Following on from the last blog post on how to compress media in PowerPoint (video or audio) this post will explain how to compress pictures to reduce the file size.
Let’s dive in!
When you’ve finished your presentation, click on any picture in the deck. Go to the Picture Format tab and click the Compress Pictures button under the Adjust menu to the ribbon’s left.
The Compress Pictures button on the Adjust menu
The Compress Pictures window will open.
The Compress Pictures Window
There are two compression options;
Apply only to this picture – untick this box to compress all pictures in your deck.
Delete cropped areas of pictures – untick if you want the option to edit cropped pictures later.
What do I mean by cropped areas of pictures? The greyed-out section of the picture below shows the cropped areas. If the cropped area hasn’t been deleted, you can go back to a picture and edit it at any stage, even if you last opened the file a year ago!
Greyed-out cropped section of a picture
My advice is to save a copy of the file and then work your way down through the various resolutions, checking the picture quality as you go. The reason for this is to ensure that you don’t compress too much and end up with pixelated images. There is no golden rule here, as how low you go with the resolution will depend on what you are doing with the file. For example, if you compress pictures to send a file via email, and then run the presentation on a large screen the pictures will likely be of poor quality.
Generally, I find that Print or Web resolutions work well to reduce file size while keeping your presentation looking good on a meeting room monitor.
Thank you for reading this post. I’d love to hear your feedback on compressing pictures, and if you need assistance with presentation training for your team, please reach out!
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