3 ways to insert a PDF into PowerPoint presentations.

A man in an office uses his laptop to insert a PDF into a PowerPoint presentation.

Display important PDF documents quickly and easily. Learn two different ways to add PDF files to PowerPoint presentations.

Giving a presentation can be stressful enough — you don’t need to add extra hassle to it. If you have to show a PDF document as part of your presentation, quickly finding the right files can be challenging. Fortunately, there’s a simple solution — you can embed PDFs directly into a Microsoft PowerPoint file and open them with a single click.

Trying to figure out how to insert a PDF into PowerPoint? The insertion process can be a bit convoluted, but we’re here to help. Read on to learn the steps to insert a PDF file into a PowerPoint document.

Why insert a PDF into PowerPoint?

Inserting PDFs into PowerPoint saves your co-worker or classmate from having to open up multiple files at once. This also can be helpful when you’re sharing your screen on a call or want to reduce the number of files that need to be sent to a client or colleague.

Read this guide to learn how to insert a PDF into a PowerPoint document.

Two ways to insert a PDF into a PowerPoint presentation

Once you have a finalized and proofed PDF, follow these steps to insert it into a PowerPoint file:

Inserting image...

  1. Open your presentation in PowerPoint and locate the correct slide
  2. From the top toolbar, select the Insert tab.
  3. In the Text section, select Object.
  4. In the Insert Object window, select Create From File, then select Browse to locate your PDF.
  5. Select OK to insert the PDF file as an object into the slide.

Congratulations, you’ve now successfully inserted the PDF. Double-click the PDF object to see if it opens in your PDF reader. If it does, your job is done.

Option 2 — convert PDF to PPT.

When you embed a PDF into a PowerPoint presentation, you still have to open it as a separate document. If you’d like to add your PDF directly into the presentation as slides, good news — you can. You just have to first convert your PDF document into a PowerPoint presentation.

Follow these steps to quickly convert your PDF with Adobe Acrobat online services:

  1. Navigate to Acrobat online services and launch the PDF to PowerPoint tool.
  2. Click the blue button labeled “Select a file” to locate your PDF, or drag and drop it into the converter.
  3. Download your fresh PowerPoint presentation.

You can now add the converted PowerPoint slides to an existing PowerPoint presentation by selecting Home > New Slide > Reuse Slides. Locate the converted file and add the displayed slides to your presentation.

Option 3 — insert a PDF into PowerPoint as a picture.

If you are looking to only view the content of one page of a PDF file, you can insert the PDF file into PowerPoint as an image. To do this, follow these instructions:

  1. Open the PDF file and display the page you want to insert into PowerPoint.
  2. Open PowerPoint and go to the slide where you want to insert the PDF as a picture.
  3. Select Insert > Screenshot. Now all of your available windows are presented, including the open PDF file.
  4. Select the page you would like to insert from your PDF file into the PowerPoint slide as an image.

Issues opening a PDF in PowerPoint.

If the PDF file refuses to open, it’s most likely because PowerPoint doesn’t know what to do with it. You can fix this issue by assigning an action to the PDF object. Here’s how to do it:

  1. Select the PDF object in PowerPoint. You should see a highlight around the object frame.
  2. In the Insert tab, select Action from the Links section.
  3. In the Action Settings window, select Object Action.
  4. Use the dropdown menu to set the action to Activate Contents.
  5. Select OK to apply the action.

Now PowerPoint has instructions for what it should do with the PDF file. When you click on the PDF object, PowerPoint will proceed to open it using your default PDF reader.

More resources to work with PowerPoint and PDFs.

Now that you’ve learned how to convert a PDF to a PowerPoint presentation, check out these resources that may come in handy:

Explore what more you can do with Acrobat online services to convert, edit, and sign PDF files.