PPTminimizer

Introduction
About PPTminimizer
Download and Installation
Using PPTminimizer
Pricing and Support
Conclusion

Introduction

PowerPoint is almost a synonym for the word presentation these days -- and presentation file sizes can be huge. True, you could convert your presentation to another format like Flash SWF, but that brings its own share of problems -- like losing the ability to make any changes in future. That's where PowerPoint compression software like PPTminimizer steps in -- this product lets you optimize multiple presentations into different compression levels without changing the format.

About PPTminimizer

PPTminimizer is from Bernard D&G, a German company that also creates several other products such as TurboDemo. You can download a free trial version of PPTminimizer from their site.

PPtminimizer leaves the original PowerPoint file unaltered -- it creates a new file with a suffix of PPTminimizer and allows you to send the optimized presentation via e-mail with a single click.

My contact at PPTminimizer for this review was Sophia Taoutaou - thank you, Sophia.

Download and Installation

Download the installer from the link given above, run the setup routine and follow the instructions. You'll end up with an PPTminimizer program group in your Windows Start menu, as shown in Figure 1 below.

Figure 1: The PPTminimizer Start Menu Group

When you run it for the first time it will ask for your registration details (the serial number) -- alternatively, you can run the product in evaluation mode that allows you to do 12 free conversions.

Using PPTminimizer

When installed, follow these steps to compress a PowerPoint file using PPTminimizer.

1. Go to your Windows Start menu and choose All Programs | PPT minimizer | PPTminimizer (see Figure 1 above).
2. This opens the PPTminimizer interface as shown in Figure 2.
3. 
   Figure 2: PPTminimizer interface
3. To open a presentation, choose the Open Presentations button. (see Figure 3).
4. 
   Figure 3: Open a presentation
5. This opens a new dialog box from where you can select the presentations that you want to compress.
Note: Multiple presentations can be open and optimized at one go.
4. The opened presentation(s) will be listed under the Presentations to Optimize list as shown in Figure 4.
5. 
   Figure 4: Presentations to be optimized
6. There are other sections in PPTminimizer interface, which are explained below:
7. a. Optimized Presentations -- the optimized presentations can be seen here, to save the optimized presentations in a particular folder, choose Save optimized presentation in folder option.
8. b. Compression Settings has three basic compression values which are strong compression, standard compression and low compression.
9. c. Custom Compression can be selected by activating the check box and then clicking the Setting button -- this opens a new dialog box as shown in Figure 5 -- by tweaking parameters like setting the screen resolution, and JPEG quality, you can get the best compression value.
10. 
    Figure 5: Custom Compression Settings
11. There are some other tabs at the left side of the interface, where by choosing the Pack to Go under Task you can send the optimized presentation via e-mail.
12. The Configuration option opens another dialog box (see Figure 6) where the global settings can be altered.
13. 
    Figure 6: Settings
5. When all the settings are tweaked, click on the large Optimize Presentations button. Depending upon the settings, the application will compress the presentation(s) and shows the changes in next window (see Figure 7).
6. In this window you can see old size, new size, and reduction percentage of the presentation. The other options are for viewing, e-mailing and deleting.
7. 
   Figure 7: Optimized presentation(s)
Note: To view the presentation, Microsoft PowerPoint should be installed on the machine.

Pricing and Support

PPTminimizer costs $29.95 for a single-user license, discounts are available for multiple-user and educational licenses.

Email support is complemented by a small online FAQ.

Conclusion

At $29.95, PPTminimizer can be a good deal, especially if you often run into huge presentation sizes.