Computer TIP

Powerpoint: Reduce Your Presentation Size

When I was using Powerpoint to help with my sermon presentations I was constantly looking for ways to reduce the size of the file so that it would respond more quickly on my antiquated laptop. There are some professional Powerpoint compressors available, but I discovered that a neat way to gain some significant space, with minimal impact to the quality of your graphics, is to compress some, if not all, of the images in the file.

To make your overall presentation smaller by compressing graphics:

1. Open the presentation you want to make smaller and choose a slide that contains a graphic.

2. Right-click on the graphic and choose Format Picture from the pop-up menu.

3. From the Format Picture dialog box, select the Picture tab and click on the Compress button.

4. From the Compress Pictures dialog box, select the options you need. First, choose Selected pictures to compress the currently- selected picture. Choose "All pictures in document" to handle all images in the entire presentation without having to select them first.

5. In the "Change resolution" section, choose how your presentation is going to be made. Web/Screen is perfect if you're projecting your presentation with an overhead projector, or if your presentation will be destined for the Web.

6. In the Options section, check both "Compress pictures" and "Delete cropped areas of pictures."

7. Click on OK twice.

NOTE:

If you want to compress several (but not all) images in a presentation, you can choose multiple graphics in Step 2. Simply hold down Ctrl as you click the images until all are selected, then right-click your mouse and choose Format Picture. Select the "Selected pictures" option in Step 4.