How to turn Google Slides into a video

Google Slides can’t save a presentation as a video: File, then Download offers PowerPoint, PDF and image formats, but no MP4. To turn a deck into a video, record yourself presenting it, convert it in Google Vids (Google’s video editor), download it as a PowerPoint file and export the video from PowerPoint, or upload that file to an AI tool that turns your slides and speaker notes into a narrated whiteboard video. Here is how each method works, step by step, and how to choose.

Before you start: write the speaker notes

Whichever method you pick, the speaker notes do the most work. PowerPoint shows them like a teleprompter while you record, Google Vids can turn them into a script, and AI video tools read them. Write each slide’s notes the way you would say them out loud, in short sentences, at about 150 words for each minute of video.

Then ask whether the deck makes sense without you in the room. Slides built to sit behind a presenter usually need more explaining in a video, not more words on the slide. Our PowerPoint guide goes into this in more detail.

Method 1: Record yourself presenting

In Google Slides

Some work and school accounts can record a presentation without leaving Slides:

1. Open the presentation, select Record on the right, then choose Record video.
2. Pick what to capture: Camera & Screen (you in a small frame over your slides), Audio (your voice only) or Screen (the slides only).
3. Check the camera and microphone, select Next, choose the presentation to share, and present as usual.
4. Find the recording in Google Vids, where you can edit it, share a link or download it as an MP4.

Recording works in Chrome and Edge. If there is no Record button, your account doesn’t have the feature, so use your computer’s recorder instead.

With your computer’s screen recorder

Start the slideshow full screen and record it with the tool your computer already has:

• Windows: press the Windows logo key + Shift + R to open Snipping Tool’s screen recorder, select the area, then select Start.
• Mac: press Shift-Command-5 to open the Screenshot tools, choose to record the whole screen or part of it, and click Record.
• Chromebook: press Shift + Ctrl + Show windows, select Screen record, then choose the full screen, part of it or a window.

Turn on Do Not Disturb first, and check that the microphone is on.

• Good for: lessons and updates in your own voice, with your face if you want it.
• Watch out for: changes. One wrong number usually means recording again, and small slide text is hard to read on a phone.

Method 2: Convert the deck in Google Vids

Google Vids can turn a presentation into a video in which every slide becomes a scene:

1. In Google Slides, open File and select Convert to video. You can also start in Vids and choose Convert Slides.
2. Pick the slides to include.
3. Choose the narration. Vids can write a script from your slides, speaker notes included, and read it in a generated voice, or use your speaker notes as the script. Without the AI features, each slide simply becomes a five-second scene.
4. Review the scripts, pick a voice and create the draft, then edit it in Vids and download it as an MP4.

Google’s help page lists the limits. The generated script and voiceover come in English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese and Spanish. A video can use up to 45 slides with the AI features (100 without them) and run for up to 10 minutes. Converting needs an eligible Google Workspace plan, and the AI features an eligible Workspace or Google AI plan.

• Good for: teams already working in Google Workspace who want the slides themselves on screen.
• Watch out for: dense slides. A video of a crowded slide is still a crowded slide, now with a clock running.

Method 3: Download it as PowerPoint and export a video

If you have PowerPoint, it can turn the deck into an MP4 with your recorded narration:

1. In Google Slides, select File, then Download, then Microsoft PowerPoint (.pptx).
2. Open the file in PowerPoint and check each slide. Fonts and some animations can change in the conversion.
3. Record the narration on the Record tab, slide by slide. Your speaker notes appear at the top of the screen.
4. Select File, then Export, then Create a Video, choose a quality up to Ultra HD (4K) and Use Recorded Timings and Narrations, then save it as an MP4.

Our PowerPoint guide has the details, including the Keynote route on a Mac.

• Good for: an MP4 that keeps your exact slide design.
• Watch out for: conversion surprises. Watch the exported video all the way through before you share it.

Method 4: Turn the slides into an AI whiteboard video

The first three methods put your slides on screen. An AI video tool can instead read the deck and make a new video that explains it, which helps most when the slides only make sense with you presenting them. With Chasca:

1. Download the deck as a .pptx file (File, then Download, then Microsoft PowerPoint).
2. Upload it in the prompt box. Chasca reads the words on your slides and your speaker notes.
3. Say what to focus on (optional). “Explain this unit to a student who missed the lesson” gets a sharper video than no instructions.
4. Pick a length, a narrator and a drawing style, or leave them on Auto, in landscape, vertical or square.
5. Generate. Chasca writes the script, splits it into scenes and draws each scene stroke by stroke in time with the narration, usually in about a minute.
6. Change what you need. Turn subtitles on or off, switch the drawing style or add music, free. Then download the MP4 with subtitles, or share a link.

• Good for: lessons, training and onboarding decks, and decks you need in another language, since the same video can be made in 79 languages.
• Watch out for: the look. The result is a drawn explainer, not a copy of your slide design (custom branding with your logo, colors and fonts is on the Pro plan).

Tips that make any slide video better

• Take words off the slides. Say the explanation instead of printing it. By Richard Mayer’s redundancy principle, people learn better from graphics and narration than from graphics, narration and the same words on screen.
• Give each slide one idea, and cut any slide you would skip when presenting.
• Keep it short. For one idea, a minute or two is plenty; for a lesson, stay under six minutes.
• Turn on captions, and end with a question the viewer answers before you give the answer.

Which method should you choose?

If you need…	Choose
Your own voice and face over your slides	Record in Slides, or record your screen
Your slides as scenes with a generated voice, inside Google Workspace	Google Vids
An MP4 that keeps your exact design	Download as .pptx and export from PowerPoint
A video that explains the deck without you, easy to update and translate	An AI whiteboard video from the .pptx

Sources

• Google Docs Editors Help. Record a presentation with Google Vids.
• Google Docs Editors Help. Convert Google Slides into Google Vids.
• Chromebook Help. Take a screenshot or record your screen.
• Microsoft Support. Turn your presentation into a video.
• Microsoft Support. Use Snipping Tool to capture screenshots.
• Apple Support. Take screenshots or screen recordings on Mac.
• Mayer, R. E. (2008). Applying the science of learning: Evidence-based principles for the design of multimedia instruction. American Psychologist, 63(8), 760–769.