How to Add Sound and Movement to PowerPoint Slides

12/17/2015

Contents

Compress media to decrease file size

Trimming an audio or video clip affects only the playback of the media on the slide, not the original media clip. The original media clip is stored in its entirety as part of the presentation, and you can re-trim or restore the media clip at any time.

You can decrease the size of a PowerPoint file that contains trimmed media clips by discarding the unused portions of the clips. PowerPoint 2016 offers three compression configurations designed to balance size and quality.

Choose the size and quality that best fits your needs

When you save and close the file after compressing the media, the trimmed portions of the videos are discarded and no longer available. You can reverse the compression operation until you save and close the file.

To compress media files

Save the PowerPoint presentation, and then display the Info page of the Backstage view.

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Info page of the Backstage view
Note the total size of the presentation, the size of the media files in the presentation, and the number of files that have been trimmed.
On the Info page, click the Compress Media button, and then click the level of compression you want. In the Compress Media window, PowerPoint itemizes the media elements and their compression levels, and reports the total space savings.

Compressing media files can make a big difference in file size
In the Compress Media window, click the Close button. In the Media Size And Performance area of the Info page, the Compress Media button is active to indicate that media has been compressed, and specifics about the compression are available.

You can undo the compression if you don’t like the results
Play the presentation to assess the quality, and then save the file if the quality is acceptable.