Have you ever found yourself with a PowerPoint that turned into a HUGE file that was not conducive to emailing? Most of us have been there. Here I’ll explain a few tricks that can help you keep the size of your PowerPoint files reasonable.
Don’t copy/paste slides from old presentations
I think most of us have copy/pasted slides from old presentations into new presentations. Unfortunately, copy/pasting can contribute to larger file sizes. It’s okay to reuse your content, but try the “Reuse Slides” feature to save some space. You can find this function in the Home tab. Choose new slide, reuse slides.
Use the “Reuse Slides” function when you reuse materials from previous presentations to cut down on the overall file size of your PowerPoint.
Resize your photos
Often times large file sizes are a result of using photos that are too large. Photos should be resized before inserting them in a presentation. All photos should be under 5mb.
Don’t copy/paste or click and drag
When photos and images are copied and pasted or clicked and dragged into a presentation, PowerPoint doesn’t effectively compress the data which can cause an increase in overall file size. To avoid this, use the insert picture function found in the Insert tab. When images are added to PowerPoint using this function, the program does a better job of compressing them. On top of that, you can manually compress them further.
Compress your photos from within PowerPoint
This is a great feature of PowerPoint. To compress your images, click on a photo from within the presentation, open Picture Format and click Compress Pictures. Within the compression options, you can choose an appropriate output size for your purposes.
Deleted unused assets
Deleted unused assets like multiple slide masters or slide masters with video or high-res images that aren’t being used. Open the ‘View’ tab in the PowerPoint ribbon and select ‘Slide Master’. If you can see a number of masters that don’t appear in your presentation, then delete them. (TIP: do a save as so you don’t loose those slide masters for future need!)
Use correct file types
Avoid using TIFFs if possible to help reduce size – if they are tiffs you can save as JPEGS in PPT with the following:
- Right click your image and choose Save as Picture
- Choose JPEG from the Save as type drop-down options in the window that opens up
Save in the latest version of PowerPoint available
Your presentation should be saved as a “PowerPoint Presentation (*.pptx). Older versions may impact the size of your file.
Joe Ferlito is an account director and director of operations.
