Anybody else noticed that the “save to pdf” export format in the current version of Powerpoint shipped with Office 2016 (I have package version, not Office 365 but I hear it’s the same there) creates a file that is in fact LARGER than the pptx file? This is a new bug with 2016 version, I believe. Whether you save through the dialog, or print via Mac OS to pdf, the result is the same. The only workaround is to find a Windows user and have them save your file. Stunning that these compatibility issues still plague us in 2019…try it, you’ll see what I mean. Especially noticeable on 50MB or larger pptx files, where compression is the only way you’re ever going to transmit by email. Some have suggested reducing file quality as a workaround, but then the pdf will have noticeably poor quality for printing and rendering at the other end.
Is it graphics that are doing it?
Perhaps the graphics are expanding to TIFF on export.
My team noticed a while back that PowerPoint PPTX files were huge if the graphics were pasted in, rather than imported from a file. I think I heard graphics on the clipboard are kept uncompressed. A similar thing might be happening here.
I have experienced the same recently. I use Acrobat Pro to compress the PDF and there is no noticeable change to the quality while the resulting file is much smaller.
I have had these exact symptoms today - if I pasted the image from clipboard my PPT was in excess of 20MB but if I dragged the png in from the desktop (it was a screen shot) then it was a much more reasonable 2MB.
Export to PDF sized accordingly.
By the way nowadays I use the excellent python-pptx package to generate my PowerPoint files - including embedding graphics. So I don’t have this paste problem anymore.
Interesting theory, thanks. My workflow problem is that I receive large decks (often delivered via hosted download, e.g. Box.com) and then want to compress for transmission via email or storage without massively losing print quality (some degradation expected/tolerable). What’s most irritating is that I don’t think this was happening in earlier versions of PPTX for Mac, and that it hasn’t been addressed for two years, even as we’ve been shoved to an endless monthly payment from single payment license model, which ought to justify a bit of effort on the vendor’s part…