Running Color Blind Tests Using Images Exported from PowerPoint

Ensuring your PowerPoint presentations are accessible to all audiences is essential, especially considering that approximately 8% of men and 0.5% of women worldwide experience some form of color vision deficiency.

This guide provides step-by-step instructions on how to test your slides for color blindness issues, enabling you to identify and rectify problematic color combinations. By doing so, you can enhance the visual effectiveness of your presentations, ensuring they are inclusive and comprehensible to everyone, regardless of their color perception abilities.

This guide is more suited for PowerPoint users of desktop versions. If you are using PowerPoint for the Web, you can use an even simpler process.

You can read from the beginning to the end, or choose any subtopic listed within this table of contents:

Let’s Make Your Slides Color-Blind Friendly—Fast!
1. Export Slides as Pictures
2. Check for Color Blindness Using Colorlite
3. Using Coblis Color Blindness Simulator

Let’s Make Your Slides Color-Blind Friendly—Fast!

Want to make sure your slides are a home run for everyone—including color-blind viewers? No worries, we’ve got your back! Think of it like taste-testing a dish before serving it—you want to be sure everyone can enjoy it, no matter their preferences (or in this case, their vision).

Since there’s no inbuilt option within PowerPoint to test your slides for color-blind viewers, you will have to manage with a workaround that involves two simple steps:

1. Save your slides as pictures—kind of like taking a snapshot of your work.
2. Check them using an online service—think of it as running your slides through a “color filter” to see how they look to different eyes.

That’s it! With just a couple of easy steps, you’ll make sure your slides are clear, readable, and visually friendly for everyone in your audience.

We will now follow these two steps, detailed hereafter.

1. Export Slides as Pictures

1. Open the presentation in PowerPoint and choose a slide that has most of the colors you have used in the presentation placed next to each other. With this slide active, export it to a graphic file format like PNG. Of course, you can also choose to export all slides in the presentation as well.
2. Choose the File menu and choose the Save As (or Save a Copy) option. You can also use the F12 keyboard shortcut.


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3. If you are using an older and/or perpetual version of PowerPoint, use these commands:
4. PowerPoint 2010 and newer users can choose File | Save As
   PowerPoint 2007 users can choose Office button | Save As | Other Formats.
   PowerPoint 2003 users (and users of previous versions) can choose File | Save As.
2. Either way, you’ll see the Save As dialog box, as shown in Figure 1, below. Within the Save as type dropdown list, choose PNG, as shown highlighted in red within Figure 1, and click the Save button.
3. 
   Figure 1: Save as type
3. When you get to this step, PowerPoint pops up a dialog box, as shown in Figure 2, below, asking the big question: Which slides do you want to export?
4. 
   Figure 2: Export slides
5. Here’s how you decide how many slides you need to export as images:
• Small presentation? Export all the slides—quick and easy!
• Large presentation? Save time by exporting just the current slide, or a few slides that represent the rest of your presentation.
6. Pick what works best, and you’re good to go!

You can also use BrightSlide, a free PowerPoint add-in to export slides as images, as detailed in our Export Images in PowerPoint Using BrightSlide post.

2. Check for Color Blindness Using Colorlite

We will now check the pictures/images exported from PowerPoint in Colorlite Color Blindness Simulator, an online, color-blindness checking application:

1. Access the Colorlite Color Blindness Simulator site in your browser. A portion of that web page is shown in Figure 3, below.
2. 
   Figure 3: The Colorlite Color Blindness Simulator site
2. Now, click the Choose File button, highlighted in red within Figure 3, above. Then, navigate to one of the PNG slides that you exported from within PowerPoint. Next, choose one of the three color vision deficiencies, as shown highlighted in red within Figure 4, below. We chose the Protanope (Protan) deficit and could see a simulation of how this slide would appear to those affected by this color blindness deficit, as shown highlighted in blue within Figure 4.
3. 
   Figure 4: Simulated image in Colorlite site
3. You can save the resulting image to your computer by right-clicking it and choosing Save Image As, Save Picture As, or a similar option, as shown highlighted in red within Figure 5, below.
4. 
   Figure 5: Save image as
4. Repeat the process with other PNG slides for all color vision deficiencies. Once you have worked with your slide samples, make changes in color and contrast as required so that it is accessible to all audiences including color-blind users.

3. Using Coblis Color Blindness Simulator

An alternative option is Coblis Color Blindness Simulator. Follow these steps to learn more.

1. Access the Coblis Color Blindness Simulator site in your browser. A portion of that web page is shown in Figure 6, below.
2. 
   Figure 6: The Coblis Color Blindness Simulator site
2. Click the Choose File button, highlighted in red within Figure 6, above. Then, in the ensuing dialog box, navigate to one of the PNG slides that you exported from within PowerPoint and click the Open or OK button.
3. You will now see the image within the Coblis Color Blindness Simulator site, as shown in Figure 7, below.
4. 
   Figure 7: Original slide image
3. Next, choose one of the three color vision deficiencies. We chose Red-Blind/Protanopia, as shown highlighted in red within Figure 8, below. Now, wait a while for Coblis Color Blindness Simulator to provide you with results.
4. 
   Figure 8: Choose a color vision deficiency
4. Soon, you'll see the results in the layout, as shown in Figure 8, above (compare with the original image, shown in Figure 7, previously on this page). You can save the resulting image to your computer by right-clicking it and choosing Save image as, Save picture as, or a similar option, as shown highlighted in red within Figure 9, below.
5. 
   Figure 9: Save image as
5. Repeat the process with the other color vision deficiencies, and any other PNG slides.
6. Once you have worked with your slide samples, make changes in color and contrast as required so that it is accessible to all audiences including color-blind users.