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PPS
What is a PPS file?
A PowerPoint file that opens straight into the slide show instead of the editor.
What PPS is
PPS is a binary format, meaningful only to a program that knows it. It is used for handing a finished file over.
The extension is .pps, and the full name is PowerPoint Slide Show. Both matter less than what the file can hold, which is what the rest of this page is about.
Where PPS came from
Microsoft published it in 1990.
A format that has been readable for that long is a format worth trusting with something you want back in ten years.
The specification is published, but by its owner
It is written down and implementable, though the vendor decides what the next version looks like. In practice that is enough for the file to keep opening; it is not enough to be sure of it.
It is a legacy format
It still opens everywhere and is still written by older tools, but nothing new is being built around it. Convert what you mean to keep, and do not choose it for something starting today.
It can hold several pages in one file
A PPS file is not limited to one page, which matters when converting to something that is: a target that holds one image produces one file per page, and the numbering it chooses is worth checking before you send it on.
What kind of document it is
PPS holds a presentation: one slide per screen, sized for a projector rather than for paper.
That is what decides how it converts: one page per slide, with the animations flattened, because a page cannot appear in stages.
What opens PPS
Microsoft PowerPoint reads it, and so do most programs of the same kind.
If a file will not open, the format is rarely the problem — it is more often that the program predates it. Converting to something older is the reliable way past that, and it is what the rest of this site is for.
Opening it in a browser
No browser reads it.
That is the single most common reason to convert it: not that the format is bad, but that the place you want to show the file cannot read it.
It is a delivery format
PPS is meant to be handed over rather than worked in. Editing one is possible and rarely pleasant; the sane approach is to change the source and export again.
The facts, in one place
| Extension | .pps |
|---|---|
| Media type | application/vnd.ms-powerpoint |
| Published by | Microsoft |
| First published | 1990 |