High-resolution images can make your Microsoft PowerPoint presentations look incredibly professional, but they also result in massive file sizes. If a presentation file is too large, it can be difficult to email to colleagues or upload to a shared drive. Thankfully, PowerPoint includes a built-in feature to compress pictures and instantly reduce your file size.
How to Compress Pictures in Your Presentation
You can choose to compress a single image or apply the compression to every picture in your entire presentation simultaneously. Follow these steps:
- Open your presentation in Microsoft PowerPoint.
- Click on any image within your slides to select it.
- On the top ribbon, a new Picture Format (or just Format) tab will appear. Click on it.
- In the Adjust group on the left side of the ribbon, click the Compress Pictures button (an icon showing a picture with small arrows pointing inwards).
Choosing Your Compression Options
Once you click the Compress Pictures button, a dialogue box will appear with a few important options:
- Apply only to this picture: If you leave this ticked, only the image you currently have selected will be compressed. Untick this box if you want to compress all the images in your entire presentation.
- Delete cropped areas of pictures: This permanently removes any parts of an image you have cropped out, which saves a significant amount of space. However, it means you cannot un-crop the image later.
- Resolution: Choose your desired output. Print (220 ppi) is good for high-quality printing, Web (150 ppi) is perfect for on-screen viewing, and E-mail (96 ppi) will yield the smallest possible file size for sharing.
Select your desired options and click OK. Save your presentation, and you will notice a drastic reduction in the overall file size, making it much easier to share with others!
