Extract a Single PowerPoint Slide from a Presentation

Joe asks, "Is there a way to save one slide out of many in a PowerPoint presentation?"

There are several ways to save an individual slide from a PowerPoint presentation, although the workflow in PowerPoint isn't quite as logical as it should be. Depending on whether you want the still PowerPoint image or the full functionality of the PowerPoint slide, you have some options. The first option is to export the individual slide as an image file. An alternative option is to create a new PowerPoint presentation containing only the individual slide.

PowerPoint supports exporting an entire presentation or individual slides as image files. Since you only want one slide, first highlight the slide you want to export in the Slide Sorter (the thumbnail view of the slides on the left hand side of the screen). If the Slide Sorter isn't visible onscreen, make it visible by choosing View > Slide Sorter from the menu. Next, choose File > Save As. Select a name for the file and change the Save as Type from .ppt to an image format like GIF, JPG or PNG. Click the Save button. After you click save, PowerPoint will display the option to export the entire slideshow as individual images or only the current slide with a dialog box that looks like this:

If what you want is to keep all the features of the PowerPoint slide intact, select the slide; copy the slide; and paste the slide into a new presentation. Save this new presentation as a single slide presentation for reuse later.

If the slideshow is a compiled executable, you won't be able to open the file in PowerPoint. In this case, you need to use a screen capture application to take a screen grab of the slide you want to export using an application like SnagIt.