Save Your PowerPoint Slides As Images

There may be occasions when you will want to export/save a particular PowerPoint slide(s) as an image file. A real world example of why you might need to do this could be to create a high-resolution thumbnail image for your YouTube videos (I do this all the time!).

In this article, we’ll take a look at the various file options we have access to via PowerPoint and how to save our slides to an image format.

Available Picture Types

You have four file types available to you when you are saving a PowerPoint slide:

• PNG
• JPEG
• GIF (Graphics Interchange Format)
• BMP (Bitmap)
• EMF (Enhanced Windows Metafile)

I recommend using a PNG if your slide contains graphics and a JPEG if you slide contains real-life imagery from a camera.

Steps To Take

Here are the steps to saving a selected slide as an image:

1. Go To File
2. Select Save As in the left-hand pane
3. Select your desired File Type from the Save As dialog box
4. Click Save
5. Select from the Prompt if you want to save All Slides or the Active Slide

How to Save As Images With VBA

Sub SaveSlideAsImage()
'PURPOSE: Save each selected slide as an individual image file
'SOURCE: www.TheSpreadsheetGuru.com
 
Dim FileExtension As String
Dim SaveLocation As String
Dim ImageName As String
Dim SelectedSlides As SlideRange
Dim sld As Slide
Dim x As Long
 
'Inputs
  FileExtension = "png" 'jpg, gif, bmp, emf
  SaveLocation = "C:\Users\chris\Desktop\"
  ImageName = "Custom Image"
  
'Set variable equal to only selected slides in Active Presentation
  On Error GoTo NoSlideSelection
    Set SelectedSlides = ActiveWindow.Selection.SlideRange
  On Error GoTo 0
 
'Loop through each selected slide
  For x = 1 To SelectedSlides.Count
    
    'Store each slide to a variable
      Set sld = SelectedSlides(x)
      
    'Save Slide as image file
      With ActivePresentation.Slides(sld.SlideIndex)
        .Export SaveLocation & ImageName & _
        sld.SlideIndex & "." & FileExtension, FileExtension
      End With
 
  Next x
 
Exit Sub
 
'ERROR HANDLERS
NoSlideSelection:
  MsgBox "You do not have any slides in your PowerPoint project.", 16, "No Slides Found"
  Exit Sub
 
End Sub

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Chris Newman

Chris is a finance professional and Excel MVP recognized by Microsoft since 2016. With his expertise, he founded TheSpreadsheetGuru blog to help fellow Excel users, where he shares his vast creative solutions & expertise. In addition, he has developed over 7 widely-used Excel Add-ins that have been embraced by individuals and companies worldwide.