PowerPoint presentations contain photos most of the time. Often, the presenter has inserted a photo directly from the camera, or saved it to his computer and added it "as is" to his presentation. Unbeknownst to him, he has probably just added 7 MB or so to the file size of his presentation, just by inserting this one picture.

It is always a good idea to optimize your photos first, before inserting them into your presentation. However, there is still a safety net provided by PowerPoint if you are one of the many who has never heard of optimizing photos. You can compress an individual photo in your presentation, or all of them at once, after they have been inserted. Whew!

I did a sample test to see the actual difference in the file size of the end product. I created a digital photo album, a feature in PowerPoint since version 2002, containing 9 photos. Prior to compressing all the photos, the file size was 15 MB. A few quick clicks later, and the file size was down to 2.91 MB. Very impressive.

Find out how to do it -- and it really is simple.

• Compress Photos in PowerPoint 2007
  
  
• Compress Photos in PowerPoint 2003

See also ~

• Optimize Photos to Use in PowerPoint
• 9 Tips to Jazz Up Your Digital Photo Albums
• Troubleshoot PowerPoint Photo Albums