Why PPT PowerPoint files are so big?

From time to time when we prepare PowerPoint presentations, and we are ready to finish them prior to the presentation time, we come to the conclusion that the file is too big. Besides that nowadays we can host any PPT online and use the cloud storage to share presentations (Dropbox, Box.net, SkyDrive, Google Drive, etc.), waste storage is not ideal.

But why a PPT presentation can be so big in file size? There are many reasons, but the most common one is due to the images inside the slides. Suppose we use heavy pictures and photos in a PowerPoint presentation. In that case, the images may not be optimized for a desired resolution, especially if we copy and paste the images taken with a high MP photo camera into the PowerPoint slides. In the end, we will come up with an extensive PowerPoint presentation.

One possible solution to this problem is using the optimization tricks for PowerPoint that allows you to compress images in the PPT file. We already explained how to do this in How to optimize images in PowerPoint to shrink the size. Since images consume size, another possibility to keep the size of your PowerPoint file reduced is to use vector images and scalable graphics for PowerPoint.

We recommend the following articles:

• Reduce file size in PowerPoint .PPT by cropping the images and shrinking images to a specific resolution (screen instead of print mode).
• Compress and optimize PowerPoint presentations to keep the file size at minimum and gain overall performance.
• Make PPT size smaller.
• Compress pictures in PowerPoint to reduce its size.

But images is not the only cause of this problem. There are many other reasons why your PPT file can be so big. The macros and heavy use of VBA can also cause this, although it is not very common, but saving from PowerPoint 2010 and 2007 to an older PowerPoint version like 2003 can also increase the final file size.

Embedding videos and multimedia files (like music or sound) can also increase the file size, obviously. So another good approach to keep the file size reduced is to link external resources. However, make sure that if you need to copy the PPT to another computer you also copy the multimedia sound and videos, otherwise it won’t play when you are ready for the presentation.