How to view a PowerPoint presentation on an iPad
Top-notch technologies don't always connect very well. As many of you know, Microsoft PowerPoint, the most popular presentation tool ever, is not supported by iPad, the bestselling tablet computer by Apple. Well, if you want to use both, there's got to be a way to do so. Actually, there are a few. Read on to learn how to view PowerPoint presentations on iPads or find out How to Play Flash on iPad.
1. Convert presentation to video
You can convert your PowerPoint presentation to one of the video formats, supported by iPad
(.M4V/.MP4/.MOV). There are plenty of screen-capturing software tools you can use to do so.
PowerPoint like playback. Converted into a video file, presentation preserves animation effects, slide transitions, timings, etc. - all the visual content created in PowerPoint.
Easy sharing. A video file can be uploaded to YouTube and become available from anywhere in the Internet-connected world.
Increased file size. Video format usually takes up more memory than a .ppt file. So be prepared for a larger size of your presentation.
Lower resolution. Attempting to reduce the video file size, screen-capturing software tends to "downgrade" the quality of your slides.
2. Turn your slides into pictures
iPad can easily display images so your presentation can be viewed as a set of pictures. iPad allows the viewing of your pictures in a slideshow mode. This way is great if your presentation is mostly charts, tables, or photos.
Crisp looking slides. You get perfect quality of slides graphics.
Control slideshow pace. You can control your slideshow flow by pausing at the important slides and move through other ones faster.
No animation, no audio, no video. Only static pictures of your slides. Well, if you're only concerned about graphic content in your presentation, it shouldn't be a problem.
Many separate files. Instead of having all of your slides as a single .ppt file, you will have a bunch of separate images as per the number of slides in your presentation.
3. Create a .PDF file
iPad supports .pdf format just fine. Again, if you only care about graphic content of your presentation, that would work great for you.
To convert your presentation to .pdf you can use special software, available in both free and paid editions. You can even use PowerPoint of the latest versions (PPT 2007 with SP2, PPT 2010) to create a .pdf copy of your slides.
Unfortunately, none of the methods described can create a file that would be able to compete with an original PowerPoint presentation, as they can't provide vivid PPT interactivity: hyperlinks, action buttons, trigger animations, mouse-over actions, etc.
We will keep you informed and will certainly update this post if we find another effective way to trick technology and play your presentations on an iPad.
