Compressing Photos in a PowerPoint 10 Presentation

I received a call yesterday from a staff member wanting to know  how to reduce the file size of a PowerPoint presentation. The best choice is to deal with the issue BEFORE you create the presentation.

For example, if you have a group of photos on your camera and you want to share them with your friends/colleagues, adding the images to a PowerPoint slide show makes sense. However, the original images are likely large in size and will quickly add up to an enormous file. I routinely take photos that are 3-4MB each and if I want to create a presentation from 20 or more it is going to be an issue. So, you should batch process the photos in Photoshop. Click here to see how to do so, but first, create a new file folder for your presentation. Copy the photos to the folder and then follow the batch processing instructions. When you add the processed photos to your PowerPoint presentation, they will be much smaller and as a result, the final product will be as well. Remember – to e-mail a file it must be under 5MB otherwise it will not be sent.

Okay, so you have a presentation already done with larger images and you realize it is too big and need to fix it. There is a way in PowerPoint (2010) to do so. Choose the Compress Pictures option under Format > Picture Tools. Next check the Delete cropped areas of pictures option to reduce the overall size of the presentation. Also select the appropriate output file size (i.e. 96dpi, 200dpi, etc.) depending on how you plan to use the file. The smaller the dpi, the smaller the file size will be.  

That’s great, but what if you can’t find compress pictures on your tool bar? Here’s how to add it:

1. Click on File Tab
2. Click on Options
3. Click on Quick Access Toolbar
4. Choose commands from: Commands not in ribbon
5. The list is alphabetical. The one you want is “compress picture”.
6. Scroll to it and highlight it (click once).
7. Click add
8. You can also add some of the other picture options like change picture, reset picture if you want – it’s up to you how much or how little you add.
9. Click ok

The format tab will appear on your menu.