pdfMB

PDF to PowerPoint

Turn every page of a PDF into a PowerPoint slide, with text you can edit where it was. Your file stays on this device.

  • No uploadYour file stays on this device.
  • Your original stays as it isYou download a new copy. Your file is never changed.
  • Free, no sign-upNo account and no daily limit.

What happens to your file

Everything below happens inside your browser, on your own device. The PDF is not uploaded, so nobody else, including us, can see it.

  1. Your browser opens the PDF with pdf.js, the PDF viewer built into Firefox, and reads every piece of text with its position, font, size, bold and italic.
  2. Each page is drawn twice: once as it is, and once without its text. Comparing the two shows where the text is, which text is really visible, and its colour.
  3. Pieces of text on the same line are joined into lines, and lines that belong together, like a list or a paragraph, go into one text box. Each line stays a separate paragraph, so it doesn’t move.
  4. Everything that isn’t text, such as photos, logos, shapes, table lines and charts, is cut out of the drawing without text and placed as pictures under the text boxes. Plain white areas are left empty.
  5. Some PDFs label certain characters wrongly. Files saved from a web browser often mark raised Thai tone marks as “no character”, and files saved from PowerPoint or Word mark the small circle of the Thai vowel ำ as a “space”. pdfMB finds the right characters in the fonts inside your file.
  6. The .pptx file is put together on your device and saved straight to your downloads. Thai text is marked with a Thai font and the Thai language, which PowerPoint uses to choose the font.
In short
  1. Choose a PDF
  2. Pick “Editable text” or “Exact look”
  3. Press “Convert to PowerPoint”
  4. Download the .pptx file

How to convert a PDF to PowerPoint

  1. Choose a PDF or drop it on the box. pdfMB reads every page and tells you whether any pages are scans without text.
  2. Choose “Editable text” to change the words on the slides, or “Exact look” if the slides only need to look like the pages.
  3. Press “Convert to PowerPoint”. A bar shows how far it has got.
  4. Download the .pptx file and open it in Microsoft PowerPoint, Keynote, Google Slides or LibreOffice Impress.

Why text boxes and pictures

A PDF says exactly where each letter goes. A slide is made of boxes: text boxes, pictures and shapes. pdfMB turns the text into text boxes and the rest into pictures, so the slide looks like the page and the words can still be changed.

Each line of the PDF becomes its own paragraph instead of being re-wrapped. PowerPoint breaks lines differently from the program that made the PDF, especially in Thai, which has no spaces between words, so re-wrapping would move text around.

If you only need to show the pages, choose “Exact look”. Each slide is then a picture of the page, with every detail as in the PDF.

When people use it

Presenting a report

Put the pages of a report or a paper on screen in a meeting, and add your own notes and slides around them.

Updating old slides

You only have the PDF of a presentation. Convert it, fix the dates and numbers, and present it again.

Thai slides

Convert Thai PDFs, including ones saved from a web browser or from PowerPoint, without losing tone marks or the vowel ำ, so the text is right when you edit it.

Reusing a page

Take one page of a brochure or a handout and use it as a slide, with its pictures and text in place.

What it can’t do

  • Charts, diagrams and shapes become pictures. You can move and resize them, but not change their data or colours.
  • Tables become text boxes over a picture of the table lines, not PowerPoint tables.
  • Text at an angle, or written from top to bottom, stays part of the picture.
  • If PowerPoint doesn’t have the font used in the PDF, it uses a similar font, so some lines can be a little longer or shorter.
  • All slides have the size of the first page. Pages of a different size are scaled to fit and centred.
  • Scanned pages without text become picture slides.
  • Password-protected PDFs, and PDFs whose owner has blocked copying, can’t be converted.

Questions about converting PDF to PowerPoint

Is my PDF uploaded?

No. pdfMB converts the file inside your browser, and it never leaves your device. You can check this in your browser’s network tools.

Can I edit the text on the slides?

Yes, with “Editable text”, which is the default. The text is in normal PowerPoint text boxes, in the same place, size and colour as in the PDF.

Will the slides look exactly like my PDF?

With “Exact look”, yes: each slide is a picture of the page. With “Editable text” they look very close, but PowerPoint draws the text itself, so a different font can make some lines a little longer or shorter.

Does it keep Thai tone marks?

Yes. pdfMB restores tone marks that some PDFs mark as “no character”, and fixes the vowel ำ that PDFs saved from PowerPoint or Word mark as a “space”. Tools that trust these labels get the words wrong.

What slide size will I get?

The size of the first page of the PDF, so a 16:9 PDF gives 16:9 slides and an A4 page gives A4 slides.

Which programs can open the file?

The .pptx file opens in Microsoft PowerPoint, Apple Keynote, Google Slides, LibreOffice Impress and other programs that read PowerPoint files.