Secure PowerPoint Slides by Saving as Graphic Images

Add Additional Security to PowerPoint Slides

I get asked frequently about how to secure your presentation so that it cannot be changed by someone else. The best option I know of is to save your slides as graphic images. This takes a little more work, but is worth it in the end, especially if your presentation contains information that is critical and must not be changed, such as graphs of financial data.

Notes

• Any animations or transitions that you have added to your slides will be lost in this method, as you will be creating a single graphic image of the complete slide.
• You may decide to save only the graphic object on a slide (such as a chart), as a picture to be inserted later. This allows you to animate the graphic object and also add descriptive text boxes which can be animated as well.

Step 1 - Save Your Slides as Graphic Images

>> Step by Step Walkthrough with Screenshots

1. Open your presentation.
2. Navigate to the first slide you wish to save as a picture.
3. PowerPoint 2007 - Click Office button > Save As
   PowerPoint 2003 - Choose File > Save As...
4. Type a file name in the File name: text box.
5. Click the Save As type: drop down list and choose the format for your picture -- PNG (Portable Network Graphics) is the best format to choose for a lower overall file size.
6. Click the Save button.
7. A dialog box will appear prompting you -
   • Save Current Slide Only - the slide will be named by the presentation filename, or you can choose a different filename for the slide.
   • Saving Every Slide - PowerPoint will create a new folder using the presentation filename for the folder name (you may opt to change this folder name), and add all the picture files to the folder. Each picture will be named Slide 1, Slide 2 and so on.

Step 2 - Insert Your New Pictures into PowerPoint

• Method 1 - Insert One Picture at a Time
  
  1. Start a new presentation.
     • PowerPoint 2007 - Choose Insert > Picture from the ribbon.
     • PowerPoint 2003 - Choose Insert > Picture > From File... from the menu.
  2. Locate the first picture that you had saved.
  3. Click the Insert button.
  4. Repeat the previous two steps until all pictures have been added to new slides.

Note - If necessary, resize the picture(s) to cover the whole slide.

• Method 2 - Insert All Pictures at Once
  
  1. Start a new presentation.
     • PowerPoint 2007 - Choose Insert > Photo Album from the ribbon.
     • PowerPoint 2003 - Choose Insert > Picture > New Photo Album... from the menu.
  2. In the Photo Album dialog box, choose to insert pictures from File/Disk.
  3. Locate the pictures in the folder and press the keyboard shortcut keys Ctrl + A to select all the photos in this folder.
  4. Click the Insert button.
  5. Click Create to create the photo album. If necessary, resize the photos to cover the complete slides.
  6. Delete the first slide in the presentation -- which is a title slide for a photo album and is unnecessary for this project.

More on PowerPoint Photo Albums

• Digital Photo Albums in PowerPoint 2007
• Digital Photo Albums in PowerPoint

More on Security in PowerPoint Presentations