Why are some slides missing from my PowerPoint PDF?

They are hidden slides. The browser converter and PowerPoint's export both leave them out. On Windows tick Include hidden slides under Options. On a Mac unhide them before exporting.

Do animations show in a PDF made from a deck?

Each slide appears in its final state, with every animated object visible. Transitions and timings are dropped.

Can I convert only some slides of a deck to PDF?

In PowerPoint on Windows, Options, Range lets you type slide numbers. On a Mac, hide the others. The browser converter writes every visible slide.

Does the PDF keep the hyperlinks on the slides?

Yes from the browser converter and from Export or Save As on both platforms. The print dialogue route turns them into plain text.

How do I convert a .ppt file to PDF?

Save it as .pptx in PowerPoint, Keynote or LibreOffice and open that in PowerPoint to PDF, or export from PowerPoint directly. The browser converter refuses the old binary container rather than guessing at it.

Why is the PDF so much bigger than the PowerPoint file?

Pictures are copied at stored resolution and fonts are embedded. Export with Minimum size, or shrink the PDF to a target with Compress PDF.

What does the PowerPoint to PDF receipt prove?

That the slide text is still text. The tool counts the characters the slide parts declare, reopens the finished PDF, counts what came back, and withholds the download below 98%.

Convert PowerPoint to PDF

Turn a PowerPoint into a PDF

How to save a PowerPoint as a PDF

Choose the deck

Open PowerPoint to PDF and drop a .pptx on the page, or pick one. It is read in this browser tab and never leaves it.
Wait for the engine

The first conversion downloads the layout engine once. The browser caches it, so later conversions start at once.
Read the proof

The finished PDF is reopened and the receipt says how many pages came back and how much of the slide text was found in them.
Download and check

Press Download PDF. Open it, scroll to the last page to check the count, and click one hyperlink.

What a conversion does to a deck

Each slide becomes a page the size of the slide, 33.87 by 19.05 centimetres for a widescreen deck and 25.4 by 19.05 for a 4:3 one. Text stays selectable with fonts embedded. Hyperlinks stay clickable. Transitions are dropped. Every animated object appears in its final state on the page, so a slide that builds four bullets shows all four. Embedded video becomes its poster frame.

Hidden slides are left out, in the browser converter and in PowerPoint's export alike, so a deck with two hidden slides ends with two fewer pages than slides and nothing was lost. Speaker notes are left out by both unless you choose PowerPoint's notes layout, covered in Save PowerPoint as PDF with notes.

Convert in this tab and read the receipt

PowerPoint to PDF reads the six OOXML presentation formats: .pptx, .pptm, .ppsx, .ppsm, .potx and .potm. The layout engine is WebAssembly and runs in the tab, so the deck, the PDF and the counts never reach a server. Before the conversion it counts the characters the slide parts declare. After it, it reopens the PDF with the same reader a browser uses and counts the characters that came back. The download appears only when at least 98% of them are found.

The receipt prints the page count beside the slide count and lists anything the engine could not draw exactly, by the part it came from. A deck up to 512 MB opens; the limit is browser memory, so a phone runs out of room sooner than a desktop.

The Windows export options in PowerPoint

File, Export, Create PDF/XPS Document opens a save dialogue with an Options button. Range lets you export all slides, the current one, a selection, a custom show, or a numbered range. Publish what offers Slides, Handouts, Notes pages and Outline view. Include hidden slides, Frame slides, Include comments and Include ink are tick boxes.

Below the file name, Optimize for has Standard and Minimum size. Standard keeps pictures at their stored resolution. Minimum size downsamples them, which is right for a deck that will be read on screen and wrong for one going to a printer. These options are the reason to use PowerPoint's exporter over the browser converter: a range, a handout layout or a hidden slide included on purpose.

How to save PowerPoint as a PDF on a Mac

File, Save As, then set File Format to PDF and click Export. PowerPoint for Mac writes every visible slide with links intact and no dialogue for ranges or layouts. For a range, hide the slides you do not want first, or export everything and cut it afterwards. For notes or handouts on a Mac, the print dialogue is the only route.

File, Export on a Mac offers PDF too and produces the same file. The quality slider there controls picture compression in the same way as Standard and Minimum size on Windows.

How to print PowerPoint slides to PDF, and when to

File, Print with Microsoft Print to PDF on Windows or Save as PDF in the macOS print dialogue also makes a file. It offers the print layouts, including several slides per page and Notes Pages, which is why the Mac needs it. It goes through a print driver, so hyperlinks become plain text and the slide sits on a paper-sized page with white margins unless you set Scale to Fit Paper.

Use the print route for a Mac notes export or a handout. Use the browser converter or Export for everything else.

How to convert PPT to PDF, and files without PowerPoint

A .ppt from PowerPoint 97 to 2003 is a Compound File, an older container holding binary records rather than XML, and a password-protected deck of any age is wrapped in the same container. The browser converter names both rather than guessing at bytes it cannot read. Open the .ppt in PowerPoint, Keynote or LibreOffice, save it as .pptx, and it opens here.

LibreOffice Impress opens both formats and exports PDF from its File menu, with a dialogue for ranges and notes, and its command line converts a folder of decks in one pass. Google Slides imports a .pptx and downloads a PDF from File, Download, with fonts swapped for the nearest Google font. On a phone, the routes are different again and are in PowerPoint to PDF on a phone.

When the PDF is too large

A deck of forty slides with a photograph on each converts to tens of MB, because the pictures are copied at their stored resolution. Export again from PowerPoint with Minimum size, or open the PDF in Compress PDF, type the limit the recipient gave you, and download a file that has been read back and checked against the original. Text stays selectable either way.

Compress a large PDF covers files that need more than one pass. The other deck and document guides are under PDF, Word, Excel and PowerPoint help.

Questions people ask

Why are some slides missing from my PowerPoint PDF?: They are hidden slides. The browser converter and PowerPoint's export both leave them out. On Windows tick Include hidden slides under Options. On a Mac unhide them before exporting.
Do animations show in a PDF made from a deck?: Each slide appears in its final state, with every animated object visible. Transitions and timings are dropped.
Can I convert only some slides of a deck to PDF?: In PowerPoint on Windows, Options, Range lets you type slide numbers. On a Mac, hide the others. The browser converter writes every visible slide.
Does the PDF keep the hyperlinks on the slides?: Yes from the browser converter and from Export or Save As on both platforms. The print dialogue route turns them into plain text.
How do I convert a .ppt file to PDF?: Save it as .pptx in PowerPoint, Keynote or LibreOffice and open that in PowerPoint to PDF, or export from PowerPoint directly. The browser converter refuses the old binary container rather than guessing at it.
Why is the PDF so much bigger than the PowerPoint file?: Pictures are copied at stored resolution and fonts are embedded. Export with Minimum size, or shrink the PDF to a target with Compress PDF.
What does the PowerPoint to PDF receipt prove?: That the slide text is still text. The tool counts the characters the slide parts declare, reopens the finished PDF, counts what came back, and withholds the download below 98%.

Do it now

The tool runs in this browser. Your file never leaves the machine, and the result is checked before you download it.