Locked lesson.
About this lesson
We will learn how to export a presentation to another file format such as a PDF, video, animated gif, and more.
Exercise files
Download the ‘before’ and ‘after’ PowerPoint presentations from the video tutorial and try the lesson yourself.
9.01-exporting a presentation Exercise.docx54.5 KB 9.01-exporting a presentation Exercise Solution.docx
244.3 KB
Quick reference
Exporting a Presentation to other File Formats
By default, PowerPoint presentations are saved as .pptx files. However, there might be times when we need to save the presentation as something else. For example, maybe we want to export the presentation to a PDF so we can send it to someone without PowerPoint on their PC. There are many different file types we can export presentations to.
When to use
Export a presentation to a different format whever a .pptx file isn't fit for purpose.
Instructions
Export to a PDF or an XPS document
- From the File tab, click Export.
- Click Create PDF/XPS.
- Select a folder to save the PDF file to.
- Notice the .pdf file extension.
- Click Publish.
Create a Video
We can export a presentation to a video file if we want to upload to the web or streaming services like YouTube or Vimeo.
- From the File tab, click Export.
- Click Create a Video.
- Click the drop-down and select the quality of the video.
- Click Create Video.
- Select a folder to save the video file to.
- Notice the .mp4 file extension.
- Click Save.
The video might take a few minites to create. We can monitor the progress in the status bar. Once complete, the video will play in the default media player on our PC.
Create an Animated Gif
- From the File tab, click Export.
- Click Create an Animated Gif.
- Choose the quality of the .gif file from the drop-down menu.
- Click Create GIF.
- Select a folder to save the animated file to.
- Notice the .gif file extension.
Package the Presentation for a CD
We can package a presentation for a CD or USB if we want someone who doesn't have PowerPoint to have access to the file.
- Click Package for CD
Create Handouts
Export the presentation to Microsoft Word and create useful handouts.
- From the File tab, click Export.
- Click Create Handouts.
- Choose the layout in Word.
- Select 'Blank lines next to slides'.
- Click OK.
The slides will be exported to a Word document. This can take a few minutes.
Change File Type
There are many different file types that presentations can be exported to.
- From the File tab, click Export.
- Click Change File Type.
- Choose a file type.
- Click Save As.
- 00:04 Congratulations, everyone, we've made it down to the final section of the course.
- 00:09 Give yourself a big pat on the back if you've been able to
- 00:13 follow everything so far.
- 00:14 Because if you've already made it this far through the course then I know that you're
- 00:18 going to have worked hard and learnt a lot.
- 00:20 Now this final section we're going to focus on exporting, printing and sharing.
- 00:26 So let's start with export.
- 00:29 Now there may be occasions where you don't necessarily want to keep your file
- 00:34 as just a regular .ppt PowerPoint file.
- 00:37 For example, something that people do fairly frequently is
- 00:40 convert their PowerPoint presentations to PDF files.
- 00:44 And the reason we will do that is because historically
- 00:47 PDF files have been a lot more difficult to edit.
- 00:50 You might decide that you want to create a video from your PowerPoint presentation.
- 00:54 Or what about an animated GIF?
- 00:57 You can even export your presentation out to a Word document.
- 01:01 Export your presentation and package it for a CD or USB stick so
- 01:05 that somebody who doesn't necessarily have PowerPoint on
- 01:09 their PC can still watch your presentation.
- 01:12 You might even feel like exporting your entire presentation out
- 01:16 to another Microsoft application like word.
- 01:19 All of these things can be done through the backstage area export option.
- 01:24 So let's explore what we have in there.
- 01:26 We're going to jump up to File, and we're going to select the Export page.
- 01:31 And we have quite a few different options.
- 01:34 Now the first option here is probably the most popular one and
- 01:38 that is to export to a PDF or an XPS document.
- 01:42 Now if you're curious as to what an XPS document is,
- 01:45 it's basically just Microsoft's version of a PDF file.
- 01:49 And you can see here PDFs basically preserve the layout, formatting fonts and
- 01:53 images in your presentation.
- 01:55 The content can't be easily changed.
- 01:57 And there's lots of free viewers available on the web.
- 02:00 So in order to view a presentation that's been exported to a PDF file,
- 02:05 the recipient needs to have some kind of PDF viewer on their PC.
- 02:09 Now most people these days, particularly in a business environment will be able to
- 02:13 read this file using a PDF viewer.
- 02:16 If not, you can simply download a free version.
- 02:19 So if I click on Create PDF XPS is basically going to take me to
- 02:23 File Explorer.
- 02:24 And if you notice at the bottom here,
- 02:27 it's saving the file as file type PDF as opposed to dot PPT.
- 02:31 So if I want to I can change this file name.
- 02:35 I'm going to keep it the same, click on Publish.
- 02:38 And there we go.
- 02:39 My PowerPoint presentation is now a PDF file.
- 02:42 And I can just scroll my mouse and go through the different sites.
- 02:47 So this is a really nice way of packaging up this presentation and sending it
- 02:51 to someone so that they can view the content but they can't change the details.
- 02:56 And this is now basically just a regular PDF file, so you can just
- 02:59 attach it to an email in exactly the same way you would anything else.
- 03:03 So that is your export to PDF option.
- 03:06 Let's jump back up to File and go down to Export.
- 03:10 The next option here is to create a video.
- 03:13 So if you feel like saving your presentation as a video, so
- 03:17 that you can upload it to the web or maybe email it, you can do that from here.
- 03:21 And the choices that you have, you can basically choose the quality of the video.
- 03:27 So again, you have 4K, 1080p, HD and standard.
- 03:32 And you can also choose if you want to use any recorded timings or
- 03:36 narrations in your presentation.
- 03:38 Now we haven't spoken about narrations because that is more of an advanced topic,
- 03:43 but we did take a look at recorded timings.
- 03:45 So I could choose to use them, or I could choose to basically disable them.
- 03:50 And then all I need to do is click the Create Video button.
- 03:54 Once again, it's going to ask me to save this.
- 03:58 And note again that that file extension has changed to an mp4 file.
- 04:02 So I'm going to say Save.
- 04:04 And it's worth noting here that this can take a little bit of time
- 04:08 depending on how large your presentation is.
- 04:11 So my presentation is of reasonable size, and
- 04:13 if you take a look down the status bar, you can see the progress of this export.
- 04:18 And once it's finished exporting,
- 04:20 you can see that that is going to play in your default media player on your PC.
- 04:24 So this looks more like a video.
- 04:27 It's an mp4 file.
- 04:28 So if you wanted to,
- 04:29 you could upload it to a hosting platform like YouTube or Vimeo.
- 04:33 The next option that we have is to create an animated GIF.
- 04:38 And again, we have similar options in here to when we were creating the video.
- 04:43 So you can choose the quality, I'm going to say medium for this particular example.
- 04:47 I can choose to make the background transparent.
- 04:50 Now I don't want to do that.
- 04:52 I can choose how many seconds to spend on each slide.
- 04:55 So I'm just going to leave these at the default.
- 04:57 And then I can choose how many slides I want to include in my animated GIF.
- 05:01 So that this isn't too long, I'm just going to do the first three slides and
- 05:06 say Create GIF.
- 05:08 The file type is a dot GIF file.
- 05:10 I'm going to click on Save, and that's going to go away and
- 05:13 create my animated GIF.
- 05:15 And here we go.
- 05:16 Here is my little GIF, again playing in my default photos application.
- 05:24 The next option in this list is to package the presentation for a CD.
- 05:29 Now the CDs are a little bit old school these days.
- 05:33 But the idea behind this is that you can package up this file and send it to
- 05:37 somebody who doesn't necessarily have PowerPoint loaded on their PC.
- 05:41 So this could also be used to package this for something like a USB stick.
- 05:46 The next option we have is to create handouts.
- 05:48 So sometimes, if you're giving a presentation to an audience,
- 05:52 it's quite nice to be able to give them a physical copy of your slides.
- 05:55 So if I click on Create handouts,
- 05:57 I can basically choose the layout of my handouts in Word.
- 06:01 So I can choose to include my notes.
- 06:03 Now, I wouldn't necessarily want to include my personal notes if I'm going to
- 06:07 give these to the audience.
- 06:08 Instead, a better option would be something like
- 06:11 this blank lines next to the slides.
- 06:14 What that means is that when you give these handouts to your audience
- 06:18 participants, they're going to be able to see the slide in the Word document.
- 06:22 And then they're just going to have some blank lines where they can then write
- 06:26 their own notes.
- 06:27 So let's choose this option and click on OK.
- 06:30 It's going to jump me across to word, and
- 06:32 it's going to start to build out those slides in this Word document.
- 06:36 And again, this can take a few minutes because it's doing quite a hefty export
- 06:41 of slides that contain lots of images.
- 06:44 And there you go.
- 06:45 So we have the slide on the left hand side, and then some space for
- 06:49 them to write their notes on the right hand side.
- 06:52 And then the final option that we have in here, is to change the file type.
- 06:56 And you can see there's all different types of files that we can change this to.
- 07:01 So as we know by default, our PowerPoint presentation is a .pptx file.
- 07:06 But what about if I was sending this to somebody who had a much older version of
- 07:10 PowerPoint?
- 07:11 I want to make sure that they can view everything in my document, so
- 07:15 I could save this as a PowerPoint 97 to 2003 document.
- 07:19 I could also save this as a template file,
- 07:22 a PowerPoint picture presentation or a PowerPoint show.
- 07:26 I'll leave you to have a little experiment with those if you're curious as to
- 07:30 what they are.
- 07:31 I could also save as a .png file which is basically an image file or a .jpg.
- 07:37 So as you can see a whole host of different ways to export your PowerPoint
- 07:41 presentation to different formats.
- 07:43 That's it for now.
- 07:44 I will see you in the next lesson.
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