Presentations

Import a PowerPoint file

A PowerPoint file you already have can start a deck. Its look (colours and fonts), layouts, text and pictures come in. Its numbers come in as typed text, so the checks flag each one until you bind it to data, and its charts and tables come in as slots to bind: a deck never shows a figure nobody bound. When the import is done, a report says exactly what came in and what was left out, and why.

What you can import

File	From the Presentations home	Into a deck (the rail’s Slides)
PowerPoint presentation (.pptx)	A new deck, in the file’s own look	Its slides, after the slide you choose, in the deck’s look
PowerPoint template (.potx)	A new template of your workspace, in the file’s look	The deck takes the template’s theme and master

A file is 100 MB at most. Files with macros (.pptm, .potm) are never brought in: in PowerPoint, save the file as a PowerPoint Presentation (.pptx) and import that. A PowerPoint show (.ppsx), a password-protected file and a .ppt of before 2007 are refused the same way, each with what to do.

Import a file

On the Presentations home, choose New presentation, then Import PowerPoint. To bring slides into a deck you are editing, open a slide’s ⋯ menu in Slides (on the rail) and choose Import PowerPoint after….
Choose the file. Its progress shows while it is sent, then while its slides, pictures and look are read.
Read the report, then Open the deck (a new deck), See it in the templates (a template) or Done (slides added to the deck you are editing, which opens at the first of them).

While the file is being sent or read, Cancel stops the import, and the dialog says Cancelled: nothing was made. Once the import is being saved it is too late to cancel: the dialog says so, then shows what was made. Closing the browser tab while a file is sent or read stops the import too, before anything is saved.

Bringing slides into a deck needs contributor access to it; taking a template’s theme and master needs edit access.

What comes in

The look. A new deck wears the file’s own colours, kept as a theme of its own (the theme switch shows it as the colours of the PowerPoint file this deck was imported from). Each font is set in the nearest deck font, and the report says which: Calibri in Inter, Georgia in Merriweather, Consolas in Geist Mono. A font whose name is longer than 200 characters is set the same way, and the report says so without naming it. Colours a slide’s text can’t be read in, or chart colours readers with red–green colour blindness can’t tell apart, are not taken as they are: the report says why, and what the deck wears instead. Slides brought into a deck take that deck’s look.
Layouts. A slide of PowerPoint’s Title and Content layout goes on the deck’s Title and content layout, its title and body in their places, and the deck’s master takes the file’s title and body places and sizes. Every other slide goes on the Blank layout, placed as it was. In a new deck or a template, the shapes and pictures of the file’s master and layouts (a band of colour, a logo) are drawn on each slide, locked, beneath its content. Slides brought into a deck wear that deck’s own master instead, so those shapes, pictures and backgrounds stay behind, and the report counts them. A layout’s name longer than 200 characters is reported by its kind’s name. A title or a body placeholder that PowerPoint draws on a coloured box set in its layout or master (a title on a band) keeps that box: its fill, outline and shape come with its text. An empty placeholder draws nothing, as in a slide show, and slides brought into a deck leave that box behind with the master’s other shapes, counted.
Text. Text boxes keep their text and paragraph styles: headings, bulleted and numbered lists, alignment, bold, italic, underline, strikethrough, colours and highlights (their own, or the ones their paragraph’s style gives them). Links to web pages and email addresses are kept. A paragraph PowerPoint runs right to left keeps its direction, and Office’s Arabic and Hebrew fonts (Traditional Arabic, Sakkal Majalla, David, Narkisim) are set in Noto Sans Arabic or Noto Sans Hebrew. See Right-to-left text.
Text sizes. A deck sets each paragraph in one of its text styles, at that style’s size. In a text box, the size most of a paragraph’s words are set in picks its style: 32 points or more is a title, 24 points or more a subtitle, and body text below that. A title, a subtitle or a body placeholder’s paragraphs take that style, whatever their words’ sizes. A paragraph whose words are set in more than one size keeps its words, in its style’s one size, and the report counts it.
Vertical text. Text PowerPoint turns a quarter turn (Rotate all text 90° or 270°) comes in as its text box turned, its words reading along the box. Letters stacked one above another, and East Asian text set upright, come in across, in the same box, and the report counts each such text box.
SmartArt text. A deck doesn’t draw SmartArt, but its words come in: each of its shapes that holds text becomes a text box where PowerPoint drew it, in the order the graphic reads (each step, then the points under it), not the order its shapes are stacked in. A file that holds no drawing of the graphic brings its text in over it, a paragraph a point, and so does a graphic whose text boxes would take its slide past the 50 shapes, pictures and text boxes a slide holds (the report says so): in one text box, or in as many as its words need (a text box holds 20,000 parts), as far as the slide has room. An import reads 2,000 points of a graphic, 20,000 in all, and 4 MB of a graphic’s parts, for 3 seconds at most. Whatever of a graphic’s text doesn’t fit is left out, and the report says which reason applies; SmartArt never stops a file from coming in. The graphic’s shapes are left out, and the report says so.
Pictures. Each picture comes in with its crop, turn, flips, transparency and alt text. Every picture is re-encoded as it comes in, so only its pixels reach the deck, never the file’s hidden data.
Shapes and lines. Rectangles, rounded rectangles, ellipses, triangles, diamonds, arrows and chevrons, and straight lines and connectors with their arrows, with their fill and outline. A group comes in as its shapes, each where the group put it.
Speaker notes, and hidden slides, which stay hidden.
The page size. A new deck or template keeps the file’s own: widescreen 16:9, standard 4:3, A4 landscape or portrait, or a phone story. A file of another shape (16:10) is placed, centred, on the nearest of them, and the report says so. Slides brought into a deck are placed, centred, on that deck’s size, said too when the file’s differs. See Resize a deck.

Numbers and charts: bind them

A number typed in a slide’s text — Revenue grew 12% to $4.2M, in a text box or in SmartArt — comes in as you typed it. It is not bound to data, so the checks flag it (N1) and it holds publishing back until you deal with it. In the Checks panel, each such number has a Bind this number button: it takes you to the slide and asks Add data for the figure the number is. Choose a metric, a model measure or a saved query, and the typed number becomes a live number of it, in the same place, styled as it was. A number that is not data — a year, a date, an id — can be marked Not a data figure, and a plan or an outside estimate entered by hand with its source. See Bind numbers to data.

A chart or a table comes in as a slot to bind: it keeps its place and its kind of chart where the deck draws it (bars, columns, lines, areas, pies, doughnuts, waterfalls, treemaps, funnels), and asks for its data. Its series names in the file (Revenue, Cost) and a table’s column names are kept as a hint beside it; its values in the file are never brought in. A table’s column names are taken only from a header row: when a table has none, its slot shows no hint, and the report says the table has no header row. Choose its data on the slide, as for a template’s data slot.

What is left out

The report counts each of these, with its reason:

Left out	Why
SmartArt	A deck doesn’t draw SmartArt: any text in it came in as text boxes, in reading order. Rebuild its shapes on the slide.
Paragraphs set in more than one size	A deck sets each paragraph in one text style: a text box’s took the style the size most of its words are set in picks (a title from 32 points, a subtitle from 24, body text below); a placeholder’s took its own style’s size.
SmartArt text a slide has no room for	Its slide’s other shapes, pictures and text boxes fill the 50 a slide holds: add its words on another slide, or split the slide in PowerPoint and import again.
SmartArt text past what its text boxes hold	Its words are more than the text boxes its slide has room for hold (20,000 parts each): the rest is left out. Split the graphic in PowerPoint and import again.
SmartArt text past what an import reads	An import reads 2,000 points of a SmartArt graphic, 20,000 in all and 4 MB of a graphic’s parts, for 3 seconds at most: the rest is left out. Split the graphic in PowerPoint and import again.
Superscript and subscript	A deck sets them on the line: a footnote mark or a power (m²) came in as a plain character beside its word, so read it again.
Text set vertically, stacked or upright	A deck turns a text box but doesn’t stack its letters or set East Asian text upright: its text came in across, in its own box.
Embedded objects (spreadsheets, documents)	They are never opened. Bind the data the slide needs instead.
Video and sound	A deck plays no video or sound.
Ink drawings	A deck doesn’t draw ink.
Linked pictures	They point at a file outside this one, which is never fetched. Insert the picture itself and import again.
Links to files, programs or other slides	Only links to web pages and email addresses come in; the words of the link do.
Connectors that bend, and other shapes (stars, freeforms)	A deck draws straight lines and the shapes above; any text in the others comes in.
Pictures a deck doesn’t take	GIF, BMP, TIFF, EMF, WMF and SVG pictures, WebP pictures for now, and a picture past 25 megapixels or 20 MB. Save it as a PNG or JPEG in PowerPoint and import again.
Animations and transitions	A deck shows its slides as they are; present mode has transitions of its own.
Shapes the deck can’t place	A shape far off its slide, or drawn in a way a deck can’t hold (an outline past 50 points). It is never moved, thinned or cut down: move or simplify it in PowerPoint and import again.
The file’s master and layout shapes, into a deck	Slides brought into a deck wear that deck’s own master: the file’s bands, logos and backgrounds stay behind, and so does a placeholder’s coloured box set in them.
Layouts past 200, in a template	A template holds 200 slides at most: one for each of its first 200 layouts.

A template holds no pictures, so a .potx’s pictures are left out, and the report says so: add them to a deck made from the template. Some files are refused rather than cut short, each with the reason:

a file of more than 200 slides, or one whose slides and the deck’s own would come to more than 200;
a slide of more than 50 shapes, pictures and text boxes;
slides that hold more than a deck does (8,000,000 bytes of slides, the deck’s own counted when you import into it), the refusal naming the slide where the limit is passed;
a text box or a slide’s notes of more than 20,000 parts (paragraphs, list items, runs of text).

Split the file, group shapes or move some text in PowerPoint, and import again.

Safe by design

An imported file is read in a way that can’t harm your workspace: a file that is not a PowerPoint package, one that would expand far beyond its size (a “zip bomb”), one that names parts outside itself, one with macros or a password, and XML that asks for outside entities are all refused before anything of them is used. Nothing a file links to is ever fetched.