PPT to PDF

Every slide is rendered once and fixed in place, so positions cannot reflow on someone else's machine and the deck looks the same on any device or projector. The one thing that does move is text set in a font the converter cannot load: it gets substituted, the replacement is a different width, and a tight text box can then overrun. Scan the output once if the deck uses anything unusual.

They do not survive, and no PDF converter can carry them. PDF is a fixed-layout page format with no timeline, so each slide becomes one static page showing its final built state — an entrance animation that reveals bullets one at a time appears with all bullets present. Embedded video becomes the poster frame. If the deck depends on motion, share the original file for presenting and use the PDF for reading and printing.

Both, through Output Mode. Slides is the default and renders the slide area only, which is what you want for a deck you are circulating: notes live in a separate part of the file and quietly including them is how private preparation comments end up in a document sent to a client. Notes Pages puts each slide at the top of a page with its notes underneath, and Handouts tiles 2, 4, 6 or 9 slides per sheet for printing. Export twice if you need a clean deck and a notes copy.

Anything installed on the machine doing the conversion. Fonts are matched at conversion time, so a typeface present here is drawn correctly and then fixed in place; a typeface that is missing gets substituted, which is the usual cause of text reflowing or overrunning its box. Sticking to widely available families avoids the problem entirely, and it is worth scanning the resulting PDF once for shifted text boxes before circulating a deck that used anything unusual.