Exporting PowerPoint as a video or as pictures: what carries over, and what stays in the .pptx
Last updated: 25 October 2026
Short answer: a video (MP4 or WMV), a set of pictures or an animated GIF shows the slides as they play or look. Microsoft's video page describes timings, narration, animations and transitions, and its picture pages describe one picture per slide; none of them lists speaker notes, comments or document properties among what goes out, and none says they are left out either. What a recording adds is yours to check: your voice, your camera, any ink and laser pointer movements. Microsoft says an animated GIF skips hidden slides; for videos and pictures we found no page that says whether they are included, so count the slides in the result. The .pptx itself keeps everything, and a PowerPoint Show (.ppsx), which Microsoft's video page offers as a way to turn a presentation into a video, is the presentation file itself. For PDF, see exporting to PDF.
The exports, side by side
| Export | Where | What the page says about the content | Hidden slides |
|---|---|---|---|
| Video (.mp4, .wmv; .mov on the Mac) | Windows: File › Export › Create a Video. Mac: File › Export, then a video format | Recorded timings and narration if you choose to use them, animations and transitions; on Windows an embedded video plays, while on the Mac only the narration recorded in Slide Show does. Left out: media inserted in older versions of PowerPoint, which is linked and dropped from the video unless converted or upgraded, QuickTime media, macros, OLE/ActiveX controls | Not stated |
| Pictures (JPEG, PNG and others) | Windows: File › Save As (or Save a Copy), then a picture type. Mac: File › Export | One file per slide if you choose all slides. On the Mac, "any transitions, animations, movies, or audio are removed" | Not stated |
| Animated GIF | Windows: File › Export › Create an Animated GIF. Mac: File › Export, File Format Animated GIF | "All animations, transitions, and media (such as video or GIF) on your slides will be included" | "skipped entirely" |
| PowerPoint Show (.ppsx) | File › Save As, PowerPoint Show | Not an export of pictures: "A presentation that always opens in Slide Show view" | In the file, as in a .pptx |
The rows come from Microsoft's pages Turn your presentation into a video, Export your PowerPoint for Mac presentation as a different file format, Save a slide as an image or as a separate presentation file, Make an animated GIF from a slide show and File formats that are supported in PowerPoint.
What a recording puts into the video
A video made with recorded timings and narration carries the recording. Microsoft's page Record a slide show with narration and slide timings says you can "capture voice, ink gestures, and your video presence", that the camera and microphone can be turned on or off, and that the camera can blur the background. Whatever the microphone heard and the camera saw, the room behind you included, is in the video. If you have notes, the same page says, "they're turned into text at the top of the screen so you can use them like a teleprompter": what you read aloud from them is in the narration.
The recording also stays in the presentation: "what you record is embedded in each slide". So a .pptx you send after recording carries the narration, and the camera recording if the camera was on. To remove it, the page Record a presentation gives Clear › Clear Recording on Current Slide or Clear Recording on All Slides. A presentation's embedded audio and video can also be saved out as separate files by anyone who has the .pptx (Save embedded media from a presentation).
Notes, comments, properties and text
The video and picture pages describe the slides as they play: timings, narration, animations and transitions. They do not mention speaker notes, comments or the presentation's document properties, such as the author and title. We found no Microsoft page that says whether an exported video or picture carries the presentation's title or author in its own properties, so look at the exported file's properties, as below.
One picture type differs. On Windows, slides can be saved as SVG, a text format, and we found no Microsoft page that says whether the slide's text, including text covered by other shapes, goes into it as text that can be searched and copied. Open an exported SVG in a text editor and search for words from the slide before you send it.
What stays in the .pptx
Exporting makes a new file and leaves the presentation as it was. If the .pptx or a .ppsx goes out as well, everything in it goes too, the recording included. Microsoft's Open XML SDK treats a PowerPoint Show as one kind of presentation document, beside .pptx (PresentationDocumentType), so check it as you would a .pptx: what to take out, and how, is in speaker notes, hidden slides and comments in PowerPoint.
Before you export
- Decide about each hidden slide: delete it if it must not go out, rather than relying on the export to skip it.
- Play the recording through, if there is one. Re-record or clear the slides where it says or shows something it should not.
- Look at what is on the slides themselves: names in footers, a screenshot of an email, a client's logo. In a video or picture they go out exactly as shown.
- If the .pptx goes out too, clean it first, as in the guide linked above.
How to check what you exported
- Play the whole video, or open every picture. Count the slides against the ones you meant to show.
- Look at the exported file's properties: on Windows, right-click it in File Explorer and choose Properties, then Details; on a Mac, choose File › Get Info in the Finder. Look for a title, an author or a comment you did not type there.
- For an SVG, open it in a text editor and search for your name, the client's name and the words of any slide that should not be there.
- Give the file a name that says only what the recipient should see; PowerPoint asks for one when you export.
What ScrubDrop does
ScrubDrop checks a supported .docx, .xlsx or .pptx file in your browser; the file is not uploaded. It does not read videos, pictures, GIFs or PDFs: it refuses them as not a Word, Excel or PowerPoint file. Use it on the presentation, before you export or before you send the .pptx with the video.
- Free, one file at a time: it lists what it finds in the presentation, notes and hidden slides included, and removes the document properties and comments.
- ScrubDrop Pro also removes speaker notes and hidden slides.
- In both, it keeps embedded video and audio, recorded narration and camera video included, as they are and does not look inside them; clear a recording in PowerPoint. It keeps embedded fonts, because they draw the text.
Questions
Do speaker notes go into a PowerPoint video?
Microsoft's video page describes what goes into the video (slides, animations, transitions, recorded timings and narration) and lists what is left out; it does not mention notes either way. When you record, your notes are shown to you as teleprompter text, and what you read aloud is in the narration. Play the video through, and remember that the .pptx still holds the notes.
Are hidden slides included when I export to video or pictures?
For an animated GIF, Microsoft's page says a hidden slide is skipped entirely. For videos and pictures we found no Microsoft page that says whether they are included. Count the slides in the result, and delete a slide that must not go out instead of only hiding it.
Can ScrubDrop clean an MP4 or the exported pictures?
No. ScrubDrop reads .docx, .xlsx and .pptx files and refuses videos, pictures and PDFs. Clean the presentation before you export it, and check the exported file's own properties yourself.
Sources: the Microsoft pages linked on this page were checked on 25 October 2026. ScrubDrop is not affiliated with Microsoft.
Check the presentation before you export it or send it with the video, in your browser. Free: one file at a time; every supported kind of hidden data it finds is listed, and properties, comments and tracked changes are removed. Check a file.