You’ve created a PowerPoint with plenty of interesting visuals. You also made use of some animations and transitions. It looks great! But when you tried to share it online, you got stuck in the loading time. Or maybe when you were launching the file to start your presentation, your laptop started lagging. In all these scenarios, your problem is a PowerPoint file size that’s too large.

Here are four simple methods to fix your PowerPoint file size issue:

Compress pictures

Using high-quality images will bloat your PowerPoint file size. While you should use high-quality pictures for your slides, always be cautious that they’re not too large. A hefty resolution might be great to look at, but it can cause your PowerPoint file to lag. Don’t worry, because there’s an easy fix.

Select on any image in your PowerPoint deck and head to the Pictures Tools Format tab. Click on Compress Pictures in the Adjust group. This will prompt a dialogue box where you can choose different options for shrinking all the pictures in your deck.

Convert to PDF

Another option you can consider is to convert the PowerPoint file to PDF. Simply launch your PowerPoint deck, go to the File tab and choose Save As. When the dialogue box appears, choose PDF under Save as type.

But just a quick reminder: If you convert your PowerPoint file to a PDF, you will lose all animations and transitions. Do this only if you’re planning to print out your PowerPoint deck or share it through email.

Avoid embedding fonts

Unique fonts can make for great PowerPoint design. But they can be another factor as to why your PowerPoint file size is too large.

When building your PowerPoint deck, use unique fonts minimally so you don’t have to embed too much data in your file. Unique fonts are best for headers and section breaks. If you’re using typical font types such as Arial or Times New Roman, check if PowerPoint is embedding fonts and disable it.

Simply head to the File tab and click on Options. When the dialogue box appears, go to Save. Make sure there’s no check mark in the box for Embed fonts in file.

Don’t save in Compatibility Mode

Lastly, if you’re going to use your own device to present your PowerPoint deck, you don’t have to save it as a PowerPoint 97-2003 file. To make sure your file is saved in the latest version of PowerPoint, check that the file extension is .PPTX. Simply go to the folder where your PowerPoint file is saved, right click on it and choose Properties. You should see something like this:

 

Your presentation can suffer if your deck is not optimized to perform in the best way possible. Don’t forget to take some measures to ensure that your PowerPoint file size isn’t too large.

 

Read More: 4 Ways to Shrink Your PowerPoint File [All About Presentations]

Featured Image: Chris Isherwood via Flickr