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How to reduce the file size of a powerpoint presentation.

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Convert your presentation to the pptx format, insert your pictures—don’t copy and paste, do image edits in an image editor—not in powerpoint, compress all of the images in your presentation, don’t use embedded fonts, link to files instead of embedding them, don’t store a thumbnail for the presentation, remove personal and hidden information from your presentation, turn off autorecover, copy everything into a new presentation, a possibility: unzip the presentation and compress it.

Considering that Microsoft PowerPoint presentations are generally accompanied with tons of images, gifs , embedded videos , charts , graphs, and other content, it’s no surprise that you get some pretty big files. Here are a few steps you can take to reduce a presentation's file size.

Large files can be annoying. They take up loads of precious disk space, slow down playback performance, and can cause emails to bounce back due to exceeding the file size limit. You can prevent all of these things by reducing the file size of your presentation.

We’ve mentioned it before, but the first thing you’d think of when considering file size reduction is images—and for a good reason. Image files can be quite large. There are steps you can take to reduce the size, such as compressing the images in the presentation. If you suspect the reason your PowerPoint file is so large is due to images, then be sure to read the article we’ve written on how to reduce the size of Office documents that contain images .

Related: How to Reduce the Size of a Microsoft Word Document

We do have some additional tips to add if you followed these steps but still need to reduce your presentation’s file size.

Microsoft released the PPTX format in Office 2007. Still, it’s not uncommon to see PPT files floating around. So what’s the difference between a PPT and PPTX file? The PPTX version compresses all of the content within the presentation. If you have a PPT file and convert it into a PPTX file, you’ll notice a decrease in the file size.

Converting the file is as simple as pressing a button and choosing the file type. Go ahead and open your PPT file, head over to the “File” tab, and then click “Convert.”

Windows File Explorer will appear. You’ll notice the Save As type is set as "PowerPoint Presentation." This is the PPTX file type. Click “Save.”

Your PPT file will now be converted to a PPTX file. As you can see, the size of the file has been reduced.

HTG Presentation 2 is our PPT file, and HTG Presentation 3 is our PPTX file. Merely converting the file type reduced the size by 335 KB.

While this isn’t a breathtaking drop in file size, we managed to reduce a Word document file size from 6,001 KB to 721 KB. It all depends on what’s inside the file. With any luck, this will be the only step you need to take. If not, keep reading.

It’s tempting to copy and paste an image in PowerPoint instead of using the insert function. This won’t be an issue if you’re not concerned about file size, but if you are, then beware of copy and paste—it may reformat your image to BMP or PNG. Why is this an issue? Both of those file formats are larger than JPG.

You can see in the above screenshot that the PNG file is 153KB compared to the 120KB JPG file of the same image. Each time you copy and paste a JPG file to PowerPoint, and it gets converted to PNG, you’re adding a bit of unnecessary file size to the presentation. Using the insert function will ensure your images are inserted as intended.

When you insert an image in PowerPoint, it’s best to make sure that it doesn’t need any edits. If it does require edits, you’re better off doing it in an image editor. Why? When you use PowerPoint to edit your image, it stores all of those edits as part of the presentation. For example, when you change an image to black and white, PowerPoint retains the full-color image as well. That’s a lot of extra bites being stored.

If you don’t have an image editor ( you do ) or you simply must use PowerPoint, be sure to tell PowerPoint to discard all of that excess data saved from the edits . It won't save you as much space as working in a dedicated editor, but it will help.

You can compress images in PowerPoint one at a time or all at once. If you’re looking to do the latter, here’s how.

Open your presentation, head over to the “File” tab, and then select “Save As” in the left-hand pane.

Next, select “More Options,” which you'll find under the area where you would name your file and choose the file type.

The “Save As” window will appear—this time with a few extra options available to you. Next to the “Save” button, click “Tools.”

In the drop-down menu that appears, select “Compress Pictures.”

The “Compress Pictures” window will appear. Here, you can choose the resolution type of the images (based on PPI) in the presentation. You’ll also notice that you’re not able to select the “Apply only to this picture” option in the “Compression Options” group. That’s because, due to the way we accessed this tool, this option isn’t available.

Note: If you do want to compress a single picture, select it and then head to Picture Tools Format > Compress Pictures.

Once you’re happy with your selection, click “OK.”

Be sure to save your presentation afterward.

We get why you might want to embed fonts—you might be making a Star Wars themed presentation and, as a result, anyone you may be sharing the presentation with is not likely to have those special fonts available to them. Embedding the fonts in your presentation could prevent issues down the line, but it comes at the cost of increased file sizes.

In general, unless you are sure you need to display a particular font, we recommend turning off font embedding.

Head over to the “File” tab and select “Options” at the bottom of the left-hand pane.

On the “Save” tab, untick the “Embed fonts in the file” checkbox and then click “OK.”

We saved a copy of our presentation with all fonts embedded, without fonts embedded, and with only the fonts used in the presentation embedded. Look at the difference if file sizes:

Convinced yet?

Consider the difference in file size if you embed an entire YouTube video in your presentation instead of linking back to it. Embedding an entire video will significantly increase the size of your presentation. There are certainly some valuable benefits when embedding a file vs. linking to it (such as when the recipient might not have internet access to play the video), but if the file size is an issue, just don’t do it.

Way back when Office let you save thumbnail images of your presentation so that you could get a sneak preview of the file when searching for it in File Explorer. Windows has grown to be more sophisticated, so it no longer requires the help of Office applications to do this. But, the option is still available.

We ran a little test to see the difference in file size with and without this option enabled. Here are the results:

With the thumbnail option enabled, our file size was 2,660 KB. Without the option enabled, the file size was reduced to 2,662 KB, saving a total of 7 KB.

This is a pretty small save, but when we tested it with a Word document, the difference was significant, showing 721 KB without the option enabled, and 3,247 KB with the option enabled.

While this is a large gap between applications and it’s not exactly clear why the difference is so large, it’s still an option worth exploring. To disable the feature, open your presentation, head over to the “File” tab, and then select “Properties” found on the right-hand side, then “Advanced Properties.”

You’ll now be in the “Summary” tab of the “Properties” window. At the bottom of the window, uncheck the box next to “Save preview picture,” and then click “OK.”

Microsoft Office will store your personal information (such as author name) and hidden properties within your presentation. Getting rid of this information can save you a bit of space.

Open your presentation, head over to the “File” tab, select the “Check for Issues” option, then select “Inspect Document."

The “Document Inspector” window will appear. Make sure the “Document Properties and Personal Information” box is checked, and then click “Inspect."

In the next window, select “Remove All.” The information will now be removed, saving you a few KB of space.

We don’t necessarily recommend this, and it should only be used as a last resort effort. AutoRecover is an essential tool in Office, and if you’ve ever lost a document before saving, then you understand precisely what we mean.

Each time Office uses AutoRecover, it adds a little to the size of the file. To turn AutoRecover off, head over to the “File” tab and select “Options” found at the bottom of the left-hand pane.

In the “Save” tab of the “Options” window, uncheck the box next to “Save AutoRecover information ever xx minutes.”

If you save and exit out of the presentation immediately, you won’t notice a difference. Over time though, as you continue to progress through the presentation, the AutoRecover feature will add KB to your file.

While you’re creating your presentation, PowerPoint will save various things in the background to help you out. We’ve mentioned how to turn off a lot of these features, delete data PowerPoint saves, and so on, but there’s always a chance something slipped through the cracks, and PowerPoint stored some information you don’t need. Copying your content over to a new presentation may be a good solution to the problem.

This may be a bit of a hassle though as, with PowerPoint, you’ll need to copy and paste each slide (and master slides). Once you do though, the new presentation won’t have any of the previous background saves, AutoRecover information, or previous versions of the file. As a result, you should see a change in file size.

While we can’t tell you exactly how much this will reduce your file size since each presentation will be different, it’s worth a shot.

As we mentioned earlier, a PPTX file is a compressed file (which is why the size is much smaller than an old-school PPT file). This means you can open it with a tool such as 7-Zip or WinRar, extract all the files from your PPTX, add them to a compressed archive, and then rename the archive to a PPTX file extension.

We had some issues here, though.

In Rob’s testing with his Word document, it successfully reduced the size of the file from 721 KB to 72 KB. However, it corrupted the file in the process. In my testing with my 2,614 KB file, it didn’t corrupt it, but it only reduced it to 2,594KB—a total of only 20 KB. We’re unsure what’s at play here, so if you want to give this a go, be sure to have a backup copy of your file before doing so.

That’s all the tips we've got for reducing the size of your PowerPoint presentation. We’re always looking for new and interesting ways to reduce the size of our files, so if you have any tips, let us know in the comment section, and we’ll be happy to test them out!

• Microsoft Office
• Office 2016

How to compress a PowerPoint file so that it loads faster and doesn't take up as much space

• You can easily compress a PowerPoint file's size, which makes it easier to share and save.
• When you compress your PowerPoint, you'll have to reduce the quality of any music, videos, or pictures you have in your slideshow.
• Once you've compressed your PowerPoint, it will load faster, but the media in it may not look as good.
• Visit Business Insider's Tech Reference library for more stories .

At some point in your slideshow-creating life, you've probably saved a PowerPoint presentation and realized that the file size is entirely too large. 

Larger file sizes make PowerPoints more difficult to send and save, and they also make each slide take longer to load.

One of the easiest ways to quickly reduce a PowerPoint presentation's file size is to compress it. When you compress a PowerPoint, you'll reduce the quality and size of every media file in the presentation. This includes videos, audio clips, animations, and photos.

If you compress them down to an appropriate size, your file size will be much smaller. However, your photos, videos, and other media probably won't look or sound as sharp.

Here's how to compress your media files in PowerPoint on a Mac or PC.

Check out the products mentioned in this article:

Apple macbook pro (from $1,299.00 at apple), acer chromebook 15 (from $179.99 at walmart), how to compress a powerpoint file on a pc.

1. In the ribbon or menu bar at the top of the screen, click "File." Make sure that "Info" is selected in the left sidebar.

2. Click "Compress Media." Depending on whether your version of PowerPoint was made before or after 2016, this button will either be next to the label "Multimedia" or "Media Size and Performance."

3. Choose one of the three options for media quality from the dropdown menu. These will differ based on which version you have as well, but they boil down to: 

• Select the highest quality option if you want to maintain high quality media for in-person presentations. 
• Select the middle option for quality akin to media found on the internet. 
• Select the lowest quality option if your file needs to be as compressed as much as possible — for example, if you need to send it via email.

How to compress a PowerPoint file on a Mac

In the Mac version of PowerPoint, you can only reduce the file size of images, not videos or music.

To do this:

1. Open your PowerPoint slideshow and click "File" in the menu bar at the top of the screen. If you only want to compress specific images, select them before clicking "File."

2. In the dropdown menu, click "Compress Pictures..."

3. You'll be shown a "Compression Table," which lists all the different ways you can compress the file. You'll have three main options:

• "Printing" will keep your pictures at the highest quality possible.
• "Viewing on screen" will reduce the quality of your pictures by about 30 percent.
• "Sending in an e-mail message" will compress them by another 30 percent or so.

You can also pick the fourth and last option, which will keep each picture's current resolution, but try to reduce the file size in other areas.

4. Select whether you'd like to delete parts of your pictures that have been cropped out — doing so will help reduce the file size.

5. Choose whether you'd like to compress every picture in the slideshow, or just the ones that you selected beforehand. Once you've decided, click "OK."

Related coverage from  Tech Reference :

How to add a border to slides in powerpoint, and give your slideshow a sleek design, how to embed a youtube video into your microsoft powerpoint presentations using a mac or pc, how to convert google slides to a powerpoint presentation in 4 easy steps, how to convert a powerpoint to google slides in 2 different ways, how to copy or duplicate a powerpoint slide and put it anywhere in your slideshow.

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Compress PPT Presentations Online

July 12, 2024 by Hung Nguyen

Learn how to reduce the size of your PPT files by more than half at no cost, using Smallpdf. No watermark, no registration, and no installation.

We’re well into the 21st century, but many email servers still have a 20–25 MB size limit for attachments. This isn’t an inconvenience when you’re sending or receiving simple documents or files. But it can be a severe impediment when you work on presentations and PPT files regularly.

Basic presentations of only a few text-based slides are rarely too large to send via email. But once you start adding charts and images to a PowerPoint presentation with more than 20 slides, the size can rapidly balloon past the email size cap.

Using the compression tools built into Windows and macOS might save you 1–2 MB. Cloud-based storage involves multiple steps for you and the recipient, and file transfer services usually require registration.

Smallpdf offers a simpler alternative that requires no registration and can reduce PowerPoint file size by more than half.

How To Compress a PPT File for Free

Upload your ppt to our compress tool ., choose “basic” once the compress panel appears., once compression is complete, select “export as” instead of “download.”, choose “powerpoint (.pptx),” and on the next screen select “convert selectable text only” and then the “convert” button., after conversion, you can download your document, share it, or save it..

Convert, compress, and download your PPT using Smallpdf

What Happens When We Compress PowerPoint Files

Smallpdf can compress PowerPoint files more effectively than zipping by first converting them to a PDF. During this process, our compressor looks for repeated patterns and data, replacing them with unique identifiers. This results in a much smaller file.

If what you wanted was a smaller PDF, you can download this once the conversion and compression are complete. But to reduce PowerPoint file size, the “Export As” option allows you to turn the PDF back into a PPT file. The layout remains unchanged, and all fields can still be edited in PowerPoint.

Once your file has been compressed and converted, you can either download it to your device, share a link to the file, or save it to your Dropbox or Google Drive account. If you have a Pro subscription, you can also save it to your Smallpdf storage.

One caveat is that compression can sometimes affect non-standard fonts, special characters, and emojis. To reduce the risk of any text in your presentation from being changed, you can embed the fonts used in your PowerPoint file.

• With your presentation open in PowerPoint, select “Preferences.”
• Select “Save” under “Output and Sharing.”
• In the panel that opens, check the “Embed fonts in the file” option.

Emojis are usually replaced by the “undefined” glyph—a rectangle with an X—during compression. If your presentation must include emoji, turn them into images first and add the image to your slides.

Other Measures to Reduce PowerPoint File Size

There are a few other steps you can take to make your PPT file smaller before compressing it.

Each high-resolution image in your presentation can add 2 MB or more to the file size. Instead of removing images essential to the presentation, try optimizing them first. This guide will take you through the steps to using our Compress tool on your images. Once you have compressed all your images, replace the high-resolution version with the optimized version.

You can also compress images using PowerPoint. Go to File and select “Compress Pictures”. This will give you a variety of options that you can experiment with to see what effect it has on the image quality and the file size.

Embedding videos in your presentation will also inflate the file size. Although Smallpdf can’t help with compressing video files, there are other online services that can. Alternatively, consider uploading the video to YouTube and then adding a link to it in the presentation.

Once you have finished compiling your PowerPoint presentation, run through all the slides again to ensure all unused slides and slide masters have been removed. You can reduce PowerPoint file size substantially by following these steps, and then you can use our Compress tool to make it even smaller.

Maintaining Quality and Formatting

Whenever you compress PowerPoint files, there is always some risk of losing quality. Text and vector graphics will remain clear with well-defined edges, but other images could end up with slightly blurred edges. Opting for Basic compression reduces this risk while still giving you a much smaller file. But always check the results before sending your file.

Our compression tool also retains the original formatting. You can still edit any text in your presentation, along with shifting, resizing, or removing individual images.

When uploading a file to our Compress tool, you’re uploading a copy. The original file is never removed from your device. So, if you are unhappy with any results, you still have the uncompressed original to work with.

Go Pro and Get More Done

Smallpdf is free to use, and you don’t need to create an account. However, you are limited to two downloads a day using any of our more than 20 tools . If you create a Smallpdf account, you unlock a 7-day free trial with unlimited downloads and access to other Pro features. You can also download our Windows app, allowing you to compress PowerPoint files, JPGs, and other file types offline. After 7 days, you can switch back to a free plan with limited downloads or subscribe to a Pro, Team, or Business plan.

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How to Reduce Powerpoint File Size

Last Updated: March 29, 2022

This article was co-authored by wikiHow staff writer, Jack Lloyd . Jack Lloyd is a Technology Writer and Editor for wikiHow. He has over two years of experience writing and editing technology-related articles. He is technology enthusiast and an English teacher. This article has been viewed 979,490 times. Learn more...

This wikiHow teaches you how to lower a PowerPoint presentation file's size by compressing its images on a Windows or Mac computer, or by clearing the editing data on a Windows computer. There is currently no option to delete the editing data of PowerPoint presentations on a Mac.

Compressing Images on Windows

• If your PowerPoint file isn't yet open, first open it by double-clicking it.
• It doesn't matter which picture you double-click, since all of them will open the appropriate tab.

Compressing Images on Mac

Removing Edit Data on Windows

Expert Q&A

• Using JPEG files rather than other file formats will cut down on your presentation's overall size. Thanks Helpful 0 Not Helpful 0
• When formulating a presentation, using the default plain backgrounds in your slides will make your file smaller than if you upload detailed backgrounds. Thanks Helpful 0 Not Helpful 0
• If you can't get your PowerPoint file to shrink down enough to send it via email, you can upload it to a cloud service (e.g., Google Drive) and send an email with a link to the file instead. Your recipient will be able to download the file from Google Drive. Thanks Helpful 0 Not Helpful 0

• Reducing your images' quality will make a noticeable difference in your PowerPoint's overall quality. Thanks Helpful 1 Not Helpful 1

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• ↑ https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Reduce-your-file-size-631d1d48-a56b-4fd4-ad66-091dd201db10?ui=en-US&rs=en-US&ad=US&fromAR=1#bmpp
• ↑ http://www.isumsoft.com/it/reduce-powerpoint-file-size-in-office-2016/

About This Article

1. Double-click an image. 2. Click Compress Pictures . 3. Remove the check mark from “Apply only to this picture.” 4. Select a lower DPI. 5. Click OK . 6. Click File . 7. Click Options . 8. Click Advanced . 9. Click Discard editing data . 10. Click OK and save the file. Did this summary help you? Yes No

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How to Compress a PowerPoint Presentation

PowerPoint is an amazing audiovisual tool for presentations. It allows you to add images, graphs, videos, and pretty much everything you might need in order to craft the perfect complement. But precisely because of this, sometimes PowerPoint documents can end up taking a lot of space. So, how do you share your presentation when it’s just too big? Here you’ll learn how to easily compress a PowerPoint presentation to share it with whomever you want.

How to compress a PowerPoint presentation directly

Thankfully, PowerPoint has some compress options built into it, so learning how to compress a PowerPoint presentation is a very straightforward business. You have 2 main options.

1- How to compress images in a PowerPoint presentation

a. Select the image you want to compress. Once you do this, the Picture Format tab will appear at the end of your tools ribbon.

b. Select Compress Pictures

c. A new window will pop up. Now you just need to choose how much you want to compress your PowerPoint images accordingly to your needs:

Take into consideration that if you untick the Apply only for this picture option, all of the PowerPoint presentations images will be compressed. If you’re looking for how to compress a presentation will a lot of images, then this one is a great option for you.

2- How to compress a PowerPoint with a video

If your presentation has a video in it, chances are it’s a pretty big file! To compress your PowerPoint document just follow these steps:

a. Go to File > Info

b. Choose the Compress Media option. Just like with images, it will give you quality options, and pick the one that fits better your needs.

c. A new window will pop up to show you the compressing progress. Once it’s completed, it will also tell you how much space are you saving by compressing your PowerPoint media. Just click Close when the process is completed, and you can go back to work on your presentation.

Other options for sharing your presentations

However, if you compress a PowerPoint presentation you’ll probably lose some quality. The more you compress an image, the more quality it will lose. This is especially important to take into consideration if you’re planning to use a big projector, as it will make bad quality images pretty noticeable.

If compressing your PowerPoint presentation it’s just not doing it for you, of you don’t want to sacrifice some of its quality, here are some alternative options for sharing your files:

1- ZIP Files

A pretty straightforward way on how to compress a PowerPoint presentation is simply to use a ZIP File. ZIP files allow you to compress many documents into one directory. Windows 10 has built-in an option for file compressing. You just need to go to your File Explorer and right-click the PowerPoint presentation to compress. Select Send to > Compressed (zipped) folder . And that’s all!

If you’re not working with Windows 10, you can download a file archiver and compressor software, like WinZip or WinRAR (for earlier Windows versions). These will allow you to easily compress PowerPoint presentations, and pretty much everything else. There are many free compressors available, so it’s just a matter of finding the one that suits you the best.

Take into consideration that, when sending a compressed PowerPoint presentation in this way, the receiver must also have a compressor software, like the ones mentioned above. This will allow them to decompress the document and get access to it. It’s also important to know that ZIP Files might not compress a PowerPoint presentation enough for it to be sent by e-mail. It depends mainly on the size of the original file. Thankfully, there are other options for sharing your presentations!

2- Cloud Sharing

Cloud sharing is an excellent way to share files that are otherwise too big to send by e-mail. You don’t even need to know how to compress a PowerPoint to use this method. You just need to register in a cloud storage service, like Google Drive or Dropbox , and upload your presentation. Once it’s uploaded, you can send the link to whoever you want, and they will instantly gain access to it.

If it’s a particularly big document, you can even mix this option with the previous one. You can compress your PowerPoint presentation in a ZIP file, and upload the compressed version. This will make it easier and quicker for you to upload it, and for your receivers to download it.

3- PDF format

Converting your presentation to a PDF document is one of the easiest ways to compress your PowerPoint presentation in order to share it. It will immediately lower your file size and allow you to share it through all kinds of means, including e-mails.

However, one very important thing to take into account when using this method to compress a PowerPoint presentation is that you’re changing the file’s format. And this had both its ups and downs. For starters, this means that whoever receives it will not be able to access it as a PowerPoint presentation. Your slides will be converted to PDF pages, and while images and graphs will likely remain, any videos or voice notes in your presentation will not be added in the converted document.

But this also has an ad additional advantage. This means the receiver will not be able to edit it. If you’re sending a PowerPoint presentation and you don’t want it altered or copied in any way, sending it as a PDF file is a good option. It all depends on what you’re looking for!

Hopefully, you have now learned how to compress your PowerPoint presentations. Now you can share them with whomever you like, whether it is team members, coworkers, or your audience. Good luck!

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How to Compress a PowerPoint

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• April 22, 2019

Before you go to the effort of compressing your PowerPoint presentation, ask yourself if you even need to bother?

If you are not having trouble sharing your presentation, or you don’t need to email it to anyone (maybe you can share it on a USB instead), don’t worry about how large your presentation is.

If you’ve added lots of images, videos, graphics, and 3D models, your PowerPoint presentation might be huge. But so what?

Only follow these steps if you find that your presentation is becoming unwieldy or too big to share. And then, only do the minimum required to get to a functional state.

Table of Contents

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1. Compress Images in PowerPoint

If you have lots of images in your presentation, you can save a lot of space by compressing them. This is a fast and uncomplicated way to reduce your PowerPoint file size.

You can also save a lot of file space in PowerPoint by converting your PNG images into JPEG images. To learn how to do that before you compress your images, read our guide here .

Notice in the picture above how much space was saved using the different compression options.

The HD (96 ppi) compressed file is 17x smaller than the original presentation. Just make sure when you compress your images that you pay attention to their quality.  The more you compress an image in PowerPoint, the more quality you will lose.

Ideally you want to use the HIGHEST quality resolution as possible, especially if you are presenting on a large overhead projector.

To compress your images in PowerPoint, follow these steps.

1. Open the Picture Format tab

Select a picture in PowerPoint to open the Picture Format tab in your Ribbon and select it.

The Picture Format tab is where all the commands and features related to working with and editing images are located.

For example, to see how to turn an image into a black and white drawing using the Artistic Effect features in PowerPoint, read our guide here .

If you do not see the Picture Format tab in your PowerPoint Ribbon, it means you have not selected an image or photo to work with. The Picture Format tab is contextual and will open only once you have selected an image or picture to work with.

2. Select the Compress Pictures command

Inside the Picture Format tab, find and select the Compress Pictures command.

Depending on your screen resolution and the size of your computer monitor, this command might appear as just an icon.

Either way, the icon should be to the right of the Transparency command.

3. Choose your compression options

You have two main compression options to choose from:

Apply only to this picture : This determines if the resolution you pick is applied only to the picture you have selected or to all the pictures within your presentation.

Most often, your images will require different compression resolutions. That’s why I recommend keeping the Apply only to this picture option selected and working your way through the images in your presentation one by one.

If you know that you want all of the pictures in your presentation compressed to a specific resolution, you can choose to unselect this option.

Delete cropped areas of pictures: Selecting this option removes any cropped areas in your pictures as part of the compression process. This will dramatically decrease the size of any images you have cropped.

However, please note that once you do this, you lose all the parts of the images that you cropped out. This means that you won’t be able to return to the original image and adjust the cropping.

To expand your knowledge and learn how to crop your pictures in PowerPoint to save additional space before you compress them, read our guide here .

4. Choose your resolution

Next, choose the resolution you want your image(s) compressed to. The smaller the resolution, the smaller the size of the images and the smaller the size of your presentation.

The question is, what is the best resolution to pick? This depends on how you plan to give your presentation.

If you’re presenting on a large overhead projector, I recommend choosing a higher resolution like HD (330 ppi) so that all your images are sharp and clear. If you are printing or just showing someone your presentation on your laptop, then Print (220 ppi) is fine.

I don’t recommend going much smaller than these two resolutions as the overall quality of your images will decrease rapidly.

For more help choosing the right resolution when compressing images in PowerPoint, see our guide here .

5. Click OK

Once you have made your compression choices and picked a resolution, click OK and PowerPoint will compress your image(s) for you.

Once PowerPoint finishes compressing your images, I recommend reviewing the quality of the compression to make sure everything looks okay. If you find that your image looks grainy, hit Ctrl+Z to undo and choose a higher resolution.

2. Compress Videos in PowerPoint

Videos and media files (like audio files) can be huge!

So if you have a video or other media files in your presentation, compressing them is another fast way to reduce your PowerPoint file size.  Or better yet, if you realize you are not using a specific video (or rarely use it), remove it.

Using the default video compression options in PowerPoint, I saw the following results, reducing my file size by over 6x.

To compress your videos and other media in PowerPoint, simply follow the following steps.

1. Select the File tab

Click the File tab to open the backstage view of PowerPoint.

Videos and other media are all compressed in the backstage view of PowerPoint, not in the Video Format tab like you might think.

2. Select the Info tab

Find and click the Info tab to access the Compress Media tools.

3. Open the Compress Media dropdown

Inside the Info tab and u nderneath Media Size and Performance, PowerPoint tells you the total size of the media files (video and audio) in your presentation.

Find and select the Compress Media command, which should be at the top of the Info tab. 

If you do not see the Compress Media command, that means that you don’t have any media that PowerPoint can compress.

You can only compress videos and other media inside your current PowerPoint presentation. 

If you have narrated your presentation using PowerPoint’s built-in Record Slide Show command, your narration videos and audio do not require compression. To learn how to narrate a PowerPoint using PowerPoint’s built-in Record Slide Show command, read our guide here .

4. Choose a compression file size

In the Compress Media dropdown, choose one of the three compression options for your videos and other media:

• Full HD (1080p)
• Standard (480p)

If you are not sure which compression option to choose, I recommend at least compressing using the Full HD (1080p) option. In my compression tests, the Full HD (1080p) reduced the size of my original video by half.

Full HD (1080p) works great for any overhead projector or monitor you will be presenting on. If you need to save more space, you can test out one of the smaller formats. But be careful. Just like when compressing images and photos, the more you compress your videos (or other media) the lower the quality of your video.

As a best practice when building presentations, use the highest compression rate you can without sacrificing the quality of the videos (or other media).

5. Wait as PowerPoint compresses your videos

After choosing a compression size, PowerPoint will begin compressing all the videos in your presentation. When it’s done, a dialog box will show you how much space you saved with each compressed video.

For example, for a raw video I inserted and compressed in PowerPoint, I saved 872.5 MB. That is A LOT and it allows me to share my presentation more easily.

To expand your knowledge and learn how to embed a video in PowerPoint (and learn how it is different than embedding a YouTube video), read our guide here .

3. Clean out the Master Views in PowerPoint

Before you worry about compressing any of your images or videos, see if you can reduce your file size by removing hidden and unused elements in your presentation.

One of the culprits of a large PowerPoint file size (especially if you don’t feel like you have that many slides in your presentation), is hidden graphics on one or more of the following masters in PowerPoint:

• Slide Master (most common)
• Handout Master
• Notes Master

It’s common to find excessively large graphics or things you can eliminate to reduce file size in your different master views. That said, you do not want to just delete anything you find there. That is because someone might have set them up for a reason in the first place. Double-check before you start deleting things, but this is a common way to cut down the size of your deck

A. Slide Master - Hidden graphics

To navigate to the Slide Master view to spot check your child slide layouts, simply:

• Navigate to the  View tab
• Select  Slide Master
• Spot check your  Child Slide layouts

Here you want to look at your Child Slide layouts and see if there are any with extremely large pictures or media files that you are not using.

Then you can decide whether to compress them (as mentioned above) or delete them.

You might also find a lot of duplicate  Child Slide  layouts that you can simply remove. This happens when people copy and paste between presentations that don’t have a consistent or well-built PowerPoint template. To expand your knowledge and learn how to create your own custom PowerPoint template from scratch, read our guide here .

B. Handout Master - Hidden graphics

To navigate to the Handout Master view of your presentation, simply:

• Select  Handout Master  in your Ribbon
• Spot check your  Handout Master

Here you are looking for excessively large company logos or graphics that you can compress or remove.

PowerPoint shapes such as rectangles, lines and text boxes are fine. Removing them will not impact the size of your presentation.

Formatting your  Handout Master is a fantastic way to create customized slide handouts of your presentation, but if there are excessively large graphics here, compressing or removing them can help you decrease the size of your presentation.

C. Notes Master - Hidden graphics

To navigate to the Notes Master view of your presentation, simply:

• Navigate to the  View Tab
• Select  Notes Master  in your Ribbon
• Spot check your Notes Master

If you find any excessively large images, or multi-media elements here, removing them will reduce your overall file size. You don’t have to worry about any shapes, lines, or text boxes (these will never increase the size of your presentation). You are looking for unnecessarily large graphics, or graphics that are placed outside of the Notes Master area (as those will never appear on your handouts anyway).

Formatting the Notes Master is a terrific way to create branded handouts for your speaker notes. However, if there are large graphics here that you are not using, compressing, or removing them can help reduce the size of your presentation.

To learn more about your Notes Master and how it affects the formatting and layout of your speaker notes in PowerPoint, read our guide here .

To expand your knowledge and learn how to professionally print your speaker notes in PowerPoint, read our guide here .

4. Swap out 3D Models and Other Media

If you have the Office 365 subscription ( check it out here ), you can now add 3D models and graphics into your presentations from the Insert Tab, 3D Models dropdown.

• Click the Insert tab
• Open the 3D Models dropdown
• Select the location source for your 3D model

Below are examples of animated 3D models you can insert into PowerPoint. I’ve selected the rhinoceros.

These 3D models can be quite large and there is currently no way to compress them. Notice in the picture below how adding just one animated 3D model adds over 26 MB to the PowerPoint file.

So if you need to reduce the size of your presentation, try to replace any 3D models with a static image. For example, instead of using the 3D rhinoceros, use a picture of a rhinoceros instead.

Notice that the picture of the rhinoceros is 7x smaller than the 3D model on the left.

If you want to keep the 3D look of your model, you can also Copy ( Ctrl+C ) and Paste Special ( Ctrl+Alt+V ) your 3D model as a PNG image. That will retain the 3D look of the model in your presentation without its size. To expand your knowledge and learn more about the Paste Special shortcut (which is also the trick to pasting formatting in Excel), read our guide here .

5. Convert PowerPoint to PDF

If you don’t need to present using PowerPoint, instead of trying to compress your presentation, you can simply convert it to the PDF file format.

That’s because the PDF conversion process automatically compresses images and removes any videos, 3D models, etc.

To convert your presentation to the PDF file format, simply:

• Hit  F12  to open the  Save As dialog box
• Change the  File Type  to PDF
• Click  Save

Just be aware that not everything in your presentation will properly convert to the PDF file format. You will lose quite a few things, such as animations and transitions.  To learn all the ins and outs of converting a PowerPoint presentation into a PDF file format, read our guide here .

6. Compress PowerPoint as a ZIP File

As a last resort, you can also try to reduce the size of your presentation by compressing it into a ZIP file.

While this technique compresses everything in your presentation, it doesn’t always save you a ton of space.

For example, notice in the picture below how my file size has only been reduced by 4MB using this ZIP folder technique.

If you need to keep all of your videos, graphics, and 3D models as they are, this might be your best bet Just keep in mind that it might not save you a ton of space and you may be  better off using something like OneDrive, Google Drive or Dropbox.

How to create a compressed (zipped) folder

To compress your PowerPoint presentation into the ZIP file format, simply:

• In File Explorer,  Right-Click  your file
• Select  Send to
• Choose the  Compressed (zipped) folder  option

Selecting the Compressed (zipped) folder , PowerPoint compresses your presentation as much as possible. How much room it saves depends on what is in your presentation. If you have already compressed your images and other multi-media files, then you will not save much space.

Below you can see the dialog box showing you that your presentation is being compressed.

How to extract a compressed (zipped) folder

To decompress a zipped file, simply:

• Right-Click the zipped folder
• Select  Extract All…
• Choose a  File Location  to extract your folder to
• Click  Extract

Extracting your file turns your zip folder into a normal folder with your original PowerPoint file in it. Instead of just zipping your PowerPoint file, you can add additional files to a folder and ZIP the entire folder. In this way, you can reduce the overall file size of a number of files or documents you want to share with a client or colleague.

Compressing the different elements of your presentation is a great way to reduce your overall PowerPoint file size.

Just remember that compressing your PowerPoint presentations is an optional step. If you are not having any trouble sharing it with other people, don’t bother.

That’s because while reducing your file size can make it easier to share with others, it can also decrease the quality of the images and media.

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Home Blog PowerPoint Tutorials How to Compress PowerPoint Presentations

How to Compress PowerPoint Presentations

Many users, when sharing PowerPoint files via email, can end up realizing that the file is too big to be sent via their email service provider because of its excessive file size. While there are many third-party apps that enable sending large files via sharing links, not only can they be less secure to use for confidential documents, but the files might take a while to download by the recipient due to the heavy file size. therefore, Compressing a PowerPoint presentation can help you avoid such issues.

Compress a PowerPoint Presentation File

There are different methods by which you can compress a PowerPoint file and elements within the file to reduce the file size and make your slide deck more manageable.

1.  Compress Images in PowerPoint

The most common method to reduce the file size of a PowerPoint presentation is to compress slide images. This method is also quite useful if you’re wondering how to compress a ppt file for email since it provides the option to reduce the images down to a very low resolution of 96 PPI, which is usually sufficient to make the presentation small enough for an email attachment.

To compress one or more images in PowerPoint, select an image from the presentation, go to the Picture Format tab, and select Compress Picture from the Adjust menu.

From the dialog box that appears, you can choose various compression options. If you want only to compress the selected image, check Apply only to this picture checkbox.

The compression options available from the given dialog box can be used to reduce the size of the current or all images in the presentation file for print (220 PPI), web (150 PPI), and email (96 PPI), or you can choose the default resolution.

2. Compress Video and Audio in PowerPoint

Video and audio files can take up a lot of space and make PowerPoint presentations difficult to manage due to their large file size. If you have media files added to PowerPoint that are heavy, your presentation might also lag in SlideShow mode. To compress video and audio files in PowerPoint, go to File > Info > Compress Media . Select a lower resolution of the media files from the drop-down menu to reduce their file size.

This will reduce the file size for video and audio files, with information regarding how much the files were compressed.

You can play to preview the media files to ensure the quality of the converted media files is satisfactory. Suppose you aren’t satisfied with the compression quality and reduced file size.

In that case, you can also compress the media files using third-party tools, including online converters like CloudConvert and ZamZar or media file conversion apps like HandBrake, Xilisoft audio/video converter, Freemake audio/video converter, etc.

3. Remove Heavy Graphics and Slide Elements

Another easy method to compress PowerPoint is to remove unwanted elements to reduce the file size. You can either do this directly from slides or edit the layouts of the deck via View > Slide Master .

4. Replace Media Files with Links and Embedded Content

You can also replace certain files that might be making your slides heavy. Embedding the media files directly via online sources like YouTube or by adding links to media instead of embedding files in your presentation will significantly reduce file size.

5. Convert PowerPoint File to Compress File Size

If you don’t need to present your slides as a PowerPoint file, Converting PowerPoint presentations to a different format, such as PDF, can compress the file size. This will also remove media files such as audio and video files that you can instead add as a clickable link for the recipient prior to conversion.

6. Compress a PowerPoint File using a File Compression Format

To share a PowerPoint file online in a compressed format, you can convert it to a ZIP file or use a number of formats supported by your operating system or third-party apps such as RAR, 7z, GZIP, TAR, XZ, WIM, etc. The compression feature is often integrated via the right-click context menu or long tap for mobile operating systems.

Some of the most famous tools known to provide a high file compression ratio and various security features for file compression include 7-Zip, WinRAR, WinZIP, PeaZip, etc.

Compressing your PowerPoint presentation can help reduce the file size, making it easier to share via email, improve loading times, and reduce storage space. It also ensures that the recipient can quickly download and access the presentation.

The most common method is to compress the images in your presentation: – Select an image in your presentation. – Go to the Picture Format tab. – Click on Compress Pictures in the Adjust group. – Choose the desired compression options (e.g., for print, web, or email).

If the media quality is unsatisfactory, you can compress the media files separately before adding them back to your presentation using third-party tools. Tools like HandBrake, Xilisoft, and Freemake can help you achieve better compression results.

To reduce the file size by removing unnecessary elements: – Review each slide and identify heavy graphics, images, and other elements that can be removed or simplified. – Use the Slide Master view to make global changes to the slide layouts, reducing the number of heavy elements across all slides.

Yes, you can replace media files with links to online sources or embed content directly from websites like YouTube. This reduces the file size significantly by not storing large media files within the presentation.

You can convert your PowerPoint presentation to a PDF: – Go to File > Save As. – Choose PDF from the file format options. – Save the file. This will remove media files and significantly reduce the file size.

Yes, you can use file compression tools like 7-Zip, WinRAR, or WinZIP: – Right-click on the PowerPoint file. – Select Send to > Compressed (zipped) folder. – Alternatively, use third-party tools to compress the file into ZIP, RAR, or 7z formats.

The potential downsides include: – Loss of media quality due to compression. – Incompatibility issues if the recipient does not have the required software to decompress the file. – Reduced functionality if converting to a different format like PDF, as interactive elements may be lost.

To work with full compatibility: – Use common compression formats like ZIP. – Provide instructions or links to software if using less common formats like RAR or 7z. – Consider sharing a link to an online version of the presentation if possible.

Compressing PowerPoint files can have pros and cons, including loss of media quality or inability of the recipient to open the file if it’s in a compression format that requires a specific app that he/she might not have. Therefore, you should pick a mode of compression that is convenient enough for you and the recipient of the file.

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How to compress PowerPoint presentations and reduce picture file size

• Written by: Richard Goring
• Categories: PowerPoint design , PowerPoint productivity
• Comments: 28

Media-rich presentations are great. Including high-quality images and videos often adds hugely to audience engagement, but it also adds file size. Adding to your file size means that your presentation is likely to sit on the unfriendly size of email etiquette, but it also means your PowerPoint will run a lot slower (and it may crash – see this article for more on that ). But is there an answer? Absolutely. Here are five ways to compress PowerPoint file size for easy emailing and speedy running of your presentation.

View our tips in this video.

The content from the video can be found in the article below.

Method 1: Compress PowerPoint presentations using in-built tools

Did you know PowerPoint has a built-in picture and video compression tool? Well it does, and it’s really easy to use.

• Select a picture on any slide and go to the Picture Tools Format tab on the ribbon.
• Choose Compress Pictures in the top left corner: the pop-up box shows you the resolution options you have for the image. For most purposes the web resolution of 150ppi is fine, but if it’s a particularly large screen you’re using, or you’re going to print it, maybe choose the print 220ppi option. This reduces the resolution of the image down to that level, which should help reduce the file size of the image a bit.
• If you uncheck the first box, you’ll apply that resolution change to all of the images in the deck, pushing the file size down further.
• It’s interesting to note that if you crop an image in PowerPoint, the cropped portion of the image is still there, just hidden away. That also adds to the file size of the PowerPoint, so checking the second box will delete any of these hidden areas, potentially reducing your file size quite a bit more.
• Navigate to the File tab in PowerPoint, and the Info page should be selected.
• If you have video files in your PowerPoint the first button on this page will be to ‘Compress Media’. Click this button and choose the quality you want PowerPoint to compress your file to. 1080p is fine for almost any application, and in many instances 720p will work well too.
• Once you’ve chosen a video resolution, you’ll see a new window open showing the progress of the compression. It’ll also tell you how much space has been saved after the compression has been completed – handy.
• Check your video after it’s compressed to make sure it still looks good. If you realise you’ve made a terrible mistake, you can also undo the last compression from the same ‘Compress Media’ drop-down menu.

That may do the trick, but sometimes you’ll come across a presentation that stubbornly refuses to yield a decent file size. At this point, you need to get tricksy.

Method 2: Locating large files in your PowerPoint

A problem you can face when you need to compress PowerPoint slides is that, often, you don’t know which object is causing your file size to jump so much. It might be that 90% of your media files are a combined total of 5MB, but there’s one troublesome image that is 30MB on its own. Here’s a fool-proof way of finding which files are causing you problems.

• Go to the folder where the presentation is stored. You can see the file size in the bottom left corner. Go to the view tab at the top and select the File name extensions box over on the right-hand side. This puts the file type extension at the end of all your files, so for PowerPoint, it’s .pptx.
• Now, copy and paste your PowerPoint file, using Ctrl + C and Ctrl + V. On the copy of the file, click on the .pptx and change it to .zip. Windows will give you a warning that you could ruin your file, but that’s OK, because this is a copy and the original is still safe. Say yes, and then you’ll see that your PowerPoint file has now turned into a zip file.
• Open the zip file and you’ll be greeted with a lot of unfriendly looking folders. Go into the ppt folder and there are even more unfriendly folders. Then go into the media folder, and here you’ll find all the images, music, and video files used in your presentation. At this point, you can sort them by file size, and easily see the culprits that are jacking up your storage allocation.
• Once you’ve got them, you have a couple of options. You could go into an image editing program, and the Photos app in Windows 10 is actually really good for this. Simply open an image, go to the dots menu on the right-hand side, choose Resize, and then adjust the resolution of the images easily. In most presentations you can take this down to the 2MP setting, or define custom dimensions, with the smallest side around 1000 pixels.
• A neat way of actually finding the large image within the deck is to delete the large image in the zip file and change it back to a .pptx from a .zip. When you open it up in PowerPoint your picture will have been replaced by a white box with a red cross in it. Right click on the white box, choose Change Picture, and find a different, or a lower resolution image to fill the gap.

For video you’ll likely need to use another tool, so find the video files using the zip method, or extract them using the free BrightSlide PowerPoint add-in ( File & Master > Export Media Files ), and then use the methods below with the free Handbrake video editing software.

Method 3: Reducing picture resolution in PowerPoint

• In PowerPoint, find the image that’s huge (using method 2), copy it, and reduce the size of it physically on the slide.
• Copy the new smaller image using Ctrl + C, and then paste it using Ctrl + V. Before doing anything else, you’ll see there’s a little pop-up box in the bottom right of the image, which are the paste options. Choose the ‘Picture’ option and your image is now a new picture at a lower resolution (because you made it smaller on the slide). Then use this to replace your existing image, which will cut out the large file size version.
• If you’ve got lots of animation on your image or it’s in a group and you don’t want to have to redo it, right click on the new smaller image, choose Save as Picture, and save it somewhere.
• Right click on the original picture, and choose Change Picture, which allows you to find another image to replace it with. If you choose the image that you’ve just saved, you shouldn’t see any difference on the slide, but your old large file size image should now have been replaced with the lower resolution, smaller file size image, helping to reduce the file size of your presentation.

Method 4: Use the correct file types

Another tip is to think about the type of image file you’re working with. The three most common are JPEGs, PNGs, and TIFs. JPEGs are the most common. They’re usually slightly lower quality, but it’s often difficult to tell, unless the screen is really good or very large. PNGs provide excellent quality for the size, and also allow you to have transparent areas of your images, but that comes at a cost, with file size usually pretty high. TIF files are often produced by high quality cameras in professional photo shoots. They’re great for print, but overkill in a PowerPoint presentation. So if you’re struggling with the file size on a particular image, try saving it as a JPEG:

• In PowerPoint 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.

Method 5: Streamline your PowerPoint file by deleting things you don’t need

The last way to keep your file size low is to make sure you don’t have anything in the file that you don’t actually need. What might this be? Well, it’s things like huge Slide Masters and templates with images and graphics on them that you just won’t ever use. To streamline your PowerPoint file:

• 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.
• If your template uses a lot of images, and you can’t delete them, then use one of the other methods to compress them to save a little space.

Tip 1: Always ‘Save As’ – you might not need those layouts this time, but you might need them in the future.

Tip 2: If you have a number of layouts you don’t use then it might be worth chatting to the team that put the template together to see if they can reduce the number of slides in the interests of keeping file size low.

And all of these tips combined will help you to compress PowerPoint files, resulting in svelte slide decks that you can use and share with ease!

How to reduce video file size with HandBrake

If you want fine detail control over resolution or codecs, or want to remove parts of the video, you’ll need to use a specialist video tool. A terrific one is HandBrake , a free, excellent quality video transcoder that possibly has the best logo and program icon ever. You can use HandBrake to change the format, codec, resolution, frame rate, and bitrate, plus loads more. If that sounds a bit technical, sorry, but the presets are really good. Drag the video file you want to compress into Handbrake, and in the Presets drop-down menu in the top left, choose either Fast 1080p30 or Fast 720p30 (that’s 1080p resolution at 30 frames per second), and then the green Start Encode button at the top. This will often magically reduce file size by up to half, and it takes only a few minutes.

If you’re really keen, you can use the Range options at the top to trim the video, removing a lot of unwanted footage. This is essentially the same as the trimming function in PowerPoint, but you immediately remove all the footage from the video, rather than having to use the compress media function. You may want to do this if you want to keep the resolution of your video, and it’s larger than the highest 1080p resolution available with compress media, such as 4K.

It may also be useful to use HandBrake to convert the format of a video not playing in PowerPoint. My colleague John has written a nice overview of how to do this and what else you can do if embedded videos in PowerPoint aren’t playing , and there’s a good test file to see what might be causing the problem on your computer.

Richard Goring

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Thank you it was very helpfull

Very helpful especially the zip details 🙂

Tip 2b: you can convert the TIFF or PNG files in your presentation to JPEG as follows: selecting it, cut it (Ctrl – x), then use “Paste Special” and choose JPEG to paste it.

Thanks for you tip. It was very helpful.

This was SO helpful!! Thanks!!

Very helpfull!

Thank you!!!

Thanks for the tips and also for sharing the deck!

The .zip trick was extremely helpful! Thank you!

Thank you for this information, it is always a struggle to deal with file size. Just a note, when viewing your video, all views showing PowerPoint and flies information is blurry and we cannot read or see the writing properly .

Thanks again, always appreciate your tips & tricks

Very useful thank you!

I’ve been struggling for days on this, but the zip trick FINALLY allowed me to figure out the size sinks in my ppt! Thank you!!

try saving the powerpoint as a pdf then exporting the pdf back to powerpoint (I use FoxitPhantom pdf for this)

I just cut a 100 mb file down to 1mb by doing that

That ZIP trick is effective but my computer didn’t want to save the PPT as a ZIP file. What I did instead was right-click on every image in my PPT to “save as picture” on my PC. Many of what turned out to be my file size hogs were revealed as PNG files when I tried to save them. I saved them instead as JPG files. Then I returned to that image, right-click and choose “replace image” and I use instead the JPF version. In my case a 6MB file was cut down to 1MB.

Thank you! Super helpful and worked perfectly!

This was incredibly helpful, thanks so much. I was struggling to figure out which images in my presentation were causing the file to get so bloated. This solved my problem quickly!

Option #2 – excellent thanks.

Excellent! Thank you

THANK YOU! your article saved the day for me.

Very useful! was struggling before I read this!

the tricks are very useful

Thank you so much! This reduced my presentation size from 34 MB to 10 MB!

Super super helpful and amazing step by step approach! Thank you so much!

Thanks a lot!!! All this information was incredibly helpfull. I love what you do at BrightCarbon.

Grettings from Medellín Colombia.

many thanks this is so helpful

Thanks a lot for your great article. I enjoyed a lot the idea to spot the large size images by copying and renaming with zip extension. Brilliant! Thanks for your sharing and have a nice day

Question: On the copy of the file, click on the .pptx and change it to .zip. How on earth? If I click on the .pptx, it opens Powerpoint. Any idea?

Thanks so much for all your advice in this article! Easy to follow and helped me loads.

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We have other people in our own business reaching out to say this is the best presentation they have seen. Sarah Walker Softchoice

Zip a presentation file

When you want to send your PowerPoint presentation to others, it’s easier to do when the file size isn’t too big. You can compress, or zip , the file in Windows, which shrinks the size of the file but retains the original quality of your presentation. You can also compress the media files within the presentation so they're a smaller file size and easier to send.

Compress (zip) a presentation with Windows Explorer or File Explorer

Open Windows Explorer (Windows 7) or File Explorer (Windows 8, Windows 8.1, Windows 10, and Windows 11) in one the following ways:

Use the Windows Start menu: Right-click the Windows Start button, and select Open Windows Explorer (Windows 7) or File Explorer (Windows 8, Windows 8.1, Windows 10, and Windows 11). If you don’t see the Start button, move your mouse to the bottom-left corner of the screen.

Browse to the presentation you want to compress.

Right-click the presentation, and select Send to > Compressed (zipped) folder .

Windows creates a new zip file and gives it an identical name as the PowerPoint file.

Send the compressed file to your intended recipient, who can then decompress the file just by clicking it.

Compressing media files in presentations

If your presentation contains audio or video content, you can reduce those media file sizes to make your overall file size smaller. Follow the steps at Compress your media files .

Reduce the file size of a picture

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How to Reduce the File Size of a PowerPoint Presentation

The larger the PowerPoint presentation, the bigger the file size. Here’s how to reduce it.

The best PowerPoint presentations are those that are dynamic and interesting for their intended audiences. Typically, that means that you’re using images, videos , and other visual elements to get your points across.

Unfortunately, the larger the presentation and the more elements you use, the bigger the file. If your PowerPoint presentation file is too big, here are some steps you can take to reduce the overall file size.

Compressing PowerPoint Images

The biggest problem with any PowerPoint presentation isn’t the text—it’s the images. More images mean a bigger file, but you can take some steps to reduce the problem.

Reducing image sizes in Office documents will reduce the overall file size, and the best way to do this is by compressing your images. The downside to this is a reduction in image quality. However, PowerPoint does offer several compression options, so you can decide to use better quality images, although the image compression will be reduced as a result.

To start, open your PowerPoint presentation. Select an image, then press Format > Compress Pictures in the ribbon bar.

This will bring up the  Compress Pictures options box. There are five different image resolution options, including an additional Use default resolution option to leave your images intact.

Each resolution is measured in pixels per inch , where the larger the number, the better the quality (and the larger the file size). For maximum compression, select  E-mail (96 ppi).

If you’d prefer to compress only a single image, leave the  Apply only to this picture checkbox checked. If you want to compress all of the images in your PowerPoint presentation at once, make sure to uncheck this option.

Press  OK to compress your image (or images) once you’re ready.

Once you’ve saved your PowerPoint presentation ( File > Save ), the file size should be reduced. The impact of image compression on file size will depend on the number of images in your presentation, as well as their original quality.

Compressing Video in PowerPoint

Compressing other media types, like video files, is the next step in reducing your PowerPoint file size. Video files, in particular, can massively increase your PowerPoint files if they’re embedded in your presentation.

Thankfully, PowerPoint offers a built-in method for compressing and converting video files. To do this, open your presentation in PowerPoint, then press File > Info > Compress Media . In the drop-down menu, select the quality you wish to use for your embedded video files.

You can choose between Full HD (1080p), HD (720p), and Standard (480p) video quality.

If the video files are supported, PowerPoint will automatically compress the media files, reducing their overall quality in the process. Click  File > Info > Compress Media > Undo to undo the process if the quality is reduced too far.

If you’re happy with the process, save your document ( File > Save ).

Saving in the PPTX File Format

Most PowerPoint users are familiar with PPT, the PowerPoint file format. Many older PowerPoint presentations are still saved and distributed in this older format.

Unfortunately, the PPT file format is obsolete. The replacement, PPTX, uses compression to reduce the file size of PowerPoint presentations vastly. Saving your documents in the PPTX format, as well as converting existing PPT files to PPTX, can have a big impact on overall file size.

To convert your PPT file to PPTX, open the PPT file in PowerPoint. From there, click  File > Info > Convert .

This will open the  Save As dialog box, automatically selecting the PPTX file format. Confirm the file name for your new PPTX presentation, then press   Save  to confirm.

The additional benefits of compression that a PPTX file offers over the original PPT format should help to reduce the file size. However, the impact of saving your PowerPoint presentation as a PPTX file will depend on your original presentation file.

Disabling Embedded Fonts

Most PowerPoint users will use default system fonts for their presentation, but if you’re creating a themed presentation, you may decide to embed third-party fonts into your PowerPoint file. These embedded fonts might look great, but they can increase your PowerPoint file size significantly.

Unless you’re certain about including them, you should disable the embedded fonts option in PowerPoint. To do this, click  File > Options to open the PowerPoint options menu.

In the  PowerPoint Options menu, press the Save tab.

Under the  Preserve fidelity when sharing this presentation section, click to disable the  Embed fonts in the file checkbox.

Once the option is unchecked, click OK to save the setting, then press File > Save to save the document. Once saved, any embedded font files should be removed.

However, this is a setting that should only impact a small number of PowerPoint users and may only reduce your PowerPoint file size if you’re using a significant number of custom fonts.

Removing Hidden PowerPoint Data

Every PowerPoint document you create has additional information attached, including who authored it and other hidden metadata. If you’re trying to optimize your PowerPoint file size, removing this information should help to reduce the file size, although the impact should be relatively minor.

To do this, open your PowerPoint presentation, then click  File > Info > Check for Issues > Inspect Document .

In the  Document Inspector window, ensure that the Document Properties and Personal Information checkbox is selected, then press  Inspect .

After the Document Inspector has scanned your PowerPoint presentation, click the  Remove All button for the  Document Properties and Personal Information option.

This will remove all personal metadata from your PowerPoint presentation, reducing the file size by a small amount.

Creating Better PowerPoint Presentations

You don’t need to compromise on quality to create high-quality PowerPoint presentations. If PowerPoint file sizes concern you, compress your media files and use the PPTX file format.

If you want to ditch PowerPoint completely, you could think about using Microsoft Sway instead.

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Blog > Compress PowerPoint to reduce the file size

Compress PowerPoint to reduce the file size

02.12.20   •  #powerpointtips.

Sometimes, the file size of your PowerPoint presentation can get very big. In some cases, that can be annoying, e.g. when trying to send the slides via email, but not being able to do so because the file is too large. Usually, pictures and videos are the reason why presentations become too big. The good news are that you can easily compress pictures and embedded media files by following the steps listed below.

Compress images

Compress videos and audios.

• Convert PPT into a PDF file
• Get rid of 3D-models

Compress PPT as ZIP- file

PowerPoint offers the option to compress all images at once or choose single pictures to reduce their file size. Keep in mind, that compressing an image will automatically reduce its quality as well. If you don't need to reduce the file size, better use the highest quality resolution as possible.

There are two ways to compress images within your PPT file which nearly work the same way:

Compress selected pictures

• Select the image you want to compress or any picture if you wish to reduce the size of all graphics
• Navigate to the Picture Tools Format tab and select Compress Pictures

• A new menu pops up. Choose your compression options and make sure to check "Delete cropped areas of pictures" and uncheck "Apply only to this picture" (if you want to compress all images)
• High fidelity: preserves quality of the original picture
• HD (330 ppi): good quality for high-definition (HD) displays
• Print (220 ppi): excellent quality on most printers and screens
• Web (150 ppi): good for web pages and projectors
• E-mail (96 ppi): minimize document size for sharing
• Use default resolution

Compress all images while saving the PPT file

• Open your presentation. Go to File in the PowerPoint menu
• Click Save as and then Browse
• In the window that opens, click on Tools (right beside Save )
• Select Compress Pictures and choose the resolution you need To save even more space, you can additionally choose Delete cropped areas of pictures to remove the parts of pictures which you cropped in PowerPoint.
• Click OK and then Save

Video and audio files can increase your PPT size a lot. It's a good idea to compress those if you want to make some space. Some PowerPoint versions make it possible to decrease the media size in PPT but if this option is missing in your program, online video compressors are the solution.

Compress videos and audios in PPT

• Go to File in the PowerPoint menu
• Open the Compress media drop down
• Choose a compression file size. Don't reduce the quality too much and check if the appearance of your media doesn't look too grainy on the actual projector you will be presenting on

Online video compressor

There are plenty of online video compressors which you can use to reduce the video size in advance. For example, the website FreeConvert makes it easy to decrease the file size without having to download anything. This way you can integrate a smaller media file into PPT.

Links instead of videos

Instead of importing a video to your PPT slides, including a link to your PowerPoint presentation can save a lot of space. If your video is somewhere on YouTube or other online video-sharing platforms, include a link and use it when you're presenting. But notice: a link can only be used, if you're connected with wifi. Watching videos online, can take time and a bad connection might give you some unwanted breaks during your presentation. In this case, saving the video on your disk and opening it separately can save time and still reduce the size of the PPT.

Convert PPT to PDF

By converting a PowerPoint file into a PDF, the size will reduce automatically. During the process, images get compressed and some media (audio, videos, 3D models..) get removed. If you want to change the PowerPoint slides at all time, this method might not be the right one for you, as PDF files can't get edited the way a PowerPoint can. Hence, converting PPT into PDF only makes sense if your presentation will work as a handout and if the PDF files options are enough for you.

• Click Export
• Hit the Create PDF/XPS button
• Choose a location in which you want to save your PDF file
• Click Publish

Get rid of 3D models

The Office 365 subscription makes it possible to add 3D models to your PowerPoint slides. Nevertheless, those media require much space since they transport a lot of information. In order to minimize the PPT file, exchanging the 3D model with a normal image will easily reduce the size of your PowerPoint file.

If you need to share your PPT with someone, a ZIP- file format might help you to reduce the size of the PowerPoint. Even though, this method can save some place temporally, it might not be enough to send it via email. Uploading it to file-sharing platforms, such as GoogleDrive, DropBox, OneDrive or other websites and sharing its link to download the PPT, can be the better option. (Using an USB for sharing the presentation without the need to decompress anything would be the best solution)

Here's how to convert a PPT into a ZIP- file format:

• Select the file you want to minimize in the File Explorer
• Right-Click the file and hit Send to
• Choose the Compressed (zipped) folder option

If you want to decompress a ZIP- file into its original PowerPoint format:

• Right-Click on your ZIP- folder
• Select Extract All... or the similar operation of your program
• Choose a File Location to extract your file to, or extract it at the place you are currently at

How can I reduce the size of a PowerPoint file?

There are several ways to reduce the file size of a PowerPoint. You can compress images, videos and audios, convert your presentation into a PDF file, get rid of 3D models or compress the PowerPoint as a ZIP-file. We explained for you how all of this works in our blog.

How do I compress a video in PowerPoint?

To compress videos in PowerPoint, go to "File" in the PowerPoint menu and then click on "Info". Then open the drop-down menu "Compress media" and select the size of the compression file. Be careful not to reduce the quality too much and check that the quality of your video on the projector you will be presenting on is not too bad.

Related articles

About the author.

Pia Lehner-Mittermaier

Pia works in Marketing as a graphic designer and writer at SlideLizard. She uses her vivid imagination and creativity to produce good content.

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How to Reduce the File Size of Your PowerPoint Presentation

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A PowerPoint Presentation is a great way to get an idea across. Whether you're pitching a product or teaching kids, you'll find slideshows helpful.

However, if your presentation is long, or you have many visuals, you might find that your PowerPoint file has become too large. That makes it difficult to attach it as an attachment. And it could even take too long to download for your clients.

To solve this problem, here are seven tips to reduce your presentation file size.

1. Use Insert Picture—Don't Drag and Drop

When you want to add a photograph from your hard drive to your presentation, the easiest and most common way is to copy it off File Explorer and paste it onto PowerPoint. Alternatively, you can also drag and drop it from your folder to your slideshow.

However, doing this potentially increases your presentation's file size. That's because when you copy-paste or drag-and-drop a file directly into PowerPoint, it converts your image to either a BMP or PNG file type.

Although these file types allow you to retain transparent backgrounds, like the ones you find in icons, they also increase your photo's file size. But if you use the Insert Picture function, PowerPoint will add your image without changing its file type, thus avoiding larger file sizes.

2. Crop Photos With an Image Editor

There are times when you don't have to use the entire image you just added. You may want to remove a section to make it more impactful. But if you do that, don't crop it using PowerPoint's built-in cropping tool.

When you crop an image inside PowerPoint, the app will simply hide the part of the image you cut out. Although this is helpful if you want to undo the crop you made in the future, if you're final with the cut you made, this just adds to your presentation's file size.

Instead of cropping images in PowerPoint, you can use dedicated image editors. You can use Microsoft's built-in Paint app for simple crops, or you can use free online tools, like Canva. Once you've cropped your photo to your liking, you can then use the Insert Picture tool to add it to your presentation.

Related: How to Use the Canva App: A Beginner's Guide

Remember to save your file as JPG or JPEG, not PNG or BMP. JPG files provide the most compression on your images while retaining reasonable quality. This way, you get to save a few more kilobytes per photo. This adds up to a lot of space when you have many pictures.

3. Edit Images Outside PowerPoint

Building upon the previous point, you should edit your photos using an image editor instead of PowerPoint. While the app does provide relatively advanced photo editing tools, it's still not as powerful as dedicated photo editing software.

You can use Microsoft's built-in basic photo editing function to edit your image. Alternatively, there are several easy-to-use photo editing software to give you advanced edits while remaining simple to use.

You should do this because PowerPoint retains all your photo's information. For example, if you convert an image from colored to black and white, the app will still keep all the color information of your file, thus making it larger. But if you convert it using an image editor, all color information is lost once you save the file, thus making it smaller.

4. Compress Your Pictures

Even if you've done all the above, there is still a way to reduce your presentation's file size further. You can do that by optimizing all your slideshow images for the screen size you expect to show your presentation.

This is because PowerPoint tends to keep your images at the maximum allowable quality. After all, the app is preparing your slideshow for all types of display sizes. It's even considering that you're going to print it. That's why it keeps your photos at the best possible quality.

And while this is a good thing, it does add a lot of size to your presentation. That's why you need to optimize your file for your intended audience.

To do that, click on any image in your slideshow. Then, in the menu ribbon, select Picture Format . Press the Compress Pictures button, and a Compress Pictures window will pop up. Under Compression options: remove the tick mark for Apply only to this picture to compress all images.

Under Resolution: , pick the appropriate points per inch (PPI) for your application. If your presentation is for personal consumption—i.e., for viewing on smartphones, tablets, and computer monitors only—then a 96 PPI resolution is enough.

But if you plan to display it on a medium-sized projector or a screen larger than 50 inches, then you should choose 150 PPI. If you're planning to print your presentation as a handout, then go for 220 PPI. Finally, if you're going to use a large-format projector or LED screen board, go for 330 PPI.

5. Link Videos

Videos are the most significant items in your presentation that will bloat its file size. A typical 1-minute full HD video has an approximate 124MB file size. So instead of embedding your videos into your PowerPoint file, you can link them instead.

Upload your videos on a video hosting website like YouTube, then just link it into your slideshow. Once you've uploaded the video, don't forget to copy its web address to add it to your presentation.

To add it to your slideshow, go to Insert on the menu ribbon, click on Video , and in the dropdown menu, choose Online Videos… . A new window will pop up and in the Enter the address for the online video bar, paste your video link.

Once your selected video has loaded, you'll see a preview of it on the main screen. If you're satisfied that it's the correct video, click on Insert . You will now find your video embedded into your slideshow.

You have to note, though, that your viewer or audience must have an active internet connection for them to see your embedded video. Otherwise, they won't be able to see it.

6. Use the Latest Formats

If you're using the latest version of Microsoft Office, it's best to use the latest file formats. The old file format called PPT, designed for Microsoft Office 2003 and older, uses up more space than the newer PPTX file format.

While older versions of PowerPoint may not be able to open your file, the smaller file size means your presentation would fit in your email as an attachment. Furthermore, those who don't have the latest version of PowerPoint can instead use Microsoft Office Online, or even Google Slides, to view your presentation.

As a last resort, you can compress your presentation's file to reduce its size. You can use several free tools to do just that . They're also widely popular, so your recipient won't have much trouble decompressing your file.

Save on Space

If your PowerPoint presentation is too large to attach to your email, you can reduce its size by following the above steps. They're simple, quick, and easy to do. And if in case you find your presentation's file size bigger than your allocated limits, you still have a couple more solutions.

The first one is to upload it onto the cloud and just share the file's link with your recipient. The second is to cut your presentation into two and then send them in two separate emails. Be sure to add a slide to your first file indicating there's a part two!

But no matter what you choose, reducing your file's size should be the last thing on your mind. Focus on your content and make it your best presentation ever first. All the other things you need to do will soon fall into place once you've finalized your output.

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• Microsoft PowerPoint
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How to Compress Video and Audio Media in PowerPoint to Reduce File Size

Compress Video and Audio Media in PowerPoint

by Avantix Learning Team | Updated April 6, 2021

Applies to: Microsoft ® PowerPoint ® 2013, 2016, 2019 and 365 (Windows)

You can compress video and audio media in a PowerPoint presentation to reduce file size. Since video and audio inserted into a PowerPoint file is embedded or copied into the presentation by default (starting in 2010), video and audio media can increase file size significantly. If you compress media, both video and audio media will be compressed.

When you compress media in PowerPoint, embedded subtitles and alternate audio tracks will be removed in the compression process. If you have trimmed media in PowerPoint, the trimmed portions will also be removed during compression.

Recommended article: How to Insert a Video in PowerPoint (From a File on Your PC or Shared Drive)

Do you want to learn more about PowerPoint?  Check out our virtual classroom or live classroom  PowerPoint courses >

Compressing video and audio media in PowerPoint

To compress video and audio media in a PowerPoint file:

• Save a copy of the presentation that contains the video and / or audio you want to compress. The media files must be embedded, not linked. Online videos (such as YouTube videos) will not be compressed.
• Open the copy of the presentation.
• Click the File tab in the Ribbon.
• Select Info.
• In the Media Size and Performance area, select Compress Media. A drop-down menu appears.
• Select a video quality. Options in 2019 and 365 include HD choices. Full HD (1080p) will save space while maintaining overall audio and video quality. HD (720p) will save space and the quality will be comparable to media streamed over the Internet. Standard (480p) will save the most space and may be used when sending presentations via email. In 2013 or 2016, the options are slightly different. Presentation Quality will save space and maintain the highest quality. Internet Quality will be comparable to media streamed over the internet. Low Quality is the lowest quality typically suited to email.
• Once you select a compression quality, a dialog box appears automatically. PowerPoint will begin the compression process and displays the status as well as the amount of space saved when completed. This process may take a while depending on media size and number of video and or audio files to compress.
• Click Close when compression is complete.

You will not be able to access Compress Media unless embedded media has been inserted into the presentation.

In PowerPoint 2019 or 365, the following drop-down menu appears when you click Compress Media:

In PowerPoint 2013 and 2016, the following drop-down menu appears when you click Compress Media:

After you select a compression option, the following dialog box appears with the status of the compression(s):

You can save a significant amount of space and reduce the file size of a PowerPoint presentation by compressing media in PowerPoint.

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More resources

How to Embed a YouTube Video in PowerPoint

PowerPoint Keyboard Shortcuts to Play and Control Video During a Slide Show

A Beginner's Guide to Video Formats in PowerPoint

How to Highlight Text in PowerPoint (5 Ways)

How to Compress Images in PowerPoint to Reduce File Size (10 Strategies)

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You can fade a picture in PowerPoint by drawing a rectangle shape on top of the picture and then filling the rectangle with a gradient from opaque to transparent. This technique is often used to fade an image into the background of a slide. Since the rectangle is placed on top of the image and then text may be placed on top of the rectangle, you may need to reorder the objects.

How to Lock an Image, Shape or Other Object in PowerPoint

You can now lock an image, shape or other object in PowerPoint. Objects can be locked in Normal View or Slide Master View. Only PowerPoint 365 users can lock objects to prevent moving and resizing. This is helpful if you want to select and move other objects on the slide or prevent others from moving or resizing an object. You can lock items using the context menu or the Selection Pane.

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