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What's the dimensions of a powerpoint slide in pixels?

I'm having a hard time trying to get it right. I keep guessing and checking and it's taking too long. I googled some results and they're a bit off as well.

The other issue is that i'm using .opd format; the format proprietary to open office / libreoffice in windows 7.

I'm just trying to design a decent background for my presentation.

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What version of PowerPoint? And are you primarily viewing on screen? – e100 Jul 6 '11 at 17:06
Actually, it's impress Open Office / Libre Office Impress: libreoffice.org/features/impress – chrisjlee Jul 6 '11 at 17:11
If it's open office, then it's not powerpoint. Your question is a little confusing. Anyways, I imagine the size of the slide is based on the page layout options in the particular presentation. – DA01 Jul 5 '12 at 17:07

3 Answers

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Both PowerPoint and Impress slides are specified in inches or cm, rather than pixels, and these real-world units are somewhat arbitrary given that the presentations are normally scaled proportionally to fit whatever screen they're shown on. (Or non-proportionally, if somewhat's got the screen settings wrong)

I'd go with an image that's big enough in pixels for any screen you're likely to show it on; just scale it proportionally to fill the background.

But for best results try to match the proportions of the presentation itself to the screen you're going to use. Both PowerPoint (at least up to 2003) and Impress (latest version in mid 2011) "sized for on-screen show" slides defaulted to a 4:3 ratio, which is too tall for modern widescreens. In PowerPoint 2010 (and perhaps 2007?) you have the choice of 4:3, 16:9, 16:10.

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It occurs to me that I'm probably in the minority of people on this site who remember when Powerpoint's output was actual slides -- the film kind. There were these projector things with carousels on top and even the remotes and auto change used analog signals -- the Neolithic period of Powerpoints. – Alan Gilbertson♦ Jul 6 '11 at 21:22
Transition animations must have been a bit fiddly ;-) – e100 Jul 7 '11 at 10:14
If I recall correctly, those involved something with smoke, mirrors and a sacrificial goat. :-D – Alan Gilbertson♦ Jul 7 '11 at 18:55
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Inside Libre Office / Open Office Impress

  1. File -> Export as JPEG
  2. Open the .jpg export reveals the PX Dimensions

1058px x 794px at 72 DPI

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I'm not sure the exported px dimensions are necessarily the same as the best dimensions for the background, which is what you seemed to be asking. – e100 Jul 7 '11 at 10:13
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I create Powerpoint templates regularly for clients.

I use RGB / 1504px x 1129px or 20.889" x 15.681" / 72ppi jpg or png files for full page backgrounds in PowerPoint. This image size will cover the entire slide. Any thing smaller will need to be scaled to match the slide dimension.

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This will be too tall for modern widescreen ratios, though. – e100 Jul 5 '12 at 18:19
I'm simply posting what I use every day. I realize it may not fit with screen sizes, but this is the max size of a Powerpoint slide. How Powerpoint squishes and squirms to fit a screen is somewhat irrelevant. This is the size of the full slide. – Scott Jul 5 '12 at 18:44

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