Saving PowerPoint Presentations for Blackboard

You've created your PowerPoint presentations and you are ready to share them with students. So, let's talk about how to save them so students can view and print them easily. You could save your files as PowerPoint files (.pptx in PowerPoint 2007 OR .ppt in previous versions). However, many students do not have Microsoft Office (2007 nor earlier versions) installed on their home computers. Let's look at your options.

PowerPoint Viewer
Students can download the free PowerPoint Viewer to view PowerPoint files without owning Microsoft Office. You will need to provide the link to the viewer and tell students they need it or Microsoft PowerPoint to view the files.

iSpring
iSpring Free is a free plug in to PowerPoint that allows you to save your presentations as flash files. This means that your presentations will display directly in Blackboard when students click on them. They will not need to download the file itself nor any extra software. This is the easiest method for allowing students to view your presentations. Click here to see what a presentation looks like saved with iSpring. Instructions on how to download and install iSpring then save your presentations using iSpring are located on the Faculty Blackboard Tutorials page.

PDF
When students print PowerPoint files, they do not always know how to print 3 or 6 slides to a page. This leads to excessive printing and paper use. If you want students to print your presentations, save your files as PDF handouts and upload the PDF files to Blackboard. This makes it easy for students to view your slides AND print them. Click here to see what a presentation looks like when saved as a PDF handout. Instructions for how to save PowerPoint presentations as PDF handouts are located on the Faculty Blackboard Tutorials page.

As always, please contact the IT Department at extension 229 for assistance with any of the above!