All of my images got stretched horizontally when converting old 4:3 powerpoint presentation images to the new 16:9 powerpoint template for SolidWorks world 2014.

I did a little research and found a way to work around it, and once I got the hang of it the conversion went FAST.  I figured that other previous presenters were also likely to recycle some previous content so I thought I would share.  This tip also might have some general interest. By all means, if there is an even easier way than I found, please share!

After a bit of googling I found this blog about how to quickly do manual repair to the image proportions in a ppt document:

post:http://www.hanselman.com/blog/HowToConvertAPowerPointPresentationFrom43RatioTo169WithoutDistortedOrStretchedImages.aspx

The blog post has the right idea, but I needed at least one bit of info made more explicit (which I pass along below) before I got it to work every time.

1. Open existing 4:3 formatted presentation
2. Shift-Select all the existing slides, copy them, and paste them into the new 16:9 template.
3. Here's the start of the trick. Right click on a stretched image and select Size and Position.
4. (And here’s where that blog post got it ALMOST right) From this dialog, click in the Height box under “Scale”. DO NOT click Height under “Size and rotate”.
   As long as the Lock Aspect Ratio checkbox is checked, just changing the scale by 1 step and then switching back will fix your image.
5. Based on my googling, this is the best way to convert your slides unless you want to buy a product that will convert the images for you.  At a minimum it is way faster than doing math on each image.

-Ed

P.S. don’t worry, there is new stuff in my shelling presentation for SolidWorks World.  But some of the older stuff is gold, and it would be criminal not to present it too.