Perhaps you have also wondered why, in the "Save as" dialog box, you can choose file formats such as JPG, BMP, TIF and other graphic formats instead of the usual formats PPT or POT.

Why should a slide, or even an entire presentation, be saved as graphics?

There are definitely cases where saving slides as graphics makes sense:

• You want to share a presentation with people who don't have PowerPoint.
• You want to exclude any changes to your entire presentation.
• You want to fix the content of a slide or the position of the objects on it in an unchangeable way.
• You want to include your presentation as an illustration in brochures or books.

To save one or all slides of a presentation as images, proceed as follows:

• Select the "File – Save As" menu command and, under "Save as type," choose one of the graphic formats (recommended: JPG, GIF, PNG, EMF, or WMF) instead of "Presentation." During the saving process, you can then specify whether to save only the current slide or all slides as images.

PRO TIP 1: Use PNG instead of JPG
When saving as a JPG, PowerPoint compresses the image by default with a high JPG compression rate, which leads to unsightly edges and image quality issues. PNGs, however, require more storage space but deliver a significantly sharper result when saving graphics, text, and images.

You will get the best quality if you save the slides as vector graphics in WMF or EMF format, or as uncompressed bitmap graphics with the file extension TIF.

PRO TIP 2: Fix slide content permanently
In this case, save only the current slide as an image. Then delete all objects from the slide and insert the previously created slide image as the slide background. To do this, select the command sequence "Format – Background – Fill Effects – Picture tab" . The content will then be "baked" into the slide as a background image, which can no longer be changed.