PowerPoint convert zone: PPT to Google Docs
Whilst Business PowerPoint focuses on PowerPoint - we cannot forget the convenience of cloud computing and the awesomeness of Google Docs. Google offers a slightly reduced version of Microsoft Office. It’s online, and it’s free. You need no software whatsoever other than a browser.
There will be instances where it would be useful to convert a PowerPoint file into Google Docs, or more specifically Google Presentation. This way the presentation would be immediately available to you (or anyone else for that matter) wherever you were in the world - you wouldn’t need a PC with PowerPoint on it to edit or view it.
In order to use Google Docs, you will need a Google account. They are freely available to everyone now and can be accessed here.
Having logged in to Google Docs, select “New” -> “Presentation”.
Google Docs
A new presentation will appear.
In order to convert your PowerPoint into this online format, select “File” and “Upload a file”.
Uploading
Select the file you would like to convert from your hard drive and then click “Upload a file”.
Types of files that you can upload: Documents (up to 500KB)
- HTML files and plain text (.txt).
- Microsoft Word (.doc), Rich Text (.rtf), OpenDocument Text (.odt) and StarOffice (.sxw).
Presentations (up to 10MB from your computer, 2MB from the web, 500KB via email)
- Microsoft PowerPoint (.ppt, .pps).
Spreadsheets (up to 1MB)
- Comma Separated Value (.csv).
- Microsoft Excel (.xls) files and OpenDocument Spreadsheet (.ods).
PDF Files (up to 10MB from your computer, 2MB from the web)
Assuming the file’s on your hard drive, browse to it, give it a name and then Click “Upload File”
Uploading
Be patient with large presentations and don’t close down the screen or it will not import. It’s not entirely obvious anything is happening at this moment - but it is - your status bar at the bottom of the browser probably says “Waiting for ….” This is a good sign!
Once it’s loaded, the screen will refresh and the slides will appear (possibly slowly as they render out) and you should see an almost perfect PowerPoint presentation within Google Docs. There will almost certainly be some formatting differences that you should live with and amend manually.
The file’s now available to edit / share / publish - but that’s a whole nutha lesson!
What about converting the other way?
The issue that concerns some users the most when adopting trends of cloud computing is the compatibility of web applications with desktop software. Google Docs recently added a new feature to Google Presentations that will allow users to save Google Presentations as PowerPoint Files meaning you could start working on a presentation on the beach on holiday… get back to the office and export it onto your desktop.
To convert a Google Presentation as PowerPoint file, open the “File” menu in Google Docs and click on the new option “Save as PPT”.
I know - holiday’s are not for working but you get my drift.
