Convert Powerpoint to Google Slides

Microsoft Powerpoint has long been a favorite application for creating and editing presentations that you might need to give for work or school.

But over time more companies have entered this space, including Google. There is an application called Google Slides that you can use to create similar presentations for free, simply by having a Google account. Those presentations can then be saved to your Google Drive and accessed from any computer with Internet access.

But even if you have already made the switch to Google Slides, you might find that you still have a lot of Powerpoint files, or that people are sharing Powerpoints with you and you would prefer to edit them in Google Slides. Fortunately you can convert Powerpoint files to the Google Slides format and edit them there.

How to Convert a Powerpoint File to Google Slides

The steps in this article were performed in the desktop version of the Google Chrome Web browser. This guide assumes that you already have a Powerpoint file that you want to convert to Google Slides. Note that while most files will convert without issue, you may encounter some scenarios where certain slide elements change.

Step 1: Open a browser tab and navigate to your Google Drive at https://drive.google.com. If you aren’t already signed in you will be prompted to do so.

Step 2: Click the New button at the top-left of the window, then choose the File upload option.

Step 3: Browse to the Powerpoint file that you want to convert, select it, then click the Open button.

If the file is not automatically converted to Google Slides, then you will need to right-click it, select the Open with option, then choose Google Slides.

If the file conversion did not happen automatically after uploading, then you may need to change a Google Drive setting. You can do this by clicking the gear icon at the top-right of the Google Drive window and choosing the Settings option, then checking the box to the left of Convert uploaded files to Google Docs editor format and clicking the Done button.

If you would like to go the other way with the conversion and save your Google Slides file as a Powerpoint file, then this article can show you how to do that.