C#: Convert PowerPoint to Markdown

PowerPoint presentations are widely used tools for visual communication, enabling users to effectively present information in an organized and visually engaging manner. They are ideal for business meetings, educational purposes, and project presentations. However, in some cases, converting PowerPoint presentations into a lightweight, text-based format such as Markdown is more practical.

Markdown is a popular markup language that is widely supported across documentation tools, version control systems, and static site generators. It offers a simple way to format text that is easier to read and write. By converting PowerPoint presentations to Markdown, users can integrate their content into text-based workflows more efficiently. This is especially helpful when collaborating on documents, tracking changes, or publishing content online.

In this article, we will walk you through the steps of converting PowerPoint presentations to Markdown format using C# and the Spire.Presentation for .NET library.

• Convert a PowerPoint Presentation to Markdown
• Convert a Specific PowerPoint Slide to Markdown

Install Spire.Presentation for .NET

To begin with, you need to add the DLL files included in the Spire.Presentation for.NET package as references in your .NET project. The DLL files can be either downloaded from this link or installed via NuGet.

PM> Install-Package Spire.Presentation

Convert a PowerPoint Presentation to Markdown

Spire.Presentation for .NET provides the Presentation.SaveToFile(string, FileFormat) method, allowing you to convert PowerPoint presentations into various file formats, including PDF, HTML, and Markdown. Below are the steps to convert a PowerPoint presentation to Markdown using Spire.Presentation for .NET:

• Initialize an instance of the Presentation class.
• Load a PowerPoint presentation using Presentation.LoadFromFile(string) method.
• Save the PowerPoint presentation to Markdown format using Presentation.SaveToFile(string, FileFormat) method.

using Spire.Presentation;

namespace PPTToMarkdown
{
    internal class Program
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            //Initialize an instance of the Presentation class
            Presentation ppt = new Presentation();
            //Load a PowerPoint presentation
            ppt.LoadFromFile(@"E:\Program Files\Sample.pptx");

            //Specify the file path for the output Markdown file 
            string result = @"E:\Program Files\PowerPointToMarkdown.md";

            //Save the PowerPoint presentation to Markdown format
            ppt.SaveToFile(result, FileFormat.Markdown);
        }
    }
}

Convert a Specific PowerPoint Slide to Markdown

In some cases, you may need to convert a specific slide instead of the whole presentation to Markdown. Spire.Presentation offers the ISlide.SaveToFile(string, FileFormat) method to convert a PowerPoint slide to Markdown. The following are the detailed steps:

• Initialize an instance of the Presentation class.
• Load a PowerPoint presentation using Presentation.LoadFromFile(string) method.
• Get a specific slide in the PowerPoint presentation by its index through Presentation.Slides[int] property.
• Save the PowerPoint slide to Markdown format using ISlide.SaveToFile(string, FileFormat) method.

using Spire.Presentation;

namespace SlideToMarkdown
{
    internal class Program
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            //Initialize an instance of the Presentation class
            Presentation ppt = new Presentation();
            //Load a PowerPoint presentation
            ppt.LoadFromFile(@"E:\Program Files\Sample.pptx");

            //Get the second slide
            ISlide slide = ppt.Slides[1];

            //Specify the file path for the output Markdown file
            string result = @"E:\Program Files\SlideToMarkdown.md";

            //Save the slide to a Markdown file
            slide.SaveToFile(result, FileFormat.Markdown);
            ppt.Dispose();
        }
    }
}

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