Electronic Church Program

Has anyone found a great way to make the church program electronic? I was in a ward that emailed it. What else have you guys used or seen?

I've seen several ideas bounced around on the forum here, but none that have stuck. There are three main ways it could be distributed:
1. Distribute to all ward members (email, text, social media).
2. Distribute to anyone who walks in the building (QR code, near-field communication, screen at the front that shows the order of speakers).
3. Make it publicly available at a link (ward web site, ward app).

Some of the problems that have come up are:
– If the program contains people's names (or even contact info or birthdays, which it shouldn't), you have to control access somehow; otherwise, you have to make it very generic.
– In most wards (YSA wards could be an exception) there are some who prefer not to use technology, but want a physical program to hold onto.
– There's probably someone in your ward who doesn't have access to a smart phone or the internet.
– You can't expect as many people to use a digital program as would a physical program, because it's not handed to them – so you can no longer rely on it exclusively for anything important.
– It has to be maintainable for anyone new who receives the responsibility for programs.
– The purpose of a program is to make sacrament meeting feel special (like a program at a graduation or a concert), and digital programs would lose this benefit. But not all wards use programs anyway (it's not mandated by the Handbook) so this may not apply.

If you're in a position to experiment, I'd love to hear what you come up with and how it works!

I've been tasked with this same question -- how do we get rid of the paper programs? We will have a handful of printed ones available for those with no electronic access.

There are obvious hurdles and this has been brought up several times on the forums but no real discussion got going from those actually doing it and HOW they are doing it. I don't want to rehash the "why" and "this is a bad idea" but instead focus on the HOW.

Emailing out a PDF would be the easiest but it is NOT formatted well for reading on a small device. This has formatting challenges -- e.g. font size is fixed, line wrapping is based on paper layout/size, etc. This leaves the user scrolling and pinch zooming a lot.

My thought is to use the epub format and to create an online catalog of the programs. Epub files solve the formatting problems mentioned above. Users could use an epub reader that allows the user to 'add' a catalog/store via a URL. This URL would link to our sacrament programs in epub format. https://dearauthor.com/ebooks/create-yo ... s-dropbox/ Then we could update the catalog each week and the users epub reader on their electronic device would be refreshed when they access it. (Google Docs supports an export in epub format)

Has anyone tried such a thing? If you're doing it another way, how are you doing it?

After pitching my idea to my wife she coyly said, "why don't you just send it as an email to everyone?" With some basic formatting tools now in LCR for emails, I guess this is just as good, and quite a bit less complex, than an epub file. Or, I could do an email with the pdf and epub attached. Still thinking it through.... It has to be simple enough for others to maintain the process.

Hello - interesting discussion. I’ve been asked to create a virtual bulletin and found that several words in my area are doing this on Google sites. Here’s some examples:
[Links removed as they contain member's names]

Members can bookmark this, or even put it on the homepage of their smart phone, and access it every week. The communications/tech person in the ward can update it before Sunday, and even post a large QR code at the entrance so people can access it that way.

nottoman wrote: Sun Dec 11, 2022 3:24 pm found that several words in my area are doing this on Google sites. Here’s some examples:

It's a little concerning that programs complete with member's names and sometimes even contact information can be found in a public search.

Every week sometime Saturday evening we use Leadership & Clerk "Send Message" & pdf everyone the Sacrament Mtg program. We also have paper for people who are visiting or elderly.

So while we have these excellent resources to send programs electronically. I have taken time to step up my ward's program by making it interactive. I have noticed an increase in the use of digital devices during sacrament having since done this. I view this as a good sign as the program is much easier to use, now with links for all kinds of important things. All the phone numbers are clickable and will open the phone app on a smartphone. The hymns are clickable and will load the hymn. I have an idea to hopefully tie in a spreadsheet to automate as much of this as I can.... but it's all manual, still, currently. I do not personally find this makes it harder to put together....

you can find it below. I added some notes, but i hope the rest is easy enough to figure out. I'll do my best to answer queries. I hope others find this useful.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1qZ_ ... ue&sd=true