Sometimes a PDF just isn’t good enough when you want to protect your presentation (see our guide here).
For example, your client insists that you send your presentation as a native PowerPoint file so that they can go through it slide by slide in Presentation Mode on their computer.
How do you do this while making sure that the content of your presentation isn’t easily edited or copy/pasted?
The fastest and least complicated way to protect your presentation is to turn all of your slides into pictures.
There are two different methods for achieving this:
- A fast method, using the PowerPoint Picture Presentation file format
- A longer (sneakier) method, using the PowerPoint Photo Album command
The advantage of the first method is speed, the advantage of the second method is file size.
The fastest way to pull this off is to save your presentation directly as a PowerPoint Picture Presentation…and you’re done!
Notice that the file size for the longer method is almost half the file size of the faster method (based on a deck of 31 slides). As such, it you are emailing a larger deck, the longer method is definitely the way to go.
Below are the tutorials for both methods depending on whether you are looking for speed or file size.
You can also protect your presentation with a password in the Read Only Mode, see see our guide here.
Trick #1: The Picture Presentation
1. Launch the ‘Save As’ dialog box
2. Select the ‘PowerPoint Picture Presentation’ option
3. Name and save your presentation
Trick #2: The Photo Album Trick
1. Launch the ‘Save As’ dialog box
2. Select a picture file format
3. Click ‘Save’ to export all your slides as pictures
So what just happened?
If you now navigate to the location you exported the slides as pictures to, you should have a folder named after your presentation, with each of your slides saved within it as a picture, named Slide 1 through however many slides you had in your presentation.
4. Open a blank document and insert a ‘Photo Album’
5. Navigate to where your pictures are saved
6. Select all of your pictures
7. Select ‘Create’
8. Delete the first slide
9. Fix the slide dimensions (optional)
10. Select ‘Maximize Slide’
What do you now have?
The result is that you now have a native PowerPoint presentation, with all of your slides pasted in as pictures that cannot be directly edited. Notice that if you select the slide itself, the Pictures Tools Format Tab opens.
Note: Make sure you make all of your adjustments to your presentation BEFORE you export everything as pictures, like properly adding your slide numbers to your presentation (see our how to guide here).
Once your presentation is in this picture format, no one can edit it (including you). Any changes you want to make to your presentation, will have to be made to the original PowerPoint file, and then exported as pictures again.
11. Save your presentation
As a last step, make sure to save a copy of your new PowerPoint presentation. Either hit CTRL + S on your keyboard for Save, or F12 on your keyboard for Save As. Once it’s saved, you can then safely send it to your client without worrying about losing the PowerPoint slideshow functionality OR leaving your content unprotected.
This is a roundabout way to protect your presentation by turning it into a photo album.
If you would prefer to password protect your presentation instead, see how to do that here.
What’s Next?
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