To convert PowerPoint to Markdown on Windows, add the PPTX file to MD Factory. Each slide becomes a section with its text, lists, tables, pictures and speaker notes, and the MD file is saved next to the presentation.
Text, lists and notes come through. Charts, SmartArt and text inside pictures do not, so fill those gaps yourself before you give the deck to an AI agent.
Convert the presentation
- Open MD Factory and click Add files, or drag the presentation onto the window.
- Conversion starts at once. When it finishes, the row shows Completed, Needs review or Failed.
- Double-click the result path under the file name to open the Markdown file.
The result takes the presentation's name: Roadmap.pptx becomes Roadmap.md in the same folder. Pictures from the slides go into a Roadmap_images folder beside it. MD Factory does not change the presentation itself. If MD Factory cannot write to that folder, it asks where to save the result.
A presentation that asks for a password when it opens is marked Failed. Convert a copy saved without the password, and keep that copy and its Markdown as private as the original.
What each part of a slide becomes
| On the slide | In the Markdown file |
|---|---|
| Each slide | A heading with the slide number: ## Slide 1, ## Slide 2 and so on |
| Slide title | A line of plain text, usually the first one in the section |
| Bulleted and numbered lists | Markdown lists, with nested levels kept |
| Text boxes and shapes, including grouped ones | Paragraphs of text |
| Tables | Markdown tables; the first row becomes the header |
| Pictures | Image files in the images folder, linked where they appear, without alt text |
| Links to web pages and email addresses | Markdown links |
| Speaker notes | Text under the subheading ### Speaker notes |
| Charts, SmartArt, video, audio and equations | Not converted; the slide gets a note |
A slide with a title, a two-level list and notes looks like this:
## Slide 2
Agenda
- Market overview
- Competitors
- Next steps
### Speaker notes
Start with the customer numbers.Slide titles stay plain text under the numbered heading. If you want them as headings, add the # marks by hand or ask your AI agent to treat the first line of each section as the title.
Links to other slides or to files keep their text but lose the target, and the slide gets a note.
What visual slides lose
A chart is not converted: neither the bars nor the numbers behind them reach the Markdown. The slide gets the note "Some document content could not be represented in Markdown".
To keep the numbers, open the chart's data in PowerPoint and copy them into a table on the slide or into the speaker notes. Microsoft's instructions: Change the data in an existing chart.
If the chart came from an Excel workbook, convert the workbook as well: How to convert Excel to Markdown tables on Windows.
SmartArt text is lost too, with the same note. In a copy of the deck, select the graphic and choose Convert, then Convert to Shapes, on the SmartArt Design tab. The text then sits in ordinary shapes, and MD Factory reads it. The shapes cannot be turned back into SmartArt, which is why you work on a copy. Microsoft's instructions: Convert your SmartArt graphic into shapes.
A diagram drawn from shapes and arrows comes out as its text only. The text follows the order in which the shapes are layered, not where they sit on the slide, so the steps of a flowchart can come out of order.
Screenshots and scanned pages placed on slides are saved as image files, and the text inside them is not recognized. A slide made only of pictures gets its heading and image links, and no text.
Layout, colors, animations and transitions are not part of the Markdown at all.
Slide order, hidden slides and notes
Slides follow the order of the presentation, the same order as in Slide Sorter. The numbers in the headings count every slide from 1, hidden ones included.
Hidden slides are converted with no mark and no note. PowerPoint keeps a hidden slide in the file and only skips it during the slide show: Hide or show a slide.
If a hidden slide holds something you do not want to share, delete it from a copy of the deck before converting, or delete its section from the Markdown.
Speaker notes appear under their slide. A slide with an empty notes page can get the notes subheading with nothing under it.
Footers, dates and slide numbers placed on slides come through as ordinary lines of text. Text that exists only on the slide master, such as a company name repeated on every slide, is not included.
Old PPT files
MD Factory converts PPTX files. A PPT file from PowerPoint 97-2003 is listed as skipped with the note "This file format is not supported."
Open the PPT file in PowerPoint, choose File, then Info, then Convert, and save the new PPTX file. PowerPoint keeps the original PPT file alongside it. Microsoft's instructions: Convert a presentation from a previous PowerPoint version.
PPSX slide shows and macro-enabled PPTM files are skipped too. Save a copy of such a file as PowerPoint Presentation (.pptx) and convert the copy.
Check the result
Click Needs review in the file's row to read the notes. Each note names the slide, for example: "Some document content could not be represented in Markdown. (Slide 3)". Open that slide in PowerPoint and decide what the Markdown needs.
Then go through the Markdown file:
- The number of slide headings matches the number of slides, hidden ones included.
- Slides with charts or SmartArt have their numbers or text in another form.
- Diagrams and text boxes read in a sensible order.
- Slides made of pictures have a short description if their content matters.
- Hidden slides and speaker notes hold nothing you did not mean to share.
If you edit the Markdown file and later convert the presentation again, MD Factory keeps your edited file and saves the new result as Roadmap (2).md.
Give the deck to an AI agent
A deck in Markdown answers questions about what the slides and the speaker said. It cannot answer questions about what only the visuals showed. Tell the agent how the file is built, for example:
Read Roadmap.md. Each "## Slide N" section is one slide,
and its first line is usually the slide title.
"Speaker notes" is what the presenter planned to say.
Charts and diagrams are not in the file. When a slide
refers to one, say so instead of guessing its numbers.If the same material also exists as a Word document or a written report, convert that too: documents keep real headings and fuller text. See How to convert Word to Markdown on Windows.
To set up a folder of sources and rules for an agent, see Prepare documents for AI agents with Markdown.