You probably know this scenario: you want to show a video to the public during your presentation, but you only have
a YouTube link. No video file. How do you get a YouTube film in PowerPoint? You simply place a YouTube video in PowerPoint in the following way:
Choose the slide where you want to insert the video. Go to the “Insert” tab and select “Online video” under “video”. Paste the URL of the YouTube video in the pop-up window and click on “Insert”. The YouTube video now appears as a thumbnail on your slide.
Play Video
Now that your YouTube movie has been inserted into PowerPoint, you can give it the right place on the slide. You can also buy real youtube views or scale the video larger or smaller just like with an image, or place it in a mock-up for example. During the slide show, you can now control the video as in your browser. You can click on the “play” button, fast-forward or rewind and adjust the volume. But you can also navigate through the presentation with the space bar or arrow keys. The video then automatically starts playing when you click. Do you want the video to play automatically? Then select the video and choose “start: automatic” in the “play” tab. Then the video will be played immediately when you arrive at the slide during your presentation.
Please note: You will always need an internet connection to play the YouTube video. Do you use a Windows computer? Then you must have Internet Explorer 11 installed. When you use Windows 10 this is automatically the case.
Embed YouTube in PowerPoint: different versions
Inserting a YouTube video in your presentation can vary per PowerPoint version. There is another way to place a YouTube video in PowerPoint for Mac than for Windows. Before you start, it is, therefore, useful to know which PowerPoint version you use. You can check this by opening PowerPoint and going to the “file” tab. Under “Account” choose “Info about PowerPoint”.
PowerPoint 2019 or Office 365
You can place a video in PowerPoint 2019 or Office 365 by performing the following steps:
- Copy the URL of the YouTube video that you want to use.
- Open PowerPoint, select a slide and go to the “Insert” tab. At “Video”, choose “Online video”.
- Paste the copied URL in the pop-up window and click on “Insert”.
- The video is now inserted in your presentation!
PowerPoint 2016
Inserting YouTube into PowerPoint 2016 is a bit more complicated than with Office 365, but still easy peasy lemon squeezy. This is how it works:
- Go to the YouTube video that you want to insert. Click the “share” button below the video. You can then choose “embed”. Copy the embed link.
- Open PowerPoint and go to the “insert” tab. Under “Video” choose: “Online video”.
- Paste the copied embed code in the bottom field: “Via the embed code of a video”. Then click on the arrow.
- The video is now inserted in your presentation!
PowerPoint 2013
Do you use PowerPoint 2013? Even then it works just a little differently. You don’t need a link to the video at all. You add a YouTube video in PowerPoint 2013 in the following way:
- Open PowerPoint and go to the “Insert” tab. At “Video”, choose “Online video”.
- You can now enter the title of the video in the search bar and press enter.
- Choose the video that you want to insert and select: “Insert.”
- The video is now inserted in your presentation!
Because Adobe Flash Player is no longer supported for YouTube, YouTube videos no longer work in PowerPoint 2010. The same applies to a YouTube video in PowerPoint 2007. With the help of various plug-ins, you could still place an online video in PowerPoint. I would not recommend that to you: it takes more effort and the result is not really about writing home. What you can do best is to insert your own video file. You can download a YouTube video from various sites as a video file. Entirely at your own risk of course. If you have a video file yourself, I would always recommend that you choose it over embedding a YouTube video in PowerPoint. It makes you a lot more flexible: you don’t need an internet connection and you can edit the video in PowerPoint. You can read how to do this here.
PowerPoint for Mac
Attention for Mac users: Inserting a YouTube video into PowerPoint for Mac is only possible if you used Office 365 or PowerPoint 2019. And this is how you do it:
Copy URL of the video that you want to insert
In PowerPoint, choose the slide on which you want the video