How to Insert a PDF Into a PowerPoint Slideshow in 2 Ways

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Adding a PDF file to your PowerPoint presentation can be an effective way to provide supporting information and enhance your slides. There are a couple easy methods for inserting a PDF into PowerPoint so that your audience can access the file directly from within your slide deck.

In this article, I will walk through two straightforward approaches to embed a PDF in your presentation using PowerPoint’s built-in tools.

Method 1: Insert a PDF as an Object

The quickest way to add a PDF to PowerPoint is by inserting it as an object. Here are step-by-step instructions:

Select the Slide and Click “Insert”

  1. Open the PowerPoint presentation and navigate to the specific slide where you want the PDF to appear.
  2. Click on the “Insert” tab in the top menu ribbon.

Click on “Object”

Under the “Insert” tab, find and select the “Object” option. This will open up a dialog box.

Insert Object in PowerPoint

Locate Your PDF File

In the Object dialog box:

  1. Choose “Create from File”.
  2. Click “Browse” to search for and select the PDF file on your computer that you want to insert.
  3. Click “OK”.

This embeds the file into the presentation as an object that you can double click to open and view.

Browse for PDF file

Position and Resize the Object

Like any other inserted object in PowerPoint, you can now:

  • Move the PDF object anywhere on the slide.
  • Resize it by dragging the handles around the border.
  • Format it by changing the border, effects, etc.

And that’s it! When presenting the slide deck, just double click on the PDF object to open the file.

Method 2: Insert a PDF as a Screenshot

If you only need to display a single page from the PDF, an easy alternative is to capture it as a screenshot and embed the image.

Display the Desired PDF Page

  1. Locate and open the PDF file containing the page you want to insert.
  2. Zoom and pan to the exact content you want to capture.

Take a Screenshot

In PowerPoint:

  1. On the slide you want to add the image, go to “Insert” and click on “Screenshot”.
  2. In the available windows that appear, select the PDF file preview.
  3. On your PDF preview, click and drag to draw a box around the area you want to capture.

Take screenshot of PDF

PowerPoint will insert the selected region as an image that you can freely move and resize.

Customize the Image

Use the Picture Tools formatting options to:

  • Crop out any unnecessary white space around the edges.
  • Compress or change the file type to reduce size.
  • Add borders, effects, and more.

The screenshot allows you to pull in a specific part of a PDF page rather than the entire document.

Insert a PDF into PowerPoint – Recap

In summary, here are two easy ways to insert a PDF file into your PowerPoint presentation:

  1. As an object – Embeds the entire file so you can open it by double clicking the icon.
  2. As a screenshot – Captures a portion of a PDF page to insert as an image.

Both methods involve just a few clicks using PowerPoint’s built-in tools with no third-party plugins required.

Adding supporting documents seamlessly into your slideshow allows the audience to access the additional information without interrupting the flow of your presentation.

Give one of these PDF insertion techniques a try the next time you need to enhance your PowerPoint deck! Let me know in the comments if you have any other tips or tricks.

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