Should you bother with the PowerPoint import feature in Beautiful.ai?
In this video I will show you how it works and my take on this feature.
How to Import PowerPoint Slides
In beautiful.ai click the Create a new presentation button
Choose a theme
and click the create presentation button in bottom right corner
Once created, click the Add Slide button
In the left sidebar, click the Import from ppt button
Click the Select File button
Navigate to the file location
Select the file and click the Open button
The system will generate the slide presentation
You will be provided an option to import another file
or select the slide you want to add to your slide deck
To select all of the slides, click the first slide, hold your shift key, and select the last slide
Click the Import Slides button at the bottom of the window
Once imported you can navigate through the slide to see how they imported.
I imported several slide decks and found overall the look and feel stayed consistent with what I created in PowerPoint.
Editing Imported Slides
To edit imported slides, the system will convert to Classic Slide edit mode
The smart slide layouts are not available with imported slides
To make edits, click the component you want to edit.
For text, beautiful.ai uses web fonts and will prompt you to select an option from a drop down list
This will prompt will display even if you use web fonts on the PowerPoint slide deck
In this example, the bulleted list was converted into an image and new text was applied over it
This odd duplicate text was embedded with the image and I couldn't figure out how to separate them.
When I attempted to edit the title slide
the background fill distorted and I had a hard time replicating the original design.
When I imported slides that were just the images,
it was easier to to add the text and get a similar look and feel although not exact
Adding images to imported text only slides was fairly straightforward
I do want to note that on several occasions I got an error message when trying to import a slide deck
You may have to try several times before an import will work
In one instance I had to log out, close my browser, and then try again.
So, should you use this feature?
Generally, I would recommend against using this feature.
If you are hoping to seamlessly convert your PowerPoint slides to the beaufiful.ai smart slides
you will be disappointed.
Due to the conversion to the Classic Slide editing, non-recognition of Microsoft fonts, and challenges with keeping your original slide design
You will end up spending more time fixing the overall look and feel.
Alternative Recommendation
I recommend you use the beautiful.ai PowerPoint Add-in.
It allows you to take advantage of the smart slide layouts and editing
and still use other PowerPoint features you may want and need.
Click the card to learn how to install and use this feature.
If you are planning to ditch PowerPoint and switch to beautiful.ai
It would be quicker for you to start from scratch.
If you plan to only show your imported slide deck via the Beautiful.ai platform
then it shouldn't be a problem.
