Digital Pictures Create VERY Large PP Presentation

[Guest]

Greetings all,

I'm working on a PowerPoint presentation for our company's president. I have
32 digitial .jpeg pictures (of faces -- 1 picture per slide w/ text) for an
awards presentation, but as I begin to insert them into PowerPoint, the
PowerPoint presentation is becoming HUGE (takes a very long time to save,
etc.), and I'm only up to about 16 pictures that have been inserted so far.

What's the best strategy for inserting (or using) these 32 pictures in
PowerPoint, while still keeping the PowerPoint presentation a reasonable size
(I'd like to be able to get it onto CD)? I'd also like to maintain the
picture's digital quality (which is why we bought the camera), but I'm not an
expert graphics person, and so am a little out of my depth here. I've lowered
the picture's pixel size (.jpeg), but that didn't really reduce the size.

Thanks so much in advance!

 

[David M. Marcovitz]

Check out, "Why are my PowerPoint files so big? What can I do about it?"
from the PPT FAQ:

http://www.rdpslides.com/pptfaq/FAQ00062.htm

--David
--
David M. Marcovitz
Director of Graduate Programs in Educational Technology
Loyola College in Maryland
Author of _Powerful PowerPoint for Educators_
http://www.loyola.edu/education/PowerfulPowerPoint/

 

[TAJ Simmons]

What David said... but also

See this
Do this before using PowerPoint seriously
http://www.rdpslides.com/pptfaq/FAQ00034.htm

Particularly about turning off "fast saves".

If your presentation is only ever going to be shown on the "screen" or
"projected".... then you can safely reduce the pixels to around 1000 pixels
wide.

See
http://www.powerpointbackgrounds.com/powerpointgraphics.htm

Cheers
TAJ Simmons
microsoft powerpoint mvp

awesome - powerpoint backgrounds,
free powerpoint templates, tutorials, hints and tips etc
http://www.powerpointbackgrounds.com

 

[Guest]

Thanks, all, for the tips. I'll try some of those, but I'm not sure that will
reduce the size of the presentation. I think it just has to do with the fact
that I'm inserting 32 pictures into a PowerPoint presentation, and it's
making it incredibly large.

Any other suggestions anyone can think of?

 

[Bill Foley]

Actually those suggestions are EXACTLY what you need to do. Another thing
you can do to help us determine a problem is to see what the file sizes are
of your pictures. Try this:

1. Open Windows Explorer (hold down "Flying Window" key, press "E", then
release both)
2. Go to the folder where your digital pictures are and click that folder
(might be "C:\My Documents\My Pictures")
3. Click the "View" menu and select "Details".

If each of your 32 pictures are 800kb in size, then your presentation is
going to be at least 25mb, which is way too large for this number of
pictures. This is also assuming you are using the correct method to insert
them of "Insert", "Picture", "From file". If you are using "Copy/Paste",
then the file size will be MUCH bigger! It doesn't do any good to insert
images that are 3.2 megapixels (2000 x 1600) if your projector or monitor
can only view them at 1024 x 768.

If you follow the instructions provided in the links in the previous posts,
it will help. Also, report back and let us know the file sizes of your
images. We might be able to provide additional details on how to reduce the
file sizes.

 

[Guest]

Thanks, Bill -- I'll go ahead and try all of these things, including from the
post's above, and I'll post back and let you know how it goes.

Thanks!

 

[Steve Rindsberg]

Thanks, all, for the tips. I'll try some of those, but I'm not sure that will
reduce the size of the presentation.

If you follow them, they will. If they don't, you're not following them
correctly. ;-)

 

[Guest]

Well, all I can say first off is: "D'oh!" I HAD been copying and pasting the
pictures into PP, rather than using Insert > Picture! So, I'm in the process
of going back and deleting them all, and then I'll use the correct Insert >
Picture method. I'll let you all know how it turns out.

I really appreciate your help on this!

 

[Steve Rindsberg]

Well, all I can say first off is: "D'oh!" I HAD been copying and pasting the
pictures into PP, rather than using Insert > Picture! So, I'm in the process
of going back and deleting them all, and then I'll use the correct Insert >
Picture method. I'll let you all know how it turns out.

You might want to try this on a copy of the presentation:

Select each picture in turn
Rightclick, choose Group, Ungroup and answer Yes to the dire-sounding warning. It's
telling you in its own charmingly obtuse way that it's about to do exactly what you
want it to do. Convert the thing to a picture.

Save the presentation (after turning off Fast Saves)

See if that does the job.