How to Make a Funeral Slide Show

Compiling a slide show detailing the life of the deceased person at a funeral can be a heartwarming and memorable way to honor the person's life. You may have seen TVs, laptops, or projection screens showing photos, videos, stories and quotes of the deceased person at a wake or at the gathering. Rather than using a poster board, use a digital slideshow that automatically changes what is displayed every few seconds, and gives people the chance to reflect on and remember the life of the person.

Gather photographs of the deceased person. Make sure to gather photos from different times of their life from childhood to adulthood and those photos that include friends and family in the photos.

Collect old documents such as writings, signatures and artwork the person may have made over their lifetime. Use judgement when choosing personal writings as you do not want to inadvertently reveal something embarrassing or potentially upsetting.

Find cards like birthday cards. Find memorabilia or old news stories involving the person, someone close to the person, or something the person really enjoyed.

Connect a scanner to your computer and scan these items one by one into the computer. You can also put multiple related items on the scanner at once to create a collage like image for slides.

Browse the internet and your computer for already digitized photos, news stories, and other memorable photos, stories or memories of the person.

Open a program such as Powerpoint or another slide show software on your computer. Create a new presentation and choose a style and theme that suits that tastes and style of the person.

Create various slides that include the photos, news clippings, stories and other items scanned in from earlier steps. You can organize them any way you choose. Some people choose to make the slideshow chronological, while others like it to be randomized.

Add text captions to various slides if you want to identify people in the photos and stories or if there are endearing quotes or memories from those events.

Include slides for family and friends to send you poems or words describing the person and make a few slides with these quotes and statements.

Upload old video footage onto your computer and embed it into slides of the slide show. Note that with this option the video may not play automatically during the slide show.

Use Powerpoint or the slide show software's add audio feature to import music or even your own voiceover describing the slides or reading text.

Save the slide show. Bring the saved file on your computer to where the slide show will be displayed. You could display it right on your laptop or connect to a larger screen or projector. Set the slide show to full screen and "repeat" so the slide show will continue looping over and over.