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 Compression Options for POWERPRESSED
PowerPressed has a range of user definable settings and options.

Presentation Compression
Given that PowerPoint® supports many image formats, it should be expected that if a presentation contains images that are already in a compressed format (i.e. JPEG, GIF, etc) less dramatic savings in file size may result.  However, the abundance of options found within PowerPressed should allow a user to find a setting that balances quality and still significantly lowers the size of their presentations.

Compression Levels
There are three default compression levels (Low, Medium and High) and also a Custom level that allows a user to adjust all the compression options for their specific needs.

 Tip.
To achieve the highest quality optimised presentation, we recommended that you use original uncompressed images when you construct your original presentation and then choose Compression Level ‘Low or Medium’. This generally produces a file size difference of approximately 80 to 90 percent without significant visual degradation.

Reduction in File Size (recommended)
This compression is best suited to presentations that contain:

• high quality photos
• images containing text
• scanned text

This setting will produce the smallest file size but can introduce visible artefacts into the images when using the ‘High’ compression setting.

Image Smooth
This compression is best suited for presentations that contain:

• images that have already been compressed (jpegs, etc.).

General Notes on Image Compression
Different types of compression have been developed to exploit the unique properties of image data. Two primary methods of compression for image data are DCT (Discrete Cosine Transform) and wavelet which can achieve more effective compression than is possible through the use of binary compression. Essentially, image compression takes advantage of the fact that an image can be altered to a certain extent and still be recognizable as the same image to the human eye. The altered/compressed image therefore conveys the same information or meaning as the original image.

PowerPressed uses a DCT-based image compression which operates by reducing a closely grouped set of pixels of a similar colour to a set of pixels of the same exact colour. By repeating this throughout an image, long patterns are formed by new blocks of same coloured pixels, thereby making the image more suitable for compression. Image compression mechanisms are often configurable to control the point at which the algorithm determines if a group of pixels is similar enough to try to lump together into a single block. A very relaxed setting allows the compression to larger, more compressible blocks while stricter controls will tend to make smaller blocks. One can actually see this effect in certain images which are highly compressed. The compressed image will display “artefacts” appearing as blocky edges and seemingly random splotches of colour.
This compression technique requires that a certain amount of information needs to be discarded from the image. This is called lossy compression because information is lost from the image during the compression process.

POWERPRESSED has a range of user definable settings and options.

General Options Tab

Toolbar and Statusbar visibility checkboxes
Toggle the PowerPressed Toolbar and PowerPressed Statusbar checkboxes to view or hide these toolbars. This allows the user to access PowerPressed from the Menu only if desired, increasing the viewable area of the screen.

Presentation Compression Level
There are three default compression levels (Low, Medium, and High) plus a Custom level that allows a user to adjust the compression options to their specific needs.

Suffix to Append to Presentation Filename
The newly optimised presentation will be saved with the same file name as the original plus an appending suffix. You can change the default suffix name here.

Notes
The new presentation file will be a standard Microsoft® PowerPoint® file.
The original presentation file will remain unchanged and in its original location.

Custom Presentation Compression Options Tab

Compress Images on Master Slide  
This includes images on the Slide Master, the Notes Master, The Title Master, and the Handout Master.

Resize Images to Size Needed
Any image larger than 1 square inch (72 pixels x 72 pixels) is resized.

Crop Oversized Images
Any cropped part of an image is discarded.

Optimise OLE Embedded Objects
‘Flattens’ all OLE Embedded Objects and OLE Linked Objects (such as an embedded or linked Excel spreadsheet) to an image which is then compressed. This can be deselected if you require a spreadsheet to remain functional for example.

Delete Empty Text Boxes and AutoShapes
‘Empty’ is defined as Text Boxes and AutoShapes which have no fill, no border and contain no text.

Change Dots per Inch
Allows the user to change the resolution (print quality) of images in the presentation.