Generating a PowerPoint presentation from a Word document

OK… this blew my mind this morning. Joanne C Klein tweeted about the new Export to PowerPoint preview feature in Word on the Web. I gave it a try, and it’s pretty impressive! Here’s how it works…

Here is a Word document I had lying around for a few years. I opened it up in the browser-based version of Word and clicked on File:

Export > Export to PowerPoint presentation (preview):

I then picked a recommended design theme and clicked Export:

After a couple of progress screens that lasted less than 10 seconds:

I had a presentation!

Now for a couple of caveats:

• This is only available on the browser-based version of Word.
• It’s a preview feature, so don’t be surprised if they continue to tweak it.
• It only pays attention to text in the Word document. It does not support any media types in the document.

Having said that, it’s pretty awesome. It’s a great way to get an initial slide deck generated from content you already have in Word, and you can then work on fleshing out the slides for your presentation.

Here’s the Microsoft documentation on the feature: Microsoft Word and PowerPoint for the Web announce Export to PowerPoint presentation