How to reduce the weight of your PowerPoint presentation?

If this is the case, it is likely that you will not be able to send your presentation by email or even in some cases that the flow of your slides will not be smooth. Fortunately, there are a few simple tricks to overcome this problem.

Identify large files

If you have access to certain software such as Photoshop for example, it is advisable to compress your images directly before importing them into PowerPoint. Note that an image in PNG format will be heavier than the same image in JPG format. The JPG format is therefore preferable if the image in question does not require any transparency.

It can be considered that the reasonable quality/weight ratio of an image does not exceed 500kb.

Here's how to check the weight of the different files in a presentation, identify the large files and then compress them individually.

• Create a copy of your Powerpoint file

• Rename the extension of the .pptx file to .zip (the Powerpoint file is automatically converted to a zip folder)

• Open the zip folder then go to the ppt > media folder, you have access to all the media present in your presentation (images, videos, icons...) and can sort them by size to identify the largest elements.

Compressing images directly in Powerpoint

There is a quick and easy way to reduce the weight of a presentation thanks to a tool directly integrated in the software. With this tool you have the choice to compress an image in a defined format but also to compress all the images of your presentation in one click.

• Select the image that you had previously identified as large thanks to the previous manipulation

• In the image format tab select compress images

• If you only have one image to compress, you can leave the top two boxes checked. If you want to compress multiple images, uncheck the first box. Choose the HD resolution (330 dpi), click OK, then save the presentation as a new file. You will notice that this is lighter than the original file. Keep in mind that the quality will decrease depending on the image compression option. Another way to reduce the size is to remove the cropping areas from the images.

Automatically compress all videos

There is also a similar way to reduce the weight of all the videos in a presentation while maintaining the highest quality rendering.

• Open the PowerPoint presentation you wish to compress. Under the File tab, click on Information and then Compress Media and then Full HD (1080p) or HD (720p ) if you want to go even further with the compression
• You can see the estimated weight gained for each of the videos
• Save the presentation again

Go through TinyJPG.com

TinyJPG is an online platform that allows you to compress up to 20 JPEG images at the same time. You just have to drag and drop your files on the site, they will then be automatically converted, compressed and re-downloaded as a zip folder.

Save your presentation in PDF format

If you only need to send your presentation without editing and without animations, the best solution is to save it as a PDF. It can also be easily attached by email.

• Open the PowerPoint presentation you want to compress. Under the File tab, click on Save As and then Browse
• In the new window, click on the Type drop-down menu and select PDF then save

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