Many instructors at UW-Green Bay use PowerPoint to facilitate class presentations and organize student discussion in class. Many of these instructors also make their PowerPoint presentations available to their students, often via the Web. Presentations may be posted before class time so that students can preview the material and print the presentations. Students like to print these presentations so they don't have to spend their energies in class writing notes; they can follow along and add detail as the class unfolds. Presentations may also be posted after class so they are available for review.
Today's tip was inspired by a student's question in the General Access lab on campus. The student wanted to "get the notes" from an instructor's PowerPoint presentation into Word. The student's intent was to condense the presentation for printing, plus have the flexibility to manipulate and add to the instructor's notes. However, anyone who wants to convert a PowerPoint presentation to notes in Words will benefit from this tip. If you already have the PowerPoint file saved and don't need to "extract" it from a web site, just skip to step 4.
It is important to note that there are different methods that can be used to post Powerpoint Presentations online. The directions below work if the instructor has linked to a PowerPoint file. How will you know if this is the case? Open the presentation and see if the address line in your browser shows a filename with a ppt extension. If so, you will be able to convert the presentation to Word. (see below)
1. Open the Web site containing the PowerPoint Presentation in your browser.
2. Above the presentation that you wish to convert, you will see the file with extension 'ppt' on the address line.
3. Save the presentation to your local drive by selecting File, Save As from the browsers main menu. You may change the name and location of the file.
4. Close the browser. Open the document in PowerPoint from its saved location.
5. With the presentation open, select File, Send to, Microsoft Word.
6. Select a format for the Word document. If the document contains graphics that are critical to the understanding of the text, you may want to select a format that retains a picture of the slide like Blank lines next to slides. (1) On the other hand, if the graphics are unimportant, the best format to select is Outline Only. (2)
Below is an example of the Blank lines next to slides format result. With this particular format, the student can view the individual slide and has a area to append his/her own study notes.
The following is an example of the Outline format. Most students prefer this format because they want the notes in the most condensed format to keep printing costs down. This outline can be quickly formatted using a smaller font to further reduce the length of the document. On the downside, you don't have a specific area to add your own notes.
7. Save the document as a Word document. (Note: The conversion created an RTF file.) Select File, Save as. Give the document a file name and change Save as Type to Word.
A further note about UW - Green Bay Web presentations
PowerPoint presentations are sometimes posted on the instructor's own web share and sometimes in the content of a D2L course. D2L courses offer the advantage of privacy, i.e., the only people with access to the presentation are registered students. Instructors interested in more information about course management systems available to UW-Green Bay faculty should contact Andy Speth, Manager of the Learning Technology Center, at spetha@uwgb.edu.