before it imports anything if a deck won't fit — see Licensing.
• Re-importing is cheap. Identical slides are recognized by content and aren't stored twice.
• Remote uploads don't take PDFs. The upload page and internet uploads accept video, images, and audio only. Import decks on the Mac itself.

If something goes wrong

The import did nothing / MED-06

• The PDF may be password-protected or damaged. Open it in Preview to check, then re-export. See MED-06.

"That deck is private"

• The deck isn't shared with Anyone with the link. Change it in Google Slides and try again, or download the PDF and drag it in.

"There's no Google Slides deck at that link"

• Google has nothing at that address — check the URL, or the deck may have been deleted. Copy it again from the address bar with the deck open.

"That doesn't look like a Google Slides link"

• Copy the URL from the browser's address bar with the deck open. A Google Docs or Sheets link won't work — those aren't decks.

Slides look soft

• Pages render to match your stage size. Raise it in the toolbar's resolution picker, then re-import the deck.