Your client or employee just sent you a PDF and you need to add its content to your PowerPoint presentation. Worse, you may not have enough time to re-draw your presentation.
How to embed a PDF file into PowerPoint for a better presentation?
In this tutorial, we’ll show you different ways to insert a PDF file into your presentation, depending on how you want to use the content.
Insert the PDF file into PowerPoint
There are several options depending on how you want to use the content of the PDF, but the main ones are:
- Insert the entire PDF as an object
- Attach Action
- Insert PDF using screen clipping
- Split PDF and paste as separate pages
- Add text and copy graphics from PDF file
- Insert PDF in PowerPoint for Mac
Insert PDF into PowerPoint as Object
If you choose this option, you probably want to save the PDF file as a supporting document for your PowerPoint presentation. In this case, you will insert the entire PDF into your presentation as an object on a PowerPoint slide, which can be opened and viewed during the presentation by selecting the PDF object on the slide.
Note. You cannot insert or edit PDF content while editing a presentation in PowerPoint for the web (or the web).
- To insert a PDF as an object in PowerPoint, make sure the PDF is not open on your computer, then navigate to the PowerPoint slide where you want to place the PDF as an object
- Click Insert on the menu bar.
- Select an object.
- In the Insert Object dialog box, click New From File.
- Click Browse to open the folder containing the PDF file you want.
- Click the file and then click OK to insert it as an object.
- If successful, you will see a PDF icon appear on the slide and the file is not part of your PowerPoint presentation. When you’re ready to open it normally, double-click the image and it will show the contents of the PDF file.
Attach Action
This option lets you open the PDF file during presentation by adding an action to it.
- To do this, open PowerPoint and make sure you are in normal view.
- On the PDF file slide, click the image or file icon.
- Then click the Insert tab in the Links group and choose Action.
- Select the Mouse Click tab in the Action Options window to open the PDF file with one click. However, if you prefer to open it when you hover your mouse over the PDF file icon, select the Hover tab.
- Select Object Action, click Open in the list, and then click OK.
Insert PDF using screen clipping
You can simply view one page from the PDF file instead of pasting the entire file just to go to a specific page. In this case, you don’t need to insert the PDF as an object or attach it as an action; You can add the content you want from this page as a screen clipping and paste it into your PowerPoint slide as an image or picture.
- To do this, open the PDF file and go to the page whose content you want to insert into your PowerPoint presentation.
- Click Insert and choose Screenshot.
- You will see the open PDF file in the Windows Available Gallery. Click the PDF thumbnail to insert it into your PowerPoint slide as an image.
Note. If you instead want a highlighted portion of the PDF file, click Screen Clipping in the first window displayed in the Available Windows gallery. The screen turns white and the pointer turns into a cross. You can now hold down the left touchpad button of your computer or mouse and drag to select the portion of the screen you want to capture.
Split and paste PDF in PowerPoint as separate pages
If the PDF you want to use with your presentation contains everything you need, you can use this method to split the file and paste it as separate pages, or convert it entirely into a PowerPoint presentation.
Adobe Acrobat DC or a third party tool is required to convert a PDF to PowerPoint presentation. This way, you can turn it into an editable PowerPoint file (.ppt or .pptx) and insert PDF pages into your presentation or use as your main presentation.
If you have Adobe Acrobat DC, you can easily convert a PDF to a formatted PowerPoint presentation with a few clicks. This way, you can update your presentation from your mobile device or web browser from anywhere without wasting time formatting or worrying about conversion errors. It also makes it easier and faster to select and export only what you need.
- To convert PDF to PowerPoint in Adobe Acrobat DC, open the PDF file.
- Click Export PDF.
- Select Microsoft PowerPoint as the export format.
- Click Export.
- Click the blue Export button at the bottom of the screen.
- Save the file as a new file, give it a name and click Save. The file will be preprocessed for export.
Note. Acrobat will automatically start OCR if the PDF file contains scanned text.
Using a third-party tool to convert PDF files to single pages is just as easy. You can use a free online tool like Smallpdf that converts any PDF, including a scanned document to separate pages, or an editable format like PowerPoint.
- To do this in Smallpdf, click on the PDF to PPT Option icon.
- Download the PDF by dragging and dropping it into the Smallpdf online interface, or click Select Files and select the PDF you want to download.
- Wait for the file to download, and after the conversion is complete, click Download and save the converted file to your preferred location. This way, you can open the pages of the converted PDF and select the slides you want to add to your presentation.
Add text and copy graphics from PDF file
With this option, you can copy some of the text from a PDF file and add it to PowerPoint using Adobe Acrobat Reader.
- To paste the text you want, open the PDF file in Adobe Reader and select the text you want to copy.
- Go to the Edit menu and click Copy, or press CTRL and C on your keyboard to copy the text to the clipboard. Alternatively, you can right-click the selected text and choose Copy.
- Open your PowerPoint presentation and navigate to the slide where you want to insert the PDF text. Click Home and then click Insert.
If there is a specific image or graphic that you want to insert from the PDF file, you do not need to insert the entire document into PowerPoint. Open the PDF in Adobe Reader, right-click the PDF and select the image you want to paste into PowerPoint, right-click it and select Copy Image.
Open your PowerPoint presentation and select the slide where you want to insert the image. Click Home and select Insert to insert the PDF image.
Insert PDF into PowerPoint for Mac
Unlike on Windows, where you can insert a PDF file into PowerPoint as an object, on a Mac you can try the same steps, but you will get an error message notifying you that the file is not available or the file type is not supported. This is because Mac Office applications do not have the same object linking and embedding features that Microsoft Office does.
However, you can insert graphics and text from a PDF file into PowerPoint for Mac by following the same steps as above for Windows. Alternatively, you can link to the PDF using Insert> Hyperlink and then choose Web Page or File.
During your presentation, open the hyperlink to display the desired PDF content.
Calculate your next presentation
Whether it’s a demo webinar, office training, or a classroom lesson, PowerPoint is the first tool most people turn to. Now, whenever you present your presentations and need to access the content of a PDF file, you can do so seamlessly without switching between PowerPoint and the PDF viewer.
If you have any other tricks you’ve already used to insert PDF into PowerPoint, we’d love to hear your recommendations in the comment below.
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