The Presentations functionality in Google Docs has just had an update and now includes some PDF functionality. Once you’ve created your presentation, you can export it as a PDF file — meaning you can view presentations offline, send them via email, print them, etc. What it also means is that you get basic free PPT to PDF functionality — just import a Microsoft PowerPoint (PPT) file into Google and then export back out as a PDF file.
Extra features to improve the PDF output
Really handy additional functionality Google Docs might like to consider relates to setting how the PDF should appear when it is first opened in a PDF viewer. These ‘initial view’ settings can be used to hide toolbars, set the page magnification level, open the file at a particular page, and much more.
PDF editing tools like Nitro PDF Professional and Adobe Acrobat support a huge range of settings for different circumstances. As far as publishing and sharing presentations as PDFs goes, the most useful couple of settings Google Docs could implement would be:
- Open in full screen. This opens the PDF without displaying the toolbars, menus, etc., so the PDF file looks just like a PowerPoint presentation does.
- Zoom. This lets you control the magnification level at which the page should open at and gives you a little more control over how much of the screen will be taken up by the page content and how much will appear as the background.
