Compressing Pictures

[Steve P]

Using Powerpoint 2003, I compressed all the photos in my presentation using
the compress option on the photo toolbar. Afterwards, I thought my
presentation was still to big. I finally tracked the size down to a single
photo in PNG format. It seems the compress pictures option didn't help. I
did a 'save as' to a JPG format and then imported it back top powerpoint
(deleting the original) and the presentation was several meg smaller. It
would be nice to be able to see the sizes of all the pictures at once and it
would be easy to correct the offending ones.

Any comments or suggestions or did I approach this the best way?

 

[Adam Crowley]

Now I like that suggestion.
I often get presentations that are clearly far bigger than they need to be
and occasionally they are so huge that playback performance is badly
affected.
If I have the time I go through all the pictures and optimise them for size
and adjust colour balance/brightness and contrast etc. but this isn't always
possible. And often, as it seems in your case, it's just one offending
picture that takes an incredible toll on the file size.
So, VBA wizards, is it feasible to programmatically summarize the attributes
of a presentation's assets?

 

[Steve Rindsberg]

So, VBA wizards, is it feasible to programmatically summarize the attributes

of a presentation's assets?

That's essentially what addins like our PPTools Optimizer and other similar
apps do on the fly, but PPT isn't very forthcoming about the original
properties of images in a presentation.

It won't tell you how big the image was, but if you reset the image, it pops
back to the size it came in at. If you know the default DPI PPT uses for your
version of PPT, and if it's not e.g. a TIFF that can override PPTs sizing
defaults, you can work out the original image size that way, but not the
original image format.

Sometimes the simplest thing to do is save the presentation to HTML. That
gives you back the original images at original size (plus a version sized for
the HTML screen size you've chosen in web options).



--
Steve Rindsberg, PPT MVP
PPT FAQ: www.pptfaq.com
PPTools: www.pptools.com
================================================
Featured Presenter, PowerPoint Live 2004
October 10-13, San Diego, CA www.PowerPointLive.com
================================================

 

[Adam Crowley]

I'm aware that I'm hijacking Steve P's thread here (sorry, mate) but what I
mean is can you get some kind of idea of how much of the total file size
(not how many pixels) each slide occupies? That way you could quickly track
down the peskiest images. I like to optimise the images manually so I can
adjust them if necessary in Photyshop.

 

[Steve Rindsberg]

I'm aware that I'm hijacking Steve P's thread here (sorry, mate) but what I
mean is can you get some kind of idea of how much of the total file size
(not how many pixels) each slide occupies?

That's what I though you meant.
I'd try the export to HTML trick ... it'll be fairly obvious which images are
which, and if you need to manually redo them in PShop, this'll give you access
to the original images right off the bat.


That way you could quickly track

down the peskiest images. I like to optimise the images manually so I can
adjust them if necessary in Photyshop.

--
Steve Rindsberg, PPT MVP
PPT FAQ: www.pptfaq.com
PPTools: www.pptools.com
================================================
Featured Presenter, PowerPoint Live 2004
October 10-13, San Diego, CA www.PowerPointLive.com
================================================

 

[Adam Crowley]

I'm sorry - I wasn't concentrating the first time...thanks - I'll give that
a try, sounds perfect.

 

[Steve P]

that works great!
thanks...

That's what I though you meant.
I'd try the export to HTML trick ... it'll be fairly obvious which images are
which, and if you need to manually redo them in PShop, this'll give you access
to the original images right off the bat.


That way you could quickly track

--
Steve Rindsberg, PPT MVP
PPT FAQ: www.pptfaq.com
PPTools: www.pptools.com
================================================
Featured Presenter, PowerPoint Live 2004
October 10-13, San Diego, CA www.PowerPointLive.com
================================================