PowerPoint to App · Your App Cloud
Build an app from your PowerPoint deck
A deck is clicked through in order while someone explains it. An app has to work without the presenter. Upload the slides, then say what people open, fill in and finish on each screen.
From slides someone presents to screens people use.
Mark what matters in the deck, say what the audience should now do themselves, then test the app with nobody there to explain it.
01
Mark sections and the slides to skip
Use the upload button above for the deck. Then list the sections that should become areas of the app, and the slides to drop: the cover, the agenda, the thank-you slide and anything hidden from the slide show.
02
Replace Next with an action
An audience watches a slide; a person uses a screen. For every section, say what someone does there instead of waiting for the next slide: search a list, check off a step, pick an option or send a request. Name the records each action creates or changes.
03
Test it without the presenter
Sit someone who never saw the talk in front of the preview and ask them to finish one real task. Note every point where they needed the explanation you usually give out loud. Then describe who signs in and the access you want for each collection.
What each part of the deck becomes.
Find the slide or feature in your own presentation, then read across to where it goes and how to confirm it. The quoted slide text is invented: a San Diego bike shop showing its staff a new repair process.
| In your PowerPoint deck | In your app | What to check |
|---|---|---|
| Sections such as 'Drop-off', 'Repair' and 'Pickup', or divider slides where the deck has no sections | Areas of the app, each with its own item in the menu | Collapse the sections in the thumbnail pane, where each name shows the number of slides in it. Compare those names with the app's menu, and name any divider slides in the prompt, since they only look like sections. |
| Slide titles, such as 'New repair' or 'Waiting for parts' | Screen names and headings | Before uploading, choose Review, then Check Accessibility. It finds slides with no title. Give each of them one, and confirm that every screen in the preview has a clear name. |
| A slide drawn as an app screen: boxes labeled 'Customer', 'Bike' and 'Problem', and a rounded shape reading 'Save repair' | A working screen whose fields accept input and whose button saves a record (saving needs a backend) | Type a test repair into every field and press every button. Anything that still behaves like a picture needs a sentence in the prompt about what it should do, or it should go. |
| Links from a shape to another slide, made with Insert, Link, Place in This Document (This Document on a Mac) | Navigation from one screen to the next | Click through the links in Slide Show and note where each one lands. Follow the same path in the preview and confirm each button opens the matching screen. |
| A numbered list: '1. Check in the bike 2. Write the quote 3. Get approval 4. Repair 5. Call for pickup' | Statuses each repair moves through, with a list of the repairs at every stage | Decide whether the list is a status that changes per repair or tasks someone checks off. Then walk one test repair through every stage and back one step. |
| A table of services and prices: 'Tune-up $85', 'Flat repair $20' | Service records that staff search and pick from when writing a quote | Match the number of table rows to the number of records. Add two services to a test quote and check the total, which shows whether prices came through as amounts rather than text. |
| A chart titled 'Repairs per week' | A view counted from the repair records the app holds | Select the chart and choose Chart Design, Edit Data to see the numbers behind it. If selecting it shows no Chart Design tab, the chart may be a pasted picture with no numbers inside, so the figures have to come from somewhere else. |
| Hidden slides kept as backup, shown with a slash through the slide number | Left out, or kept as a detail screen for the few people who need it | A hidden slide stays in the file even though the slide show skips it. List the hidden ones before you upload and say, for each, whether it belongs in the app. |
| A promise on a slide: 'We email the customer when the bike is ready' | An email the app can send when a repair is marked Ready | Send the first one to your own address and read it the way a customer would. Test it again after any change to the wording, and keep the customer's phone number on the repair as well. |
What the slides leave to the presenter.
A deck is written to be talked over. The reasons, the exceptions and the answer to 'what if the customer says no' are usually spoken rather than shown. An app has to put them on screen, so write them into the prompt.
Rules you only say out loud
Present the deck to yourself once and jot down what you add at each slide, such as 'quotes over $200 need the owner's OK' or 'never promise a same-day repair'. Put those rules in the prompt, then look for each one in the preview.
Builds and transitions
Animations pace a talk. Most mean nothing once the talk is over, so plan each screen as if everything on the slide were visible at once. When one does carry a rule, such as showing the price only after the options, write that rule down.
One screen drawn three times
Mock-up decks often repeat a screen across several slides to show its states: empty, filled in and showing an error. Say which slides picture the same screen, and check that the preview has one screen with those states, not three copies.
Things meant for one room
Pitch and sales decks gather material shown to a single audience: a client's logo, a margin figure, a competitor's price. Remove it from a copy of the deck before uploading instead of hunting for it in the finished app.
An illustrative starting point
A working tool where the slides were.
A menu from your sections, working fields where a slide only drew a screen, and a status on every record for each step the process slide listed.
A menu from your sections
Drop-off, Repair and Pickup can each become a place people open directly. Nobody clicks through twelve slides to reach the one screen they need this morning.
Screens that take input
Where a slide only pictured a field, the app can have one that accepts text, a date or a choice. Keeping what people enter, and knowing who entered it, both need a backend.
Steps with a status
The process slide's numbered steps can turn into stages on every record, so each repair shows where it stands. A list per stage takes the place of the slide everyone had to remember.
Sign-in for the people who use it
A deck is shown to people; an app is used by them. Say who signs in, such as mechanics and the front desk, and the access you describe for each collection. Check both from a second test account.
Together in your app cloud
The pieces behind the possibility.
Choose the models and services that support the experience you want to create.
Database
Keep data and context for apps and agents
Authentication
Give the right people access
Email
Keep conversations moving
A little more context
Good questions.
Is this for opening my presentation in the PowerPoint app, or embedding it on a site?
Neither. This page is about building a separate app from what your slides say, and the deck itself stays as it is. To move a presentation from PowerPoint for the web to the desktop program, select Open in Desktop App. To show the slides on a web page, save the file to OneDrive, open it in PowerPoint for the web and choose File, Share, Embed this Presentation.
What does an app do that shared slides can't?
A shared deck shows everyone the same slides in the order you set. In an app, each person can go straight to the screen they need, enter information, move a record to its next stage and see where everything stands today. Saving those entries needs a backend. The deck remains a presentation; the app is built from its content.
I sketched my app's screens in PowerPoint. Can they become the real app?
They make a good starting point. Say which slides are screens, what each box holds and what each button does, because a drawn button carries no behavior. Expect to settle what the mock-up skipped, such as what happens when a required field is left empty. Compare each screen with its slide before you publish.
Can the charts from my deck show current numbers?
A chart on a slide shows the figures it held when the deck was saved, and an upload is a snapshot, not a sync. Current numbers need records the app holds: entered by the people using it, or brought in by a deliberate re-import. Check one figure against its source before anyone trusts the view.
Which plan does an app built from slides need?
It depends on what people do in it. A click-through version of the deck that only presents its content is a one-page site, which Free publishes. Saving what people type, sign-in and email sent by the app all need a backend, which makes it an app with data, and putting it live needs a paid plan. Model and service usage is metered separately.
Can the app nudge people about steps from the process slides?
Apps can send email and run tasks on a schedule you set. A slide that says 'follow up after three days' could become a morning list of repairs still waiting for approval. Send each message to yourself first, and have someone review a scheduled list before acting on it.
Can the colleague who made the deck help?
Yes, through the published app: give the operations lead who owns the process deck an editor's sign-in, with access to the records they keep. Studio itself has one builder per Exepad account. The mechanics and front-desk staff sign in too, with the access you describe for each collection, so test each role from a second account.
Explore Pricing for plans, included capabilities, and usage details.
Keep exploring.
Build an app for a repeatable process ↗
See the outcome and the capabilities behind it.
Take a prototype further ↗
For slides drawn as app screens: guides on the data, actions and access that a mock-up leaves out.
Turn a training deck into an interactive learning app ↗
When the deck teaches rather than describes a process: a path through the material, practice and progress.
Understand data and context ↗
Give information the right place in your app.
Prepare to publish ↗
Check the experience you will share.
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