PPT to PNG with transparent background

Question

I have a PowerPoint .ppt file and I have to create an image for every slide.

I'm trying to use the integrated PowerPoint "export as .png". It works but the images have all a opaque background, I need a transparent one.

Anyone knows if is it possible and how to do it? (If not via standard export, also with a macro is fine)

Skip past the "it can't be done" accepted answer to the next one. It can be done. The caveats are well worth the pain of trying to make the opaque background transparent on a slide exported to an image where the background remained opaque (quite difficult to do correctly because of aliasing). — , Apr 14 '14 at 09:21
See Justin Mitchell's answer (which somehow appeared at the bottom for me). The chosen answer was of no use to me. — , Nov 24 '15 at 05:10

score 115 · Answer 1 · answered Sep 11 '11 at 23:14

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You can select the shapes within a slide (Word Art also) and right click on the selection and choose "Save As Picture". It will save as a transparent PNG.

answered Sep 11 '11 at 23:14

Justin Mitchell

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Works very nicely in PowerPoint 2010! – Richard Ev Feb 17 '12 at 10:31
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Works in powerpoint 2013 as well. To get the image size you want you may want to put a border around each slide, as it appears to fit the image it creates to the selected objects. But excellent solution! – Apr 14 '14 at 09:18
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This is such a useful feature! Thanks for pointing it out. +1 – Josh B. Jan 30 '18 at 03:02
Still useful in 2023. Thanks! – Inisheer Jan 08 '23 at 13:03

Todd Main · Accepted Answer · 2011-05-02T16:22:45.373

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It can't be done, either manually or progamatically. This is because the color behind every slide master is white. If you set your background to 100% transparent, it will print as white.

The best you could do is design your slide with all the stuff you want, group everything you want to appear in the transparent image and then right-click/save as picture/.PNG (or you could do that with a macro as well). In this way you would retain transparency.

Here's an example of how to export all slides' shapes to seperate PNG files. Note:

This does not get any background shapes on the Slide Master.
Resulting PNGs will not be the same size as each other, depending on where the shapes are located on each slide.

This uses a depreciated function, namely Shape.Export. This means that while the function is still available up to PowerPoint 2010, it may be removed from PowerPoint VBA later.

Sub PrintShapesToPng()
    Dim ap As Presentation: Set ap = ActivePresentation
    Dim sl As slide
    Dim shGroup As ShapeRange
    For Each sl In ap.Slides
        ActiveWindow.View.GotoSlide (sl.SlideIndex)
        sl.Shapes.SelectAll
        Set shGroup = ActiveWindow.Selection.ShapeRange
        shGroup.Export ap.Path & "\Slide" & sl.SlideIndex & ".png", _
                            ppShapeFormatPNG, , , ppRelativeToSlide
    Next
End Sub

edited May 02 '11 at 16:22

answered Apr 19 '11 at 20:08

Todd Main

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Thanks for the reply, could you address me to a macro that for every slide it does a "select all" -> "save as .png"? – Riccardo Apr 21 '11 at 07:03
all objects on the slide (and for every slide like this) or just save the slides as .png in which case any "background transparency would be lost)? – Todd Main Apr 21 '11 at 07:17
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To avoid the loss of transparency, I was looking for a "go in 1st slide, select all, export to .png all selected" then "go in 2nd slide, select all, export to .png all selected" and so on – Riccardo May 02 '11 at 15:38
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Excellent answer. But could you not say "it can't be done!" as the first sentence? I almost missed the rest of it if I were in a hurry. – KFL Nov 24 '15 at 22:05
Confirmed that this still works in PowerPoint 365 for Windows, but not in PowerPoint 365 for Mac, using a modified path (ap.Path & "/Slide" & sl.SlideIndex & ".png"). To make sure I was doing things right on Mac, I tested the slide .Export method (sl.Export ap.Path & "/Slide" & sl.SlideIndex & ".png", FilterName:="png") and it exported a .png fine, but unfortunately that doesn't give a transparent background – Tony M Apr 13 '20 at 08:10
The hacky solution to fix the different-sizes problem is draw a large rectangle over the whole slide and make its' fill and border transparent. Then you can copy this invisible rectangle over all your slides, and so long as nothing protrudes out of the slide, you will be fine--although sometimes image sizes still deviate by a singe pixel for some strange reason when shapes are right up against the border of the slide. – Dragongeek Feb 17 '22 at 17:11

score 8 · Answer 3 · answered Mar 13 '19 at 22:05

One workaround that I have done is:

Ctrl + a to select everything in the slide
Ctrl + c to copy it
open GIMP (probably works in Photoshop or other software)
make a new image with a transparent background
Ctrl + v to paste all the vectors/text into the image
Export the image to a PNG or whatever format

It looks pretty much exactly the same as in Powerpoint, and the vectors/text are very clean with their transparency edges.

score 3 · Answer 4 · answered Feb 12 '14 at 12:37

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Insert a coloured box the full size of the slide, set colour to white with 100% transparency. select all, right-click save as picture, select PNG and save.

copy/paste inserted colour box to each slide and repeat

answered Feb 12 '14 at 12:37

Tony Batt

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score 2 · Answer 5 · edited Oct 03 '12 at 19:36

I just tried to make a transparent image with powerpoint after failing miserably with other online systems. I was successful. Amazing.

First I used word art to give me typefaces which convert well to PNG or JPEG. The ordinary text in powerpoint does not convert well. It gets fuzzy. Anyway, I typed in my words in white (my choice of colour as i wanted it against a navy blue background), arranged it how i wanted, then right clicked and selected format shape to remove lines, then shadow to set the transparency.

I took the transparency to 100%. It came out fine. i then right clicked to save as png. Opened the image with MS Picture manager and resized the image to my suiting. It did not come out with the powerpoint white background at all. Once resized, i dropped the image against my navy blue background and it was like magic.

score 2 · Answer 6 · edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:46

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Here is my preferred quickest and easiest solution. Works well if all slides have the same background color that you want to remove.

Step 1. In Powerpoint, "Save As" (shortcut F12) PNG, "All Slides".

Now you have a folder full of these PNG images of all your slides. The problem is that they still have a background. So now:

Step 2. Batch remove background color of all the PNG images, for example by following the steps in this SE answer.

edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:46

Community

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answered Nov 24 '15 at 05:28

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This was an underrated answer – João Antunes Sep 22 '16 at 14:54
@JoãoAntunes: Unfortunately the selected answer claims "It can't be done" and gives a complicated workaround, and that's the only thing most people will see. Mine was a late answer and so it was automatically put at the bottom. – Sep 24 '16 at 05:16
Kenny LJ: Most of the times @Justin Mitchell's answer works perfectly if the shapes originated from Powerpoint. For the other cases, your solution was perfect! I was in a pinch to do a presentation and I had imagemagick installed and it worked awesomely, to the point that it didn't even blank out the letters in the image, just the background. – João Antunes Sep 24 '16 at 09:54

score 1 · Answer 7 · answered Apr 24 '18 at 16:44

I found a workaround.

Export with a white background (or other color that will work with transparent graphics). This will be out "whitescreen" layer.
Export with "bluescreen" background, or some terrible other color that will make it easy to select out the background from foreground.
Open the bluescreen version as a layer on top of the white screen.
Use the bluescreen layer to select out only the parts you want to use.
Create a mask for the whitescreen layer with the selection made from the bluescreen layer.

This will get good results for edges and aliasing, whilst retaining a good color for the see-

score 1 · Answer 8 · answered Aug 17 '19 at 15:19

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Import To Google Slides

Select desired slide and set background to solid transparent

the click "File->Download as PNG"

answered Aug 17 '19 at 15:19

CrandellWS

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verified that this doesn't work, at least for me, since some ppt features get lost when importing into google slides – Tony M Apr 11 '20 at 17:11
Well I wish i had an another option but that is my only one... – CrandellWS Apr 13 '20 at 00:19

score 0 · Answer 9 · answered Dec 18 '20 at 13:19

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I could do it like this

Saved Powerpoint as PDF
Opened PDF in Illustrator, removed background there and saved as PNG

answered Dec 18 '20 at 13:19

Madis Luik

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In your answer, Iluustrator is mandatory, is not installed by default on every workstation. – YLR Dec 18 '20 at 13:35
You can do it also with Illustrator alternatives, which open PDF. For example Inkscape – Madis Luik Dec 19 '20 at 14:56

score 0 · Answer 10 · answered Sep 14 '21 at 01:09

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Depending on your application, you might be able to let the background color work for you! I needed the slides to overlay scripture on the lower third of our worship service video. I set the PPT background color to chromakey green and saved all of the slides as PNG files. The video system easily removed the chromakey green!

answered Sep 14 '21 at 01:09

Armand

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As it’s currently written, your answer is unclear. Please [edit] to add additional details that will help others understand how this addresses the question asked. You can find more information on how to write good answers [in the help center](/help/how-to-ask). – Community Sep 14 '21 at 01:14

PPT to PNG with transparent background

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