MS Powerpoint: can it be converted to plain text?

Factual Questions
1

I was recently given a CD with a large PowerPoint presentation on it. Is there some simple way to convert this presentation to straight text.

IOW, I don’t want to see the fancy graphics, just what it printed.

thanks.

2

PowerPoint 97 has a “Save as” option for Outline/RTF, which would be very nearly plain text.

Hope this helps.

3

IAAPPTD. (I am a PPT Dev)

Aside from what Knead to Know said about RTF export, which is available in every version both Win and Mac, you can go to File | Send to Word and choose to send just the text. From there, you can clean it up in Word and export from there in a number of different Text formats.

If this is the case and you’re only interseted in printing what was visible in the Slide view, (not Notes Text), you can goto File | Print, and under “Print What” choose “Outline View.” No exporting or manipulating of the PPT file would be required.

4

The limitations to the above methods is that any text created in a text box or table will not be exported/printed.

5

Correct. The RTF parser cannot distinguish between graphic objects and objects such as shapes with text, textboxes and tables.

6

Yeah. Unfortunately I’ve seen way too many ppts that were created by persons who had no clue as to how to enter text onto a slide. Little text boxes everywhere with no body text to be found at all!