A colleague has a PowerPoint slideshow which shows off his small business, 
and it runs to nearly 10MB (lots of pix), so it's a challenge to email out 
to clients, as many quite rightly apply limits to email size.

Is there an alternative format which would have a much smaller footprint and 
be relatively simple to set up from, say, PowerPoint or summat similar? 
Obviously it should ideally be a standalone file.

Many thanks.

Trent SC wrote:
> A colleague has a PowerPoint slideshow which shows off his small business, 
> and it runs to nearly 10MB (lots of pix), so it's a challenge to email out 
> to clients, as many quite rightly apply limits to email size.
> 
> Is there an alternative format which would have a much smaller footprint and 
> be relatively simple to set up from, say, PowerPoint or summat similar? 
> Obviously it should ideally be a standalone file.
> 
> Many thanks. 
> 
> 
Ideally, you'd use a desktop publishing package like (descending order 
of cost) Quark, InDesign, MS Publisher, Serif PagePlus and lay things 
out as a brochure, but that's cost and work.  Ideally again, you'd 
compress the images beforehand - IrfanView and Picasa both do this in 
batches, and are free.

One alternative is to compress the images in the existing file within 
PowerPoint (there's a facility on the Picture Toolbar) and then use a 
PDF converter to squirt the file into PDF.  Examples include PDF995, 
TinyPDF, DoPDF, FreePDFXP - all free.  You'll probably want to set the 
page layout to Landscape first.  That should get the size down quite a 
bit.  However, I know business people with long-standing broadband 
accounts that only provide 20MB of storage space, so you want to get the 
resulting file down in size as much as possible, and send out very few 
at a time to people who you've good reason to believe won't see it as spam.

Phil, London

On Fri, 27 Feb 2009 17:01:41 -0000, "Trent SC"
<invalid@bogoff.invalid> wrote:

>A colleague has a PowerPoint slideshow which shows off his small business, 
>and it runs to nearly 10MB (lots of pix), so it's a challenge to email out 
>to clients, as many quite rightly apply limits to email size.

Does he have any idea how many of his clients trouble to wade through
his  YAPP?  (yet another powerpoint presentation)?   What's his
audience?  Yoof?  Mature decision-makers?  Academics? Etc and so forth
and so on.  Does he know how many of them value the bloat that takes
the files to such obscene sizes? 

Unless you ask some more questions about the audience, you can't
recommend a solution.  

You're also asking in the wrong place at the wrong time: this is where
people design things, not use them.  Any questions about what users
prefer?  Ask the users; any questions about how to deliver what the
users prefer?  Ask the designers. 

Cut out the flashy crap that gets in the way of the message he wants
to deliver (which is probably generically  "buy my stuff" or "buy
someone-else's stuff from me")  and focus on the message - that'll
reduce the file-size by 90%, since it'll end up mainly words.  If some
technical diagrams are necessary, they can compress quite well. Unless
of course he's trying to sell "flashy stuff" in which case, oh dear.

A PDF?

On Fri, 27 Feb 2009 17:01:41 -0000, "Trent SC"
<invalid@bogoff.invalid> wrote:


>Is there an alternative format which would have a much smaller footprint and 
>be relatively simple to set up from, say, PowerPoint or summat similar? 
>Obviously it should ideally be a standalone file.

Bung it on a website and email a link.  1kb?

Get statistics on who could be bothered to view the file, and realise
that it was a daft idea in the first place.

If someone emailed me a 10mb file I'd find them and isnter the file
bit by bit where the sun don't shine.  1mb would tempt me to be very,
very rude - unless I'd asked for it in advance.  

 If I get unsolicited email from folks with whom I have done business
that has much HTML in it, let alone megabytes of fotos, they get a
very forthright email mailed to as many email addresses as I can be
bothered to harvest.

HTH!
>

In uk.net.web.authoring message <gOWdnSZEoovrgTXUnZ2dnUVZ8trinZ2d@posted
.plusnet>, Fri, 27 Feb 2009 17:01:41, Trent SC <invalid@bogoff.invalid>
posted:
>A colleague has a PowerPoint slideshow which shows off his small business,
>and it runs to nearly 10MB (lots of pix), so it's a challenge to email out
>to clients, as many quite rightly apply limits to email size.

Not exactly what was being asked for, but :

The mailed brochure may only be readable to those with PowerPoint.
If the brochure is put on the Web, only the URL need be mailed.

The brochure is then findable by search engines, and readable by others.
Large mails can be costly to receive if they arrive by dial-up or some
types of remote access; but a URL can be noted and read on another
account.

If the URL is saved and used later, the latest brochure version will be
seen.

I think I have read of free software which might be able to convert the
slideshow to PDF, which most browsers can show.

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