9 Funeral Slideshow Mistakes (and How to Avoid Them)
The most common funeral slideshow mistakes are: waiting until the last minute to start, using too many photos with too-fast timing, using fonts that aren't installed on the funeral home's computer, not testing on the actual equipment, using flashy transitions, embedding audio in the file, skipping older photos, not bringing a backup, and making it too long.
Here's each one and what to do instead.
1. Waiting until the last minute
This is by far the most common problem. The service is tomorrow morning and someone's assembling the slideshow at midnight. The photos are scattered across six different phones. The funeral home needs the file by 8 AM.
Start gathering photos as soon as you know there will be a service. Send one text to the family: "Send me your favorites." Even if you don't build the slideshow until later, having the photos ready buys you time.
2. Too many photos, too fast
The impulse is to include everything. Every photo feels important. How do you cut any of them? But a slideshow with 80 photos cycling every 3 seconds turns into a blur. Nobody can absorb it.
For a 5-minute slideshow during a service, 20-30 photos is the sweet spot. Give each image at least 5-7 seconds so people can actually look at it, remember that moment, and feel something.
3. Using fonts that don't come with PowerPoint
You find a beautiful script font, build the whole slideshow with it, and it looks great on your computer. Then the funeral home opens it on their machine and every slide says "Calibri" because they don't have your font installed.
Stick with fonts that come bundled with PowerPoint: Georgia, Cambria, Garamond, Calibri, Book Antiqua. They're on every machine, and several of them look genuinely elegant.
4. Not testing on the actual equipment
Your slideshow looks perfect on your 15-inch laptop. Then it gets projected onto a screen and the text is too small to read from the back row, or the dark photos are completely washed out by the projector.
If you can, do a quick test at the venue. If not, at least use large text (24pt minimum for captions), high-contrast colors, and avoid photos that are very dark. Ask the funeral director what their setup looks like. TV vs. projector matters a lot.
5. Flashy transitions
Spinning cubes. Checkerboard dissolves. Blinds that close like window shutters. PowerPoint has dozens of transitions and almost all of them are wrong for this.
Use a simple fade or a gentle push. The transition should be invisible. it's there to get from one photo to the next, not to draw attention to itself.
6. Embedding audio in the file
Putting a song inside the PowerPoint file seems convenient, but it causes problems more often than it works. The audio format might not be compatible with the funeral home's computer. The volume is either too loud or barely audible. The song starts at the wrong time.
Most funeral homes prefer to handle music separately through their sound system. Give them the slideshow file and tell them what song you want played. They do this every week. They know how to sync it up.
7. Only using recent photos
It's easy to lean on the last 5-10 years because those are the photos on your phone. But a slideshow that skips from baby pictures straight to grandparent pictures misses the middle of the story.
Dig into the old albums. The grainy photo from the 1970s, the awkward prom picture, the first apartment. Those are the images that surprise people in the room and remind them how full a life this was.
8. Forgetting a backup
You put the file on a USB drive and hand it to the funeral director. The USB drive doesn't mount. Or it mounted but the file is corrupted. Or they're running an ancient version of PowerPoint that chokes on the file.
Bring two USB drives. Email the file to the funeral home as a backup. Bring your own laptop in case everything else fails. Belt and suspenders. You'll feel silly being overprepared until the one time you need it.
9. Making it too long
A 15-minute slideshow during a service feels like an eternity. Even if every photo is beautiful, attention drifts. People start checking their phones. The emotional impact flattens out.
Keep the service version to 5-7 minutes. If you have more content than that, create a longer version that loops during the reception or visitation. That's the perfect setting for a more comprehensive photo collection. People come and go, watch a few slides, move on.
The real mistake
The real mistake is not making one at all because you were worried it wouldn't be good enough. An imperfect slideshow that exists will always mean more than a perfect one that never got made. Do your best with the time and photos you have. That's enough.