Converting a Word Document into a PowerPoint Presentation

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A simple tutorial to converting Word to PPT
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Do you want to turn a Word document into a PowerPoint presentation but don't want to retype everything or spend time copying and pasting? There are now two ways to convert Word to PowerPoint—one is to use the web-based version of Word's "Export to PowerPoint" feature to convert the document into slides automatically. If you don't have that feature yet (not everyone does), you can convert to PowerPoint by making a few quick manual formatting changes and then importing the document as an outline.

Converting Word into a PowerPoint Presentation

Open your Word document in Word for the web. Go to File > Export > Export to PowerPoint presentation , select a theme, and click Export . Once converted, click Open Presentation to view and edit the presentation.

Method 1
Method 1 of 2:

Converting Automatically in Word for Web

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  1. Microsoft has created an easier way to convert Word to PowerPoint, but it's only available (and only for some users) in the web-based version of Word. [1] To open your document, log in to https://www.office.com and click the Word icon on the left. Click your Word doc in the "Recently opened" list, or click Upload to upload it from your computer.
    • The "Export to PowerPoint presentation" feature appears to be in testing, as many users report it no longer appears in Word for the web. [2] As of December 2024, we don't see the option in our testing. Because Microsoft still recommends using this feature, we assume it will return soon.
    • This export feature is unavailable in Safari, so if you're using a Mac, you'll need to use Chrome or Edge. You'll also need to use a document without images—you can always add pictures later.
    • Headings in your document will be used as slide headings in the converted PowerPoint presentation.
  2. A list of Export options will appear.
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  3. If this feature is available for your account, this will open an "Export to presentation" window.
    • If you don't see this option, you can still convert Word to PowerPoint by jumping down to this method .
  4. There are only a few themes for now, but you can edit the presentation later in PowerPoint.
  5. Word will now convert your document to a PowerPoint presentation and apply the selected theme.
  6. This opens the converted document in PowerPoint. You can now edit your presentation as needed.
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Method 2
Method 2 of 2:

Formatting & Importing Manually

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  1. Before converting a Word document to a PowerPoint presentation, you'll need to break the document into separate sections that will become individual slides.
    • Each section needs a title at the top, and the title should be on its own line. The title will then become the title of that section's PowerPoint slide.
    • For example, let's say the first page of your Word document contains sales information that you'd like to appear on a PowerPoint slide called "Sales." At the top of that section, you'd type "Sales" as the title, since you want that to be the name of your slide. Below that would be the content of the slide.
    • Press Enter or Return after each section so there's at least one empty line between the end of a section and the title of the next slide.
  2. Click the Home tab if you're not already there—you will then see a "Styles" panel in the toolbar at the top of Word. In it are several formatting examples labeled "Normal," "No Spacing," "Heading 1," etc. [3]
    • If you don't see style examples on the toolbar, click the Styles menu to view them.
  3. Just click and drag your mouse across the entire title to select it.
  4. The text will become large, bolded, and colored blue. PowerPoint will know to use everything with the "Header 1" style as a new slide.
    • Once you change the first title to "Header 1," go through the rest of your document and do the same with other slide titles. You'll want all of the titles to be set to this style so they'll convert properly.
  5. Don't include the title in the highlighted area—just the rest of the page's content. You'll be applying another style to this information.
    • Make sure you have at least one blank line between the title and the rest of the page's content.
  6. This changes the rest of the content to the Heading 2 format. All of this content will appear on the same slide as the title.
    • In the content area, press the Enter or Return key to add space between every block of text you want separated on the slide. Every line or paragraph will be a different bullet on your final slide.
  7. If you assign something to "Heading 3," it will appear indented to the right and on a separate line. The PowerPoint slide would appear like the following:
    • Text formatted with "Heading 2"
      • Text formatted with "Heading 3"
  8. Press Enter or Return before each new title. This creates the outline for PowerPoint. Each large, bolded line indicates a title, and the smaller text underneath is the content of that slide. If there is a space, then another title, PowerPoint will separate this into a new slide.
  9. Once you've set up the outline, you can change the size, color, and font of your text, which will convert it to PowerPoint. The text no longer needs to be blue or bolded -- it has already been coded for conversion to PowerPoint
    • If you delete the spaces between lines or try to add new text, it may not be formatted correctly, so always do this step last.
  10. Once you're finished formatting your entire document, click the File menu, select Save as , click Browse , and choose a folder to save the file to. Give the file a name like "Outline" or something similar, and then click Save .
    • Close Word when you're finished so there are no conflicts with PowerPoint in the remaining steps.
  11. Open PowerPoint and click Blank Presentation at the top of the window.
  12. It's the downward-pointing arrow next to "New Slide" in the toolbar. A menu will expand.
  13. Now you'll see your file browser.
  14. PowerPoint will create slides based on your Word document.
    • Every title you set to "Header 1" appears on its own slide, along with its corresponding content, which you set to "Header 2."
    • You can now design the slides however you'd like using your favorite PowerPoint tools.
    • Word will not automatically convert images for you—you will have to manually add the images into your presentation.
  15. To save your presentation, click File , select Save as , choose a saving location, and then save the file with the .PPTX extension.
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      References

      1. ↑ https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/export-word-documents-to-powerpoint-presentations-51c3d683-0fc9-471e-9d36-0bbba6dca2dd
      2. ↑ https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/discussions/word/export-to-ppt-is-missing-on-word-online/4291136
      3. ↑ https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/create-a-powerpoint-presentation-from-an-outline-f6294909-04e9-4020-b9a8-4587b112692c

      About This Article

      Article Summary X

      1. Break the document into sections with titles.
      2. Apply the "Heading 1" style to each section title.
      3. Apply the "Heading 2" style to each section's content.
      4. Separate each slide with a blank line.
      5. Save the document as a new file.
      6. Open PowerPoint and click Browse .
      7. Navigate to the folder containing the Word document.
      8. Select All Outlines from the drop-down menu.
      9. Select the Word document and click Open .
      10. Edit and save as a PowerPoint presentation.

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