pulpSlide help

pulpSlide builds animated presentations in your browser, with nothing to install: polished themes, the Morph transition, object animations, speaker notes and presenter view. It opens your PowerPoint files and exports them back to .pptx. You can also share a presentation with a team or open it on a phone: see Working together.

Getting started

The very first time you open pulpSlide, a sample presentation (a progress update on an Atelier Armor building project, a fictitious company: chart, drawn floor plan, table, Morph) opens on its own so you can see what pulpSlide looks like. It is marked Example and does not go into your recent presentations: Start from scratch opens a new presentation in its place, Remove the example (or going back to the home screen) clears it in one click, Import my data opens your file. As soon as you change it, it becomes your presentation. File › See the example again reopens it.

1. Open pulpSlide. The home screen offers New presentation, Start with a theme (eight themes: fonts, colors, backgrounds and layouts), the Guided tour and your Recent presentations, saved automatically on this device. Pick the size (16:9 or 4:3) next to New presentation. Hover over a recent presentation to Duplicate or Delete it: a message lets you undo the deletion for a few seconds.
2. To work on a PowerPoint file, click Open a file or drop the .pptx anywhere in the window. An Import complete window details what was brought in.
3. Add slides with New slide (pick a layout), then content from the toolbar: Text, Shapes, Image, Table, Icons, Insert chart. Double-click a text to type in it.
4. The right-hand panel (Properties) has three tabs: Design (theme, size, layout, background), Object (settings of the selected object) and Animations (slide transition and object animations). Speaker notes go below the slide.
5. Start the slide show with Present (F5). Save with Ctrl+S (.pslide file) or export with File › Export › PowerPoint (.pptx).

Common tasks

How do I open a PowerPoint file without PowerPoint?

Use File › Open…, the Open a file button on the home screen, or drag and drop onto the window: .pptx, .ppsx, .potx (template) and .odp are accepted, as well as their macro-enabled versions (.pptm, .ppsm, .potm), whose macros do not run. pulpSlide shows masters and layouts, tables with their merged cells and styles, charts with their data, SmartArt, custom-drawn shapes, animations and transitions. The Import complete window tells you what is simplified on screen and what is kept for export. The original file is never changed.

What counts is the file's content, not its extension. An empty file, a password-protected file or the small “~$…” lock file that Office creates while a document is open is turned down with a message that tells you what to do. While a file takes a long time to open, the Cancel button stops it.

How do I save in PowerPoint format?

Choose File › Export › PowerPoint (.pptx). The file goes to your downloads folder. The original masters, layouts and theme are reused, every object you did not change is written back as it was, and animations, transitions (Morph included), notes and sections are exported. Column, bar, line, area, pie, doughnut, scatter and bar + line charts become real, editable PowerPoint charts; the other types (waterfall, box plot, heat map, bubble, 3-D…) are exported as images.

Ctrl+S saves in pulpSlide format (.pslide) and never rewrites a .pptx: the first time, it asks where with Save as.

How do I use Morph?

1. Select a slide and click Duplicate for Morph.
2. On the copy, move, resize or recolor objects.
3. Start the slide show: the Morph transition slides and reshapes objects from one slide to the next; other objects fade in.

Two objects match when they share the same name (Object tab, Morph match); duplicating a slide keeps the names. PowerPoint recognizes Morph in exported files.

How do I animate objects?

Select an object, open the Animations tab, Object animations section, and pick an effect: Appear, Fade, Fly in, Rise, Zoom, Pop, Pulse, Spin or Highlight. Set the start (On click, With previous, After previous), the direction, the Duration and the Delay. The same tab holds the slide Transition: None, Fade, Push, Wipe, Zoom, Cube or Morph, with Apply to all slides.

How do I change the theme, size or layout?

In the Design tab: Theme (switch at any time), Size (Wide 16:9 or Standard 4:3), the slide Layout (Title, Title and content, Two columns, Section, Image and caption, Quote, Blank) and Background (from the theme, solid color, gradient or image, with Apply to all slides).

How do I insert a chart or a table?

Insert chart offers some fifteen types (column, bar, line, area, pie, doughnut, scatter, bar + line, waterfall, histogram, box plot, heat map, bubble, 3-D surface and 3-D scatter). The chart comes with sample data and the Chart data window opens: first row for the series names, first column for the categories or dates; you can paste in a table copied from a spreadsheet. Double-click the chart to come back to it. In the Object tab, set the type, title, colors, legend, value labels, axes and annotations (average, target, trend), show some types in 3-D, tick Animate during the slideshow, or use Export (PNG or SVG image) and Copy chart.

Table offers a grid of rows and columns; double-click the table to type, and Tab moves to the next cell. The Object tab sets the Header row, Banded rows and Header colour.

How do I bring in a table or chart from pulpSheet?

Copy it in pulpSheet (Ctrl+C), then paste it into pulpSlide (Ctrl+V): a table becomes a real, editable table, and a chart arrives with its data, which you can edit afterwards. A table copied from Excel, Word or a web page (or text in tab-separated columns) pastes the same way. The pasted chart or table is a copy: it does not update when the workbook changes.

How do I insert a shape, an icon or an image?

Shapes opens the gallery shared across the suite: 187 shapes (rectangles, basic shapes, block arrows, equation shapes, flowchart, stars and banners, callouts, action buttons), lines and connectors, and icons. Type a word in Search shapes (“arrow”, “callout”, “star”…); Recently Used Shapes come first. The Icons button also offers a selection of pictograms.

For an image, use Image, drag the file onto the slide or paste it (Ctrl+V). An image sent from another app in the suite, such as pulpPhoto, lands on the slide on screen. In the Object tab: Crop, Fit (Fill the frame, Whole image, Stretch), Alt text to describe the image, and Replace image.

How do I align, group or lock objects?

Shift+click selects several objects. The Arrange menu gathers the stacking order (Bring to front, Bring forward, Send backward, Send to back), Align objects, Align to slide, Group and Ungroup. Guides show up while you move objects; hold Alt to turn them off. In the Object tab you will find Opacity, Outline, Rounding, Drop shadow and Lock (a locked object no longer moves and is left out of Ctrl+A).

How do I present with presenter view?

Click the arrow next to Present, then Presenter view. A second window shows the next slide, your notes and a timer (Pause, Resume, Reset the timer); keep it on your screen and put the slide show on the projector. If nothing opens, allow pop-ups for pulpSuite in the browser. During the show: Laser pointer (L), Black screen (B), White screen (W).

How do I organize slides?

In the thumbnail column, drag a slide to move it. A thumbnail's menu offers Duplicate slide, Hide slide (it is skipped during the show), Delete slide and Add section to group slides.

How do I make a PDF or print?

Choose File › Export › PDF (print, one slide per page), then Save as PDF or your printer in the browser's print window. See also printing.

Working together

A presentation can be shared with a team, or opened on a phone, with no account and no pulpSuite server. The general idea is explained in Share a file with your team or your phone; to compare it with the other ways of working: Where your data lives and how to work with others.

• Share a presentation: File › Save as a shared file… copies the presentation on screen into a synced folder (OneDrive, Nextcloud, kDrive) or onto a network drive, for example Seminar.pslide. It opens in place of the original, which stays in your library, unmodified. Your colleagues open it with File › Open a shared folder… and everyone sees the others' changes as soon as the folder syncs. From the home screen, a Shared presentation card takes you back to it.
• A PowerPoint (.pptx, .ppt) or OpenDocument (.odp) file: open it, then share it the same way. So that several people can edit it at the same time, it is saved in the pulpSuite format (a folder); your original file is not modified, and the window explains this before creating the folder. File › Export › PowerPoint (.pptx) stays available at any time to send it or open it in PowerPoint. What is kept for the export is the same as when you open a file the usual way (see Supported formats); a file opened from a .ppt or .odp is exported as .pptx.
• What combines without a conflict: each slide and each object (text, shape, image, table, chart) is independent. Two people changing two objects, two slides, or two settings of the same object (one the text, the other the position) do not get in each other's way; adding, moving or deleting slides, changing the stacking order of objects, notes, transitions and animations are shared too.
• The text of the same box: if two people change the text of the same box at the same time, the most recent version is kept as a whole and a notice offers the other version (Keep or Use the other value). The two texts are not merged letter by letter.
• Images and media: they travel with the file. An image that has not arrived yet shows empty for a moment, then appears.
• Deletion: an object or a slide deleted while a colleague is editing it stays deleted, and a notice tells you.
• Undo never undoes other people's work: only your own changes are undone.
• File status: the badge in the title bar says On this computer or Shared · N devices; a click shows who has received your changes and offers Sync now.
• Phone and guests: File › Open on my phone… shows a QR code; compare the 6-digit code on both devices, then choose Read-only or Edit. The Invite to this presentation button in the title bar does the same for a colleague. A guest sees the whole presentation and can play it; in read-only mode the editing controls do not respond.
• Automatic backup: File › Automatic backup… keeps a full copy every day in the folder of your choice.

Limits specific to pulpSlide

• Only one shared file is open at a time; it replaces the presentation on screen, and the home screen offers a way back to it. File › Back to this device’s data takes you back to your library.
• A guest is invited onto the whole presentation, not onto a single slide; the presenter window is not offered to guests.
• The text of the same box is not co-edited live: the last change wins (with a notice).
• Anyone with access to the folder can see and edit the whole presentation; encrypt the file if needed. Changes arrive at the pace of the folder's synchronization, not in real time (about a second between two computers open at the same time).

Supported formats

Known limitations, flagged in the Import complete window:

• Rare preset shapes shown as rectangles; glow, reflection, 3D and picture corrections not shown; EMF, WMF or TIFF images missing on screen: all of these stay intact in the exported .pptx.
• Videos and sounds: only their poster image shows, they do not play in pulpSlide; the media is kept on export. pulpSlide cannot insert a video.
• Hyperlinks shown without a link, comments not shown: both are kept on export.
• Animations with no equivalent (exits, motion paths, triggers on an object) do not play in pulpSlide; they are kept on export as long as you do not edit that slide's animations.
• The slide master cannot be edited: its objects are copied onto the slides and locked.
• A paragraph you edit may lose its link to the original theme's colors and fonts.

Keyboard shortcuts

On a Mac, Cmd replaces Ctrl.

In the thumbnail column: ↑ / ↓ change slide, Del deletes it, Enter adds one.

During the slide show:

Suite-wide shortcuts: Ctrl+Shift+O opens the open-documents panel, Ctrl+J opens pulpAssist.

AI in pulpSlide

pulpSlide has no built-in AI model. The suite's assistant, pulpAssist (Ctrl+J), can work on the open presentation:

• read every slide (titles, text and notes) to summarize or comment on them;
• add slides from an outline, styled by the theme (title, title and content, two columns, section, quote, blank), with their notes;
• rewrite the speaker notes of a slide.

Every change is shown to you before it is made and can be undone. pulpAssist uses the AI set up for your pulpSuite: the content attached to your question is sent to that service.

FAQ and troubleshooting

My .ppt file won't open.

PowerPoint 97-2003 presentations (.ppt, .pps) are read. A file that is password-protected, damaged or created by PowerPoint 95 or earlier is refused with a message: open it in PowerPoint, save it as .pptx, then open that new file.

My presentation doesn't look exactly like the original.

Read the Import complete window: it lists the effects that are approximated on screen (rare shapes, glows, videos…). These elements are kept intact and get their look back in PowerPoint after export. Fonts missing from your device are replaced on screen.

Where are my presentations?

In this device's browser: they save automatically and show up under Recent presentations. To keep them on disk or move them to another computer, save a .pslide (Ctrl+S) or export to .pptx. See open documents and backup copies.

Presenter view doesn't open.

The browser blocked the window: allow pop-ups for pulpSuite (icon in the address bar), then choose Presenter view again.

Will my animations survive in PowerPoint?

Yes: animations imported or created in pulpSlide are written to the .pptx, and those pulpSlide cannot play stay in place as long as you do not edit the animations of their slide.

How do I send a presentation during a pulpCrew meeting?

In pulpCrew, the Share a pulpSuite document button offers the presentations saved on your device, in pulpSlide format (.pslide). To show it live, Present an app opens pulpSlide inside the meeting. See the pulpCrew help.

Does pulpSlide work offline?

Yes, once loaded: creating, importing, exporting and presenting. Only pulpAssist needs a network connection.

Can I open a Keynote or Google Slides presentation?

Not directly. Export it to PowerPoint (.pptx) from Keynote or Google Slides first, then open that file in pulpSlide.