Need your PowerPoint files to be smaller?
Of course you do since most corporate firewalls impose a 5MB limit on email attachments. (You knew that, right?)
Text and animation take up very little space in a PPT file, but imagery can easily balloon the size of a file if you’re not careful. (To help with the size of video, see the sidebar over to your right…)
And if you’ve ever tried to do it, Zipping a PPT file just doesn’t reduce the size of it at all.
PowerPoint has for some time offered, (but in typical fashion buried) a built-in image compression function that will compress an individual image or all images in your deck. In PPT 2003, right-click on any image in the presentation and go to Format Picture: Picture: Compress… In PPT 2007 go to the Format tab: Compress Pictures (it’s in the upper left corner.)
Unfortunately, Microsoft’s built-in compression sucks. You’re not given much control and more often than not, you end up with unacceptable artifacted JPEGy and blurry images. Not cool.
Enter NXPowerLite…
I don’t know how they do it, but the guys at NXPowerLite created and continue to refine an awesome compression tool that shrinks the hell out of a PPT file without losing significant image quality. I’ve seen it take 20MB files down to 3MB in a few seconds. The software offers multiple levels of compression and control, now works with Word and Excel files, can integrate into Outlook, is drag and drop, is super fast and just all around puts Microsoft to shame. They even offer a server edition. And most importantly, NXPowerLite never overwrites your files, but always creates a newly named perfectly normal PPT file. Obviously I can’t say enough about this program, and I think the $45 price tag is well worth it. Alas, there’s no Mac version. Yet…
But what if your file is still over 5MB and you have to get it to your client in the next 5 minutes?
Say hello to YouSendIt…
YouSendIt was one of the first server-based large file transfer tools and I think it’s still one of the best. I use FTP sites, integrated network file transfer tools and various cloud storage solutions, but I always find myself returning to YouSendIt.
In a nutshell, YouSendIt allows you to upload a file to their servers at which point they send out an email and web link to whoever you specify alerting them that the file is ready for download.
They offer a good web interface, but I prefer their free desktop client (available for MAC and PC) that allows me to drag and drop files and keep an address book of email addresses. It’s fast, reliable and FREE for single files up to 100MB. If you find yourself needing to send larger files, you can purchase a pro account.
I just can’t say enough about YouSendIt either. And the price is right at $0.
Use PowerPoint add-in PFC to manage the heartache of video
I’ll address the use of video in the future (and try to explain why under the hood PowerPoint does not use Windows Media Player, but an aging video engine that hasn’t changed in well over a decade…)
But in the meantime, if you want to reduce the size of your videos, do some rudimentary editing (including cropping) and generally make sure your videos will work in PPT, take a look at the third-party plug-in “Plays for Certain” from AT&W Technologies.
