PowerPoint remains the best presentation software, but it’s not the best file type for distributing documents to multiple people. Everyone sees a PDF document exactly the same way, so for example, you don’t need to worry about whether the recipients have your preferred fonts installed, as they will be embedded within the file.
If you have Microsoft Office 2013 or newer, you can convert PowerPoint files to PDF by simply choosing Export as PDF in the File menu. But if you want to perform batch PowerPoint conversions, merge files, or make extensive edits after you’ve converted the document, you’ll be better served by a PDF converter software.
In this article, we look at the best PowerPoint to PDF converters and outline their pros and cons.
- We've featured the best free PDF readers and the best free presentation software.
Soda PDF is an intuitive PDF converter and editor that you can use to convert PowerPoint documents to PDFs, as well as many other file types. Plans start at $10/month or $48/year for the Home version. The Premium version, which adds password protection and permissions, costs $15/month or $84/year.
Soda PDF has both desktop and online versions, but if you don’t need access to the online app, you can get the Home version for a one-off $79 and the Premium version for $129. OCR (optical character recognition) costs $30 extra.
The software has support for PowerPoint conversion, merging multiple Microsoft Office files into a single PDF, and batch creation of PDFs from multiple PowerPoint files. You can even choose particular page ranges to convert.
An excellent all-in-one PDF conversion and editing tool, Soda PDF is a superb choice if you need to batch convert PowerPoint files to PDFs.
Foxit PhantomPDF is an excellent candidate for the best PowerPoint to PDF converter available today. With Foxit PhantomPDF, you can create templates for your conversions with details such as user permissions, PDFA standards, watermarks, and compression rate. You can use these templates to greatly speed up your batch PowerPoint to PDF conversions and decrease how much post-conversion editing you need to do.
Foxit PhantomPDF starts at $14.99/month, or $109 for a perpetual license. It has an online version called Foxit PhantomPDF Online, but this is a much more basic tool.
Overall, we recommend Foxit PhantomPDF for PowerPoint-PDF conversions if you enjoy having fine-grained control over the PDFs you generate.
Wondershare PDFElement is a PDF editor for Windows and Mac OS with a robust set of conversion tools. You can use it to convert between PowerPoint and PDF, and it also supports a lengthy list of other Microsoft Office document formats and image files.
One downside is its relatively high price. It costs $79/year for the Pro version, which has support for batch processing. You can buy a perpetual Pro license for a one-off fee of $119, but this doesn’t include any future updates.
We found the editing tools to be some of the most intuitive and powerful available, so if you want to change your documents extensively after converting them from PowerPoint to PDF, then Wondershare PDFElement is just the ticket.
Nitro Pro is another desktop PDF editing tool with support for PowerPoint-PDF conversions. In fact, around 20 file formats, including Corel Wordperfect (WPD), HTML, and Windows Metafile (WMF), can be converted to PDF. Nitro Pro also has custom options that you can set when importing to PDF, such as the page size of the generated PDF and how compressed any images should be.
Nitro Pro has a 14-day trial. The full version of the software costs $159 per user, with special pricing for 20 users and above.
Nitro Pro lacks the more advanced PDF editing tools of Soda PDF, and there’s no online version, but it’s a wonderful choice if you’re principally looking for a batch PowerPoint to PDF converter that gives you a great deal of control over the conversion process.
Smallpdf is an online-focused PowerPoint to PDF converter, and like most of its competition, it also supports conversion from Word, Excel, and JPG formats. It's free to use for single file conversions, but you’ll need a Pro plan ($12/month or $108/year) to perform batch conversions and use the tool offline. You can check this out using the 14-day free trial, though you need to hand over your payment details first.
Smallpdf is simpler than our other choices and is more of a PDF conversion toolkit than a full-fledged PDF editing tool. Besides converting to and from PDF format, you can split, compress, password protect, eSign, and merge PDFs.
If you’re looking for an online PowerPoint to PDF conversion tool that’s fast and simple to use, Smallpdf fits the bill.
- We've featured the best free PDF editors.