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Participant
July 18, 2019
Answered

powerpoint to after effects

  • July 18, 2019
  • 3 replies
  • 22151 views

Is there any way to animation power point presentations in after effects? As animation in power point has huge limitations and it takes more time.

In my office we have specific templates in PP that's why I can't make it in after effects.

please help.

Correct answer David Arbor

You can, but it's a multi-step process.

The trick is to export your PPT to a PDF, then import that PDF into Illustrator and prepare your artwork as if you were prepping it for a normal animation—one layer for item you want to animate.

You'll have to do some experimentation when choosing the PDF settings, as I can't remember what I had to change when I did this, but I do recall making a few passes on exports before I found the correct settings. I think there might be two ways to export a PDF and I believe I did it through the Acrobat Export function (I think there's a button in one of the toolbars in PPT's ribbon). I also think the option I changed was in the last or second to last section of the PDF export, but unfortunately I'm not able to check right now.

3 replies

Participating Frequently
October 24, 2023

I have a workaround that works if you're on a Mac as I was running into the same issue and decided to do some more digging since I didn't find a successful way to do it:

 

  1. Export the PDF as normal from PowerPoint (File > Export... > PDF)
  2. Open that PDF in Keynote (this is critical if you have text layers because for some reason the PowerPoint PDF makes the text with symbols instead of text)
  3. Export the PDF (File > Export To > PDF) making sure to select 'Highest' in Image Quality. The PDF will now no longer have weird characters.
  4. Open that PDF in Illustrator (You will now see all of the layers. Text is even editable which is really nice.)
  5. Save the file as .AI (if you don't need to modify text elements and require vector graphics) or .PSD (if you need to modify text in AI and don't need vector graphics)
  6. Open the .AI in After Effects with layers

 

Make sure to follow step 5 correctly if you need to edit the text in After Effects.

 

Hope this helps those that are having issues.

Known Participant
February 7, 2022

it's a shame there isn't a plugin for powerpoint AE import. Like an Overlord script. - That would be really useful!

David ArborCorrect answer
Inspiring
July 18, 2019

You can, but it's a multi-step process.

The trick is to export your PPT to a PDF, then import that PDF into Illustrator and prepare your artwork as if you were prepping it for a normal animation—one layer for item you want to animate.

You'll have to do some experimentation when choosing the PDF settings, as I can't remember what I had to change when I did this, but I do recall making a few passes on exports before I found the correct settings. I think there might be two ways to export a PDF and I believe I did it through the Acrobat Export function (I think there's a button in one of the toolbars in PPT's ribbon). I also think the option I changed was in the last or second to last section of the PDF export, but unfortunately I'm not able to check right now.

Participant
July 18, 2019

Thank you for this tip. I’ll definitely try this and i might need your help again if i couldn‘t figure it out. As I’m desperate right now for this.

Please reply with all main steps whenever you are able to do that. Thanks again  

Inspiring
July 18, 2019

Unfortunately I don't have Office installed on my computer right now (I had to wipe it yesterday) and I can't get it back until tomorrow. I just checked the web version, but it doesn't have the same export options.

My advice would be to just try exporting as a PDF from the File menu and importing it into PPT. If you have access to all of your shapes then you're good to do. If it comes in flat, then you need to look around for some other options to change.