How to make a PowerPoint from a layout

The Slides export in Layout by Zaweba turns a document into a PowerPoint file. It writes a .pptx with one editable slide per page, carrying across text boxes, pictures, shapes, tables, groups, backgrounds, transitions and button jumps. Anyone with presentation software can then open it, edit the words and present it.

It's a common need. A designer lays out a report, a pitch or a set of event panels properly, then someone asks for "the PowerPoint version" so they can present it or tweak a figure on the morning. Rebuilding every page by hand is slow and the copy usually drifts out of step with the printed version.

Setting up pages that make good slides

Slides are wide, so the export works best from pages with a slide shape. Layout's Page tool lets you give pages their own size and orientation, and its presets include screen sizes as well as paper sizes, so you can lay out a deck at a screen proportion from the start. You can even keep a printed report and a presentation in the same document, with different page sizes, if that suits the job.

Use text frames for words rather than turning type into outlines, and keep pictures as placed pictures. Those come across as text boxes and pictures you can still edit. Tables made in Layout come across as tables, and grouped objects stay grouped.

Exporting the slides

When the pages are ready, choose the Slides export and save the .pptx. Each page becomes a slide in order. Backgrounds, including colours and pictures behind the page, go with them. Page transitions you've set for presentation mode come across as slide transitions, and buttons that jump to another page still jump in the slide file.

Open the result in your presentation software and look through it. Words should be editable in place, and pictures can be swapped or resized there.

What changes in the move

Some things don't have a direct match in a slide file. Objects with effects, such as a drop shadow or a feathered edge, go across as pictures, so they look right but can't be edited as shapes any more. If a particular box needs to stay editable after export, keep effects off it. Fine typographic control, such as the paragraph composer and GREP styles, belongs to Layout; the slide file gets the text and its basic look rather than every nuance of the setting.

Pages that turn into clean slides

Keep each page to one clear idea. Slides read from across a room, so a magazine style page crammed with columns will make a crowded slide. Larger type and fewer frames export into decks that are easier to edit later.

Name your styles sensibly and use them. Consistent paragraph styles make a deck whose headings all look the same, which is what people expect from a presentation.

Check pictures before you export. Layout's live preflight points out low resolution pictures and missing links as you work, and a missing picture is just as awkward on a projector as on paper.

Other ways to share a layout

A slide file isn't always the best answer. If the deck only needs to be shown, not edited, Layout's presentation mode plays the pages with transitions. A PDF keeps every detail exactly as designed and opens anywhere, and an interactive PDF can keep the button jumps too. For the web there's HTML export, and for screens and social posts the picture exports give PNG or JPEG of each page or spread.

Where the PowerPoint file earns its place is when other people need to change the words without having Layout. Design it once in Layout by Zaweba, export the slides, and the printed version and the presentation start from the same pages.