Compressing pictures in a presentation

[John Fistere]

I have been given a presentation to upload to our website, but it contains
35 full-screen pictures that average 2 Mb in file size for a 79 Mb .ppt
file. I need to make it smaller. I have the individual .jpg files as
well as the .ppt file.

There is an option to compress pictures in PPT, but as soon as I Open a
presentation the option to show the Picture toolbar (which contains the
Compress Pictures icon) disappears. The Help system discusses having the
pictures in a metafile, but does not give much of a clue as to how to
accomplish that. It mentions bitmap pictures specifically.

1. How do I compress the pictures in a presentation using the compress
pictures feature in PowerPoint?



If for some reason that is not possible, I have a jpg file converter that
will mass compress all the pictures. If I do that I now want to make those
35 pictures the 35 slides of a presentation. I would rather not insert each
picture one by one.

2. Is there a way to mass load a series of .jpg files into PowerPoint?



Thanks,
John Fistere

 

[Sonia]

First, have you tried opening the presentation and then going to View >
Toolbars and selecting Picture? That way the Picture toolbar can be dragged
to the main toolbar area or "floated".

If you choose to compress the pictures outside of PowerPoint, unless you
want to rebuild the entire presentation including the text, other objects,
etc., you'll need to delete the existing version and insert the smaller
version of each image.

If you want to create a new presentation with the images, you can use Insert

Picture > Photo Album, but as mentioned above, you'll then have to add all

of the other elements that the original presentation contains.

 

[Steve Rindsberg]

I have been given a presentation to upload to our website, but it contains
35 full-screen pictures that average 2 Mb in file size for a 79 Mb .ppt
file. I need to make it smaller. I have the individual .jpg files as
well as the .ppt file.

For starters, how did the JPGs get into PowerPoint in the first place? If by
copy/paste from some other app, then they're not really JPGs in PPT, they're
OLE objects; in other words, NOT pictures (which would explain why the Picture
toolbar won't go along for the ride) and NOT compressible by the Compress
Pictures feature.

Try ungrouping one or two of these things. See if the picture toolbar sees them
as pictures after you've done that. If so, you can compress them individually
or en masse.

1. How do I compress the pictures in a presentation using the compress
pictures feature in PowerPoint?

If for some reason that is not possible, I have a jpg file converter that
will mass compress all the pictures. If I do that I now want to make those
35 pictures the 35 slides of a presentation. I would rather not insert each
picture one by one.

2. Is there a way to mass load a series of .jpg files into PowerPoint?

Several:

BATCH IMPORT images into PowerPoint
http://www.rdpslides.com/pptfaq/FAQ00050.htm

 

[John Fistere]

Thank you!

First, have you tried opening the presentation and then going to View >
Toolbars and selecting Picture? That way the Picture toolbar can be dragged
to the main toolbar area or "floated".

When I did that with the presentation open, the Picture bar was not
available. If I had the Picture bar visible, whenI loaded the presentation,
the Picture toolbar disappeared and could not be found or opened.

If you choose to compress the pictures outside of PowerPoint, unless you
want to rebuild the entire presentation including the text, other objects,
etc., you'll need to delete the existing version and insert the smaller
version of each image.

If you want to create a new presentation with the images, you can use Insert all
of the other elements that the original presentation contains.

I created a new presentation adding the slides manually (I didn't know about
Photo Album) and then I was able to use the Picture toolbar and compress the
whole file to 2 Mb. Each picture was the entire slide so it was a
relatively simple process. There was something about the original PPT file
that did not allow the Picture toolbar to be active.

However, problem solved.

Thanks,
John

 

[stirwin]

For starters, how did the JPGs get into PowerPoint in the firs
place? If by copy/paste from some other app, then they're not reall
JPGs in PPT, they're OLE objects; in other words, NOT picture
(which would explain why the Picture
toolbar won't go along for the ride) and NOT compressible by th
Compress Pictures feature.

Run that one by me again Steve! Inserting a jpg embeds a jpg in th
presentation. Pasting adds an OLE object. According to PowerPoin
help, "when an object is linked, information is updated only if yo
modify the source file (source file: The file that contain
information that was used to create a linked or embedded object. Whe
you update the information in the source file, you can also updat
the linked object in the destination file.). Linked data is stored i
the source file. The destination file stores only the location of th
source file and displays a representation of the linked data. Us
linked objects if file size is a consideration."

What is actually in PowerPoint if it is not an image? What are th
advantages and disadvantages of each option?

Terr

 

[Steve Rindsberg]

Not necessarily. "Inserting" is a bit vague. That's why I always like to ask
for specifics. Insert, Picture, From file, yes. That embeds a JPG in the PPT.
Insert, Ojbect ... no.

Pasting adds an OLE object. According to PowerPoint

True of linked objects, but pasting creates an embedded OLE object, not a
linked one. This bit of help isn't relevant to pasted images.

The content of an embedded OLE object depends on the source of the object. For
example, if you copy and paste a single cell from an Excel spreadsheet, you get
the entire spreadsheet embedded in your PPT file *plus* a WMF image of the cell
contents.

If you copy/paste from, say, PhotoEdit to PPT, you get the source image *and* a
WMF representation of it; those can be enormous.

If you Paste Special/Link, you get the WMF image in both cases, and a pointer
to the original source file, but you don't get the actual source file itself
embedded in PPT. In the case of spreadsheets, that can make a substantial size
difference. In the case of JPGs, it won't, since it's the WMF that's the BIG
honker.