How to Convert Word to PowerPoint

Open your document in Microsoft Word. Launch Word and open the file by clicking "File" → "Open". Any Word document can be converted to PowerPoint. Remember that images must be copied and pasted manually.

Divide each "slide" using headings. To guide PowerPoint on how to split the slides, organize your content accordingly. Above each list, paragraph, or sentence you want to separate into individual slides, write a heading such as "First Quarter" or "Reference List."

• This line will become the large, bold title at the top of each PowerPoint slide.

Access the "Styles" menu. Click on the "Home" tab located at the top-left corner of Word. Along with the toolbar at the top of the screen, you'll see a large box labeled "Styles." It contains various formatting options like "Normal," "No Spacing," "Heading 1," etc.

Highlight the heading and select "Heading 1." You'll need to format each heading individually. The text will become large, bold, and blue. PowerPoint will use this formatting to identify the slide title.

Format slide content as "Heading 2." Press the "enter" key to create space between each block of text you want to separate. Now, highlight the text and choose "Heading 2" from the "Styles" menu. Your text will turn blue. Each line or paragraph will become a bullet point in the final slide.

• Bullet points will remain intact in the slide if formatted as "Heading 2."

Add sub-bullets using "Heading 3." If you assign something to "Heading 3," it will appear indented to the right on a separate line. The PowerPoint slide will display as follows:

• Text formatted as "Heading 2"
  • Text formatted as "Heading 3"

Divide each "slide" using spacing. Press "Enter" before each new heading. This action helps create the PowerPoint outline. Each bolded line is the title, and the smaller blue text below is the slide content. If there is a space followed by another heading, PowerPoint will split it into a new slide.

Customize your text if desired. After setting up the outline, you can adjust the size, color, and font for the PowerPoint conversion. The text doesn't have to remain blue or bold, as it's already coded for PowerPoint conversion.

• If you remove spacing between lines or attempt to add new text, they might not format correctly, so perform this step last.
• Don't forget to save your document!

Convert the text to PowerPoint using "File → Send to PowerPoint". PowerPoint will take your text and automatically convert it into slides. If you don't see the "Send to PowerPoint" button:

• Click "File" → "Options" to open the Options window.
• Click "Quick Access Toolbar".
• Select "All Commands" under the "Choose Commands From:" menu.
• Scroll down the alphabetically listed commands until you find "Send to Microsoft PowerPoint". Click "Add >>".
• Click OK at the bottom right. A small button will now appear at the top-left, allowing you to convert text to PowerPoint.

Edit your presentation in PowerPoint. Finalize your presentation by adding animations, sound, backgrounds, or images.

• Word won't automatically convert images for you. You'll need to manually copy, paste, or insert them into your slides.

Use the "Outlines" interface to format a new Word document for PowerPoint. When writing in the outline view, Word will automatically format slide titles and text, allowing you to write and edit PowerPoint content in a document before converting it into slides.

• You’ll still need to manually add images to PowerPoint.

Start a "new document" in Word. Click "File" → "New" to open a blank document. Alternatively, press "Ctrl" and "N" simultaneously.

Click "View" → "Outline". The "View" tab is located at the top of the screen. After clicking, the "Document Views" tab will appear above the blank document. Select "Outline" to access the outline editing interface.

• This interface resembles a large, plain white screen with multiple tabs at the top.

Type the title of the first slide and press "Enter". The text will appear in a large, bold blue font—this represents the title of each slide.

Press "Tab" to add slide content. The line will indent to the right. Everything written here will become the slide text. Each press of "Enter" creates a new line, corresponding to a bullet point in PowerPoint.

• Pressing "Tab" again creates sub-bullets, as shown below:
  • This is a sub-bullet.

Start a new slide by selecting "Level 1" in the top-left corner. After finishing the text for a slide, press enter to start a new line. In the top-left corner, under the "Outline Tools" heading, you’ll see a menu displaying the current "Level". Use the green arrow or dropdown menu to select "Level 1" and create a new title.

• You can also click and drag the small gray circles next to your text. Dragging to the left turns the circle into a title.

Set "Levels" to format slides. You can click on any line and change its "Level" at any time. Levels are converted to PowerPoint as follows:

• Level 1 = Slide Title
• Level 2 = Slide Text
• Level 3 and above = Sub-bullets
• Body Text will not appear in PowerPoint.

Convert the text to PowerPoint using "File → Send to PowerPoint". PowerPoint will take your text and automatically convert it into slides. If you don’t see the "Send to PowerPoint" button, follow these steps to make it appear:

• Click "File" → "Options" to open the Options window.
• Click "Quick Access Toolbar".
• Select "All Commands" under the "Choose Commands From:" menu.
• Scroll down the alphabetically listed commands until you find "Send to Microsoft PowerPoint". Click "Add >>".

Click OK at the bottom-right corner. A small button will now appear in the top-left corner, allowing you to convert the text to PowerPoint.

Alternatively, open the document directly in PowerPoint. PowerPoint will automatically convert text written in outline format. Click "File" → "Open" in PowerPoint. Select "All Files" from the dropdown menu labeled VIEW FILES to make the Word document appear. Search for and open the document to have it automatically converted.

Edit your presentation in PowerPoint. Complete your presentation by adding animations, sound, backgrounds, or images.

• Word does not automatically convert images. You’ll need to manually copy, paste, or insert them into your slides.

Create slides without titles. To make a new slide without a title, press "enter" to add a new line above the text. Press the spacebar and highlight the blank space with your mouse. Format the space as "Heading One" in the Styles toolbar. This method works well for creating consecutive slides without titles or blank slides for inserting images.

• In the Outlines interface, simply leave the "Level 1" lines blank and press "enter".

Review your text before converting. Click the "View" tab at the top of Word and select "Outline View" in the top-left corner. This won’t affect your text but will display it in an easy-to-follow sequence. Each "Level" you can adjust with the green arrow at the top corresponds to different parts of PowerPoint:

• Level 1 = Slide Title
• Level 2 = Slide Text
• Level 3 and above = Sub-bullets
• Body Text will not appear in PowerPoint.

Add slides from Word to an existing PowerPoint. If you only want to add a few slides from a Word document, you can use PowerPoint to create new slides based on Word. To do this, navigate to where you want to insert the slides. Click the small arrow below "Create New Slide" and select "Create slide from an outline".

• To place slides in the correct position, click on the slide where you want the Word content to appear before selecting "Create New Slides".
• PowerPoint will automatically generate slides from the text in order, not just the first slide.

Link Word documents to PowerPoint. Microsoft allows you to open Word documents directly in PowerPoint if you don’t want to convert everything into a presentation. This lets you create links to Word documents without needing to create multiple new slides. During the slideshow, you can click the link to open your Word document. When closed, PowerPoint will automatically resume from where it left off.

• Right-click the text or image you want to link.
• Select "Hyperlink..."
• Choose the file you want to open from the menu and click "OK".
• Now, you can click the image or text during the slideshow to open your Word document.

Add images by copying and pasting them from Word. Unfortunately, PowerPoint cannot convert images from Word. To include them, simply right-click the image in Word and select "". Then, navigate to the slide in PowerPoint where you want the image, right-click, and select "Paste". You can then move, resize, or crop the image in PowerPoint.

• You can also use the "Insert" button in PowerPoint to search for and add images from your computer.

Download the latest version of Microsoft Office. If you can’t convert the text despite proper formatting and having everything open, you might be using an outdated version of Microsoft Office. If so, download the latest version from the Microsoft website.

• You can also sign up for [a free one-month trial] if you only plan to convert a few documents.