Programmatically extracting slides as images from a PowerPoint presentation (.PPT)?

Question

Given a PowerPoint presentation in `.ppt` format, what is the best way to programmatically and using only open source software extract an image representation (in say `.jpg` or `.png`) of each slide in the presentation? The application will run in a Linux server environment, so installing Microsoft Office or Keynote is not an option. The functionality that I want to achieve programmatically is similar to: * Keynote's export functionality (`File > Export... > Pictures > JPEG`) * PowerPoint's *Save As JPEG* functionality (`Save As > Other Formats > JPEG`)

Answer 1

Use LibreOffice in headless mode to convert the .ppt to PDF, then use Poppler to convert each PDF page into a separate image. Both are open source and run on Linux without Microsoft Office or a graphical desktop.

On Ubuntu or Debian:

sudo apt-get install libreoffice-impress poppler-utils

mkdir -p output

# Convert the presentation to PDF, including hidden slides.

libreoffice --headless \

--convert-to 'pdf:impress_pdf_Export:{"ExportHiddenSlides":{"type":"boolean","value":"true"}}' \

--outdir output presentation.ppt

# Render each slide as a PNG at 150 DPI.

pdftoppm -png -r 150 output/presentation.pdf output/slide

This produces numbered images such as slide-1.png, slide-2.png, and so on. For JPEG output, replace -png with -jpeg. The commands can be called from your application using a subprocess. See LibreOffice’s export documentation and the Poppler command manual.

Install the presentation’s fonts on the server for the closest visual match. Some complex PowerPoint elements may render differently in LibreOffice, so exact visual fidelity is not guaranteed.