PowerPoint 2013: Saving and Sharing

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Introduction

PowerPoint presentations often contain sensitive or proprietary information that needs to be protected before sharing with others. At the same time, presentations are meant to be shared, whether with colleagues, clients, or an audience. PowerPoint 2013 provides several tools to help you save, protect, and efficiently share your presentations.

Saving Presentations

Save vs Save As

PowerPoint offers two main saving options:

  • Save – Updates the current presentation file with any changes. Use Ctrl+S as a quick keyboard shortcut to save frequently.
  • Save As – Creates a copy of the presentation. Use when you want to create a backup or save different versions.

Save Locations

Presentations can be saved to:

  • Your local computer
  • OneDrive or SharePoint (cloud storage)
  • USB flash drive

Cloud storage makes sharing and collaborating much easier compared to emailing files back and forth.

Recover Unsaved Changes

If PowerPoint crashes before you save, you can recover your unsaved changes from the AutoRecover files in your temporary folder. Open PowerPoint, click File > Open > Recover Unsaved Presentations.

Sharing and Collaborating

Share from PowerPoint

From the Backstage view:

  1. Click Share
  2. Enter email addresses
  3. Choose edit or view only permissions
  4. Add a personal message (optional)
  5. Click Share

Recipients will receive an email with a link to the presentation.

Co-Authoring

With Office 365, multiple people can edit a presentation in real-time:

  • Editors will see the number of current editors at the bottom. Hover to see names.
  • Word and PowerPoint support co-authoring, but not Excel.

Comments

Reviewers can add comments to slides without directly editing:

  • Click Review > New Comment
  • Type comment text
  • @mention others with the @ symbol

Version History

SharePoint and OneDrive track changes to files and lets you view or restore previous versions:

  1. Click File > Info
  2. Click the link next to Version History
  3. Choose a previous version to preview, restore, or delete

Finalizing and Protecting

Mark as Final

To discourage further edits, click File > Info > Protect Presentation > Mark as Final. Users will see a warning if they try to edit.

Password Protect

For more security:

  1. Click File > Info > Protect Presentation > Encrypt with Password
  2. Enter and confirm the password
  3. Choose permissions – view only or editing allowed

Inspect Document

Remove personal metadata with Check for Issues > Inspect Document. This checks properties, comments, hidden text, and more.

Printing and Sharing Slides

  • Print handouts with slide thumbnails, notes, and more.
  • Export slides or the entire presentation to PDF, videos, and more.
  • Use Send a Copy to email a presentation file.
  • Copy individual slides as images into other Office documents.

Troubleshooting Damaged Files

If a presentation becomes corrupted or won’t open:

  • Try opening on another computer to test.
  • Create a new presentation to test if PowerPoint is damaged.
  • Initiate repairs using PowerPoint Options > Resources > Diagnose.
  • Insert individual slides from the damaged file into a new presentation using Reuse Slides.

Conclusion

Using the saving, sharing, collaboration, and protection tools in PowerPoint 2013 makes creating and distributing presentations much easier. Storing files on OneDrive enables real-time co-authoring and simplifies sharing. Finalizing, inspecting, and password protecting presentations prior to distribution allows you control over who can access and edit your work.

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