How to Add YouTube Video to PowerPoint

Microsoft PowerPoint has a lot of functionality and supports a lot of graphical features. Until the Office 2010 version, adding streaming video, like a YouTube video, was not possible. In PowerPoint 2010 however, you can directly add online video from a URL. You simply select the option to insert a video from a website and copy + paste the URL from the online streaming video source.

But in Office 2007 this option is not available, so without a third-party solution, it is not possible to add streaming video to your PowerPoint presentation. The free PowerPoint plugin that you can use for this is from AuthorStream. You can download the plugin for PowerPoint from their website. The plugin will download as a self-installing executable (aSDesktopSetup.exe), which will install itself when executed.

After installation of the plugin, you simply start PowerPoint and click the new authorSTREAM menu. Next, click the Insert by URL button to insert the URL for the online video.

In the Insert by URL window, you can then copy + paste the URL from a YouTube video. You will need to click the Preview button before the Insert in Slide button is enabled.

Clicking the Insert in Slide button will place the video object into your current slide. Like any object in PowerPoint, you can then move it around on the slide and resize it to the desired dimensions. Of course. you will need to have an active Internet connection when you show your presentation, since the video is not copied to your computer, but streamed from the Internet when playing.

The authorSTREAM solution works for Office 2007 as well as Office 2010, so if you prefer you can use it in Office 2010 as well instead of the built-in functionality.