If you want to reduce the size of your PowerPoint file because it is too big, then one of the ways you can achieve this is to compress images in PowerPoint presentations.
There are several ways you can achieve this. The obvious one would be to reduce the image’s resolution before you insert or paste the image or picture into the presentation. However, if you have already completed the PowerPoint presentation, removing the images, resizing them, and inserting them back into the presentation would be tedious.
Well, there is a more straightforward solution to this problem. PowerPoint offers a native feature that allows you to compress all or selected images in a presentation.
The following section will show you the steps to compress pictures in PowerPoint.
Steps to Compress Images In Powerpoint
1. Open the PowerPoint file and the slide with the image(s). Select the Image or picture on the slide. If there are multiple images, you can select all of them.
2. On the top navigation bar, click the Picture Format tab. In the adjust section of the ribbon, click Compress Pictures option. The Compress Picture popup will appear on the screen.
3. In the Compress Pictures popup, you will be presented with various options. You can change the resolution of the image or picture in your PowerPoint slide by selecting the preferred option from High Fidelity, HD, Print, Web, and E-mail. The resolution is in PPI, Pixels Per Inch, with the E-mail option offering the lowest resolution.
The PPI refers to the number of pixels contained within each inch of a digital image. The higher the PPI number, the higher the resolution which translates into a higher-quality picture.
If the PowerPoint is only for circulation with colleagues or friends, then the Web or E-mail option should be more than sufficient. If you use PowerPoint for a presentation, I would recommend using either the Print or HD option.
You can also apply the new resolution only to the selected picture(s) or to all the pictures in the PowerPoint presentation. Use the Apply only to this picture option for this.
If you have cropped a picture in the slide, then the areas that have been cropped can be deleted to further reduce the size of the image by selecting the checkbox against the Delete Cropped areas of pictures option.
Tip: If you are using videos in your PowerPoint presentation and you are adding the video file to your presentation directly, you would do better by uploading it to a third-party video site like YouTube or Vimeo and then embedding the video in your Presentation.
Additional Options to Compress Pictures in PowerPoint
While reducing the resolution to compress images in PowerPoint is the easiest solution to significantly reduce the size of the PowerPoint file, there are additional ways to reduce the file size further.
When you edit an image in PowerPoint, the editing data is retained from the original in case you want to restore it later. All these editing data can be discarded to reduce the file size further.
- Open the File tab, and select Options. View the Advanced section in the Options popup.
- In the Image Size and Quality Section, select the checkbox against Discard editing data
- You can also set the default resolution for your PowerPoint presentations to a lower resolution to avoid doing it for every new file you create.
I hope this article was useful and helped you with PowerPoint image compression.
Tip: If you are using custom fonts, you can also manage the way you embed custom fonts in your PowerPoint file to reduce the size.
