Making a 4K-output PowerPoint presentation

[IanT]

With the advent of the regime of our new 4k projector, here are a few words of advice on how to make Microsoft PowerPoint use the full resolution available. Personally, at the outset, I was under the impression that it simply used automatically all of the pixels available. Not a chance!! Unless you follow the instructions below, it will default to 1024 x 768 pixels and upscale on output to the 4k projector making all your luvverly sharpness disappear into mush. What a mess!! The way around it is as follows and because Powerpoint has changed its methods in the latest update (V2306), what you might have done before to arrange for 4K is no longer valid. The stated process on the Microsoft Website defies logic and will defeat you if you are NOT working on a 4k screen when building the presentation! To circumvent this, the following instructions should be followed:

To make a presentation which will display at 4K…..

1. In PowerPoint, create a new presentation. Then, under the ‘design’ menu tab at the top, go to the right hand end and click ‘slide size’. Select ‘custom slide size’, then ‘landscape’ under the ‘slides’ section on the right, then in the ‘slides sized for’ box, choose Widescreen’. For 4k output, the measurements in the two boxes below should be Width = 101.6 cm, height= 57.15. It seems that rather than simply define the number of pixels, Microsoft has internally specified a screen resolution of 96 dpi and this cannot be changed. The dimensions entered relate to that dpi for 4k. For interest's sake, if you want more info on this go to http://www.egfx.com/powerpoint-resolution/
2. Under the ‘slide show’ menu tab, click ‘set up slide show’, then make sure that under the ‘multiple monitors’ box the slide show monitor is ‘automatic’. Then PPT will output at the resolution of the secondary monitor (= the projector).
3. Click the ‘file’ menu tab and then click ‘options’ at bottom left.
4. Click ‘advanced’ from the left of the box then shown, and under ‘Image size and quality’ tick the ‘do not compress images’ checkbox and pick ‘high resolution’ from the ‘default resolution’ drop-down.
5. Now edit your presentation and insert your images at a max size of 3840 wide x 2160 high. If the image occupies all of the powerpoint work/display space, it will display at full resolution. If it doesn’t fill the space, it will be scaled by the software, but any loss of sharpness will be minimal if you keep the image at the largest size acceptable to you. Remember that it’s the overall presentation output that will be 4k, meaning that any picture that doesn’t use the full screen will be scaled down a bit.

DO BE AWARE that you will (or may?) need to go through the above process for any new PPT – I think it’s likely that the choices won’t be save for next time - but you might find otherwise!

What a palaver. In 2023, you’d think it would all be a bit more automatic, wouldn’t you? I have tested this and it works for me. I don't discount hte possibility that things might be different on your system - if it is, do let me know.

[BrianMet]

Thanks Ian fortunately I don't use MS products and unlikely to be doing a presentation

[IanT]

Thanks Ian fortunately I don't use MS products and unlikely to be doing a presentation

Thanks Brian! I'm so glad that you let us know ;->