How to convert PowerPoint to PDF on your Mac

You don't need PowerPoint to turn a .pptx into a PDF on a Mac. Apple's Keynote is free, opens PowerPoint decks, and exports them as PDF. Koi skips the app altogether: drag the deck with Shift held, drop it on PDF, and the PDF lands beside it, a page to each slide.

We make Koi, so read this with that in mind. Everything about Koi here is what version 1.13 does. Keynote's steps come from Apple's own guides, checked October 21, 2026.

1. Get Keynote from the Mac App Store if it isn't on your Mac. It's free.
2. Drag the .pptx onto Keynote's icon in the Dock or in Applications. Double-clicking it opens PowerPoint instead, if you have PowerPoint.
3. Look through the slides once: Keynote lays the deck out itself, so check nothing moved.
4. Choose File, then Export To, then PDF.
5. Pick the options you want: presenter notes and skipped slides, each stage of builds on its own page, comments, and the image quality.
6. Click Save, give it a name, choose where it goes in the Where menu, and click Export.

Keynote opens .pptx and .ppt files. Apple's export guide lists every PDF option, and for more, you can choose File, then Print, and save the PDF from the print window instead. If the deck has a password, the PDF keeps it unless you untick Require password to open.

Keynote can also save the deck back as a PowerPoint file after you edit it, so it's worth having even if you only need the PDF now and then.

1. Start dragging the .pptx in Finder or on your desktop. Drag several decks to do them all.
2. While you're still holding it, press and hold Shift. A wheel of three formats opens round your pointer: PDF, JPG and PNG.
3. Drop it on PDF. “Deck.pdf” lands beside the deck and shows in Finder.

• The PDF is the whole deck, a page to each slide at the slide's own size, and its words are still text you can search and copy.
• Drop on JPG or PNG instead for a picture of every slide at twice the slide's size, 1920 by 1080 for a 16:9 deck, in a new folder named after the deck.
• It reads .pptx, .ppt, .ppsx, .pptm and .pps.
• No PowerPoint or Keynote needed. Koi draws the slides with Quick Look's own PowerPoint preview, the one Finder shows, on your Mac.
• The deck is never touched. When its folder can't be written to, the PDF goes to Downloads.

Nothing is uploaded. While the slides are drawn, everything but the deck's own files is blocked, so a picture the deck links to on the web isn't fetched. More on the Shift wheel.

Sometimes you don't want a PDF at all: a slide for a post, a carousel, a thumbnail or a document that only takes pictures. Drop the deck on JPG or PNG in Koi's wheel instead of PDF.

• Every slide is saved at twice the slide's size, 1920 by 1080 for a 16:9 deck, named Slide 1, Slide 2 and on.
• They go in a new folder named after the deck. When that name is taken, the next is “Deck 2”.
• PNG keeps text and lines crisp; JPG makes smaller files for photo-heavy slides.

Keynote does this too: choose File, then Export To, then Images, pick the slides and an image format. The same Apple guide lists Movie, Animated GIF and HTML as well, which Koi doesn't make.

• Check with Space first: Koi draws the deck with the same preview Finder shows when you select it and press Space. If that preview looks right, the PDF will too.
• Fonts: a deck made with fonts your Mac doesn't have can look different on your Mac, whichever way you convert it. If the look matters, install the fonts first.
• Animations and video: a PDF is still pages, so nothing plays. Keynote can put each stage of a build on its own page; Koi can't.
• Linked pictures: a picture the deck pulls from the web, rather than one inside the file, won't show in Koi's PDF.
• Keynote files: Koi can't convert a .key. Only Keynote reads them, so export from Keynote.
• Locked decks: Koi has nowhere to type a password, so export a password-protected deck from Keynote or PowerPoint.

Need presenter notes on the pages, or each build as its own page for a handout? Keynote has the options, and it's free. Just want the PDF of a deck someone sent you, or a folder of them, with no app to open? Koi does it in one drag. Turning the PDF back into slides or a study set? The same wheel turns a PDF into pictures, and Koi's Study makes notes and flashcards from slides. For Word files, see Word to PDF on a Mac.

Keynote is free. Koi has no free plan: Pro is $20 a month, or $192 a year, after a 3-day free trial that needs a card. Lifetime is paid once, from $59. The Shift wheel uses no AI, so it never counts against Koi's usage. See the plans.