Set Document Resolution in PowerPoint 2010 for Windows

One of PowerPoint's greatest qualities is that you can get all sorts of content from disparate sources and add them all within one presentation to create a unified document. Pictures are one of the most important content types you add on your slides. However, each picture you insert may have different resolutions. Even though you may have sized your picture to look like a small postage stamp on your slide, it may be increasing your file size by several megabytes because PowerPoint may store the original, larger image.

You can of course manually compress pictures in your presentation. Additionally, you can set the document resolution for any presentation. This option will compress pictures you insert automatically to the default resolution you set.

To change the default document resolution, follow these steps in PowerPoint 2010 for Windows:

1. Open your presentation, and make sure it is saved at least once. Then, navigate to File menu and choose Options, as shown highlighted in red within Figure 1.
2. 
   Figure 1: Options to be selected
2. Doing so, brings up the PowerPoint Options dialog box, as shown in Figure 2. Make sure you select the Advanced option (highlighted in red within Figure 2) in the sidebar to see all related options on the right side of the dialog box.
3. 
   Figure 2: PowerPoint Options dialog box
3. Within the PowerPoint Options dialog box, locate Image Size and Quality section that you can see in Figure 3.
4. 
   Figure 3: Image Size and Quality section
5. If you have multiple presentations open, click within the box showing the presentation name (highlighted in red within Figure 3, above). From the drop-down list that appears, choose the presentation that you want to set the default picture resolution for.
4. Now, click within the box beside the Set default target output to option, that you can see highlighted in blue within Figure 3, above. This brings up a drop-down list, as you can see in Figure 4.
5. 
   Figure 4: Default target output drop-down list
6. By default, 220 ppi resolution is chosen. You can choose any other resolution value. Essentially, the larger your ppi is, the higher the quality of your images will be. This also means that the compression level used will be lesser. In our Compress Pictures in PowerPoint 2010 tutorial, we explain the compression levels that 220, 150, and 96 ppi signify.
5. Once done, click the OK button (highlighted in blue within Figure 2, shown earlier on this page) to apply the changes.