4 Ways to Shrink PowerPoint Decks Down To Size

The average PowerPoint deck can get crazy insane big -- megabytes of images, video, and other rich media can make your presentation too large to e-mail, and even bog down a slugging network connection. I found some useful tips at ghacks for making your PowerPoint presentation as thin as a supermodel's term paper on String Theory.

• Use the new PowerPoint 2007 format, which uses the PPTX file extension. It's a lot smaller than the old PPT format.
• Compress your images for the screen. To do that, select any picture in your PowerPoint presentation and click the Format tab. Then click Compress Pictures. If you don't need high quality images in print, click Options and set the target output to Screen. Then click OK a couple of times.
• Instead of embedding big files (like videos) in your deck, use hyperlinks to access them from network shares or a location on the Web.
• Save the files as a PDF instead of a PowerPoint deck. By using the "Minimum Size (Publishing Online) setting in the Save As dialog box, you can sometimes make files dramatically smaller.

Dave Johnson

View all articles by Dave Johnson on CBS MoneyWatch »
Dave Johnson is editor of eHow Tech and author of three dozen books, including the best-selling How to Do Everything with Your Digital Camera. Dave has previously worked at Microsoft and has written about technology for a long list of magazines that include PC World and Wired.

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