Compressing pictures

If you want to email a presentation that contains pictures, you'll need to monitor its file size. Large high-resolution pictures can quickly cause your presentation to become very large, which may make it difficult or impossible to attach to an email. Additionally, cropped areas of pictures are saved with the presentation by default, which can add to the file size. PowerPoint can reduce the file size by compressing pictures, lowering their resolution, and deleting cropped areas.

To compress a picture:

Select the picture you want to compress, then click the Format tab.

Click the Compress Pictures command.



A dialog box will appear. Place a check mark next to Delete cropped areas of pictures. You can also choose whether to apply the settings to this picture only or to all pictures in the presentation.

Choose a Target output. If you are emailing your presentation, you may want to select Email, which produces the smallest file size. When you are done, click OK.



Compressing your pictures in PowerPoint may not reduce the file size enough for your needs. For better results, you can use an image editing program to resize the image before you insert it in your presentation. To learn more, see our Image Editing 101 tutorial.