Compressing all video/audio media in a PowerPoint file
In PowerPoint with the file opened that you want to compress, select the
File tab at the top left.
Then select
Info just below the top left.
Select the
Compress Media button next to Media Size and Performance and select the desired setting. The names of the settings will vary depending on the version of PowerPoint, but it's suggested to start with the lowest options first, which is
Standard (480p), in this example.
Once you've selected a compression option it will immediately compress all media in the PowerPoint. The Compress Media dialog box will display the initial size of the media and how much size was saved for each media. In the example below the media went from 45.4 MB to 4.3 MB, resulting in a 41.1 MB or 91% savings! Select the
Close button to close the Compress Media dialog box.
Now that you've compressed media in the PowerPoint you will want to review the media to ensure that the quality is acceptable. If the decrease in quality is not acceptable return to the
Compress Media button shown above and select Undo, and then repeat the process but select a higher quality option. If there are any issues using undo close the PowerPoint and re-open it.
When you're satisfied with the results of the media compression save the PowerPoint (do not overwrite your original, just in case you need to go back to it).
Compressing all images in a PowerPoint file
In PowerPoint with the file opened that you want to compress, select
File at the top left and then
Options at the bottom left. In the PowerPoint Options dialog that appears select the
Advanced tab on the left. Below Image Size and Quality
select Discard editing data,
unselect Do not compress images in file, and set
Default resolution to
96 ppi. Select the
OK button at the bottom to return to the PowerPoint.
In the PowerPoint presentation, select an image (any image) and the ribbon at the top should automatically change to the
Picture Tools toolbar. In the Picture Tools toolbar select the
Format tab. Next, select the
Compress Pictures button that appears around the middle of the image below.
In the Compress Pictures dialog
unselect Apply only to this picture,
select Delete cropped areas of pictures, and
select Use default resolutions. Select the
OK button to process all images in the PowerPoint.
Now that you've compressed the images in the PowerPoint you will want to review the images to ensure that the quality is acceptable. If the decrease in quality is not acceptable you can either use control-z to undo the image compression and repeat this process but use a higher quality resolution. If there are any issues using undo either close the PowerPoint and re-open it or return to the original copy of the document.
When you're satisfied with the results of the image compression save the PowerPoint (do not overwrite your original, just in case you need to go back to it).
Hopefully the PowerPoint has a much smaller file size!
Results
While working through these steps with a sample presentation file the reduction in quality was only slightly noticeable and the file size was reduced by 89%:
