How to Convert a PDF to PowerPoint PPTX in Power Automate
We’ve learned a method for converting PowerPoint PPTX files to PDF in Power Automate on this blog in the past. But what about performing the opposite conversion?
Thankfully, it’s just as easy to convert our PDF documents to PowerPoint PPTX format using the Cloudmersive Document Conversion connector in Power Automate.
With just a few clicks, we can convert entire folders full of PDF presentations (like the folder shown in the below example) to PowerPoint with high fidelity and begin working on them right way.
Create an Instant cloud flow in Power Automate
As usual, we’ll build an example Instant cloud flow in this article to demonstrate the PDF to PowerPoint PPTX conversion process. We’ll walk through each step with screenshots and check our results at the end.
Add List folder and Get file content actions into the flow
We’ll begin by listing file identifiers (Id values) in our flow for each PDF in our SharePoint folder. We’ll then get file bytes for each file using the Id values. We can accomplish each of these steps using the List folder and Get file content actions respectively.
Locate the PDF to PPTX Conversion action
Within the For each control that Power Automate created for us , we’ll add our Cloudmersive Document Conversion connector action.
To find the Cloudmersive Document Conversion connector in Power Automate, we’ll type “Cloudmersive” into the search bar and locate the option with the green logo.
From here, we’ll click “See more” to view the full actions list, and we’ll then search for the Convert PDF to PowerPoint PPTX Presentation action.
Create a Cloudmersive API connection
We’ll click on this action to open it, and we’ll next create our API connection.
To do that, we’ll need a free Cloudmersive API key, and we can get one by creating a free account on the Cloudmersive website. For reference, we’re using a free API key in this walkthrough; they allow up to 800 API calls/month with no commitments.
Configure the Convert PDF to PowerPoint PPTX request
We only have two basic request parameters to configure: one which asks for our PDF file bytes, and one which asks for our file name.
We’ll use dynamic content from both our prior SharePoint actions to satisfy these parameters — but it’s worth noting that the (file name) value doesn’t need to be our actual file name for this request to function correctly.
Save the new PPTX files in a SharePoint folder
Now that we’ve asked Power Automate to convert our PDFs to PowerPoint PPTX presentations, we’ll save the resulting presentations in a new SharePoint folder.
We’ll do that using a Create file action from the SharePoint connector, and we’ll dynamically name our new PPTX files using the DisplayName value from our initial List folder action (remember to add a .pptx extension).
Run the flow; check SharePoint for the new PPTX files
After we successfully save and test this flow, we’ll find our converted PowerPoint PPTX documents in our target SharePoint folder.
And that’s all there is to it!
Conclusion
In this article, we learned how to convert PDF presentations back to PowerPoint PPTX format using the SharePoint and Cloudmersive Document Conversion connectors in Power Automate.
This is a great slide to use when we’re interested in editing or changing content found in a PDF call deck (or any other standard PDF presentation content).
