Slide Presentations
On Your Website

There are 4 different ways to convert PowerPoint type presentations to website page content

Q - "Can I put our PowerPoint presentations on the website?" 

A - Yes, there are 4 different ways. Which way is best depends on your goals and the audience for that presentation:

1) Convert to html:

Example: PowerPoint slides as html pages

This is probably the best choice for search engine visibility. Every search engine in existence can read the content provided that slide content isn't all graphics. How it works: Your slide production program, (PowerPoint or similar software), converts the slides into two sets of web pages.

Advantages of this method

• The graphic version of the page contains the slides as graphic images.
• The second version of the page contains just the text from the slide which is easily read by search engines and those with visual disabilities.
• Converted slide pages load reasonably quickly, typically 8 to 10 seconds each on a dial-up connection.

Disadvantages

• This type of conversion is the most time consuming to produce if you are a perfectionist  because to do it right, we should put some finishing touches on those pages for easier navigation.
  
• Out-of-the-box the navigation between slides isn't all that intuitive, even with modification.

2) Convert to PDF files

Example PDF (664K) of a similar slide presentation

Advantages

• The chief advantage of converting a slide presentation into a PDF is that it's less work, nonskilled work and can be done very quickly unless one want's to add, links, bookmarks, etc.
• Changes your presentation into a universal format that can be read by almost anyone. Most computers sold in the last 5 years come equipped with the Adobe PDF reader.
• PDF is an ideal format for complicated forms and documents loaded with charts and graphs, the sorts of document that doesn't translate easily into web pages.
• Web links can be embedded within a PDF.
• Table of contents and bookmarks can be produced to aid finding material. Useful when presentation is more than a dozen pages.
• Can be produced in high resolution and printed with very high quality.
• At least Google can read and index PDF content. A few other search engines read pdf's but usually not the full content.

Disadvantages

• If someone doesn't have the Adobe reader on their computer they aren't going to view PDF's under any circumstance, (rare today.)
• Slow loading. PDFs often are many times larger than plain web pages with similar content. A typical web page is less than 50kb, (at least the ones we design.) A PDF version of a PowerPoint presentation can easily be 20 times larger than a typical web page which could make it useless to someone on a slow dial-up connection.
• The Adobe PDF reader has different controls and navigation than a browser and confuses some people when all of a sudden it takes over when one clicks on a link with a PDF file attached to it.
• Can't be read by Braille web browsers.
• Google is the only search engine that indexes them.

3) Flash format

Example (88K) Once again, a similar presentation

Advantages

• The Flash format of a PowerPoint can be much, much smaller than a PDF of the same presentation; typically 20% as large as a PDF of the same material. (In our example the Flash version is only 14% of the PDF version.
• Often, total presentations are scarely larger than an average web page.
• Flash is now also a fairly universal format most computers come equiped with it.

Disadvantages

• While it can work nicely for slides and documents heavy with graphics, it delivers fuzzy results on small, highly detailed text.
• Flash pages don't print out very well, user has little control over the process.
• Can't be read by Braille web browsers.
• Even Google can't read them, (indexing)

4) Native PowerPoint Slide file format (.PPT, etc.)

Advantages

We can't think of one.

Disadvantages

• Files will generally be huge and downloads slow as a result.
• Little I.P. security. Easy to steal and modify
• Not everyone has PowerPoint software, (or other slide fromat), or a PowerPoint reader on their system. Those who don't will never see your presentation.