When I used to do a lot of Microsoft PowerPoint presentations for sales and executive teams, I would usually get big presentations that were completely bloated with high-resolution images. A ten-slide presentation would sometimes be over 100 MB and when I would compress it to 500 KB, people would be quite oddly amazed. Here, we’ll show you a quick method of compressing all the images at once and also what to do when certain imported images simply won’t get smaller in file size.
Compressing images
This method works for PowerPoint 2007 and later.
- Double-click any image. The ‘Picture Tools’ should show in the ribbon.
- Click the ‘Compress Pictures’ in the ribbon.
- The ‘Compress Pictures’ box will show. Uncheck the ‘Apply only to this picture’ option.
- Set the target resolution. Email (96 ppi) is usually good for most purposes.
- Click ‘OK’ and save the file.
What to do when the file size does not reduce
Some image files, when either copy-and-pasted or imported, will not reduce using the above method. If you start with a 97 MB file, compress the pictures and are now at 96 MB, you will need to do a little digging.
- First scroll through the slides and look for any images that look really sharp. If an image is properly compressed, it should look a tiny bit blurry in comparison to a high-res, uncompressed image.
- Once you find a suspected uncompressed image, cut it (control + x)
Now paste it, but not via ‘Control +V’. Go up to the ribbon and under ‘Paste’ click on ‘Paste Special…’
- The ‘Paste Special’ box will show.
- Select ‘Device Independent Bitmap’ and click ‘OK’
- The image will go on the screen, but now it will compress properly. Compress the pictures again and save. The file size should now be dramatically smaller. If not, look through the images again and try to find another stubborn image.
When creating a PowerPoint file, this is usually not a problem, especially if you are in the practice of importing optimized images and aren’t copy-pasting images from anywhere and everywhere. At least when you do get a file filled with high-res TIF files embedded into it, you will know what to do.
Further Reading
- Microsoft PowerPoint 2016 Tutorial
- How to insert a picture into Microsoft PowerPoint 2013
- How to quickly reduce PowerPoint file size