Time to design (ppt/key) presentations right in sketch and convert it to a .ppt or key
No more cloning the same design in PowerPoint or designing slides from scratch in PowerPoint(ppt)
Note: This tutorial is outdated. You no longer have to follow the below steps. Visit https://deck.is to check out our new updated version of the same tool
A small introduction before getting into the article.Hello I’m Jinson Johny, A mid level UI designer and a basic level coder from India and this is my first article on medium(Although had a huge list in the drafts, First one to get published)
How it all started
I use sketch on a daily basis to just design UI screens and icons. When it comes to brochures and presentations, I would either depend on Photoshop or Affinity. Slowly I started using sketch to design the presentations too, because of the limited options and simple interface. The flow was
Design in sketch -> Export as Images -> Import images to a blank ppt
It was fine until a friend of mine asked me a version that could have editable texts. And the real trouble began😐. Imagine designing the same using the powerpoint, it would take years for me. Googled and found there wasn’t a simple solution for the task and then I decided to make one by myself😎.
Preparations to be done
In sketch, each artboard dimensions must be 1920*1080. As you all see in the home page of Barrel Herd, I have highlighted a small bit of text and this is what it means. Before dragging the sketch file to the barrel, make sure the layer is either a Text layer or Bitmap.
If the layer is something other than the above two, you can simply convert it to a Bitmap layer by going to
Menu -> Layer -> Flatten selection to Bitmap
Layers other than Bitmap and Text layers are ignored.These layers wont be available in the powerpoint after conversion.
Additional Tip : Always a good option to compress your sketch file using the Reduce App before uploading it to Barrel
Conversion Process
👉 Head to this url once all the preparations are done, and drop in your .sketch file to the drop zone.On successful uploading, enter the required details
- A name you would like to call your .ppt (without the .ppt extension. Just the name will do) ✅
- The Page to be converted. ✅
- The alignment of the slides. ✅
- Hit the convert button ✅
Roadmap
The next version of Barrel herd would convert shapes to custom powerpoint shapes. From then, Texts and Shapes can be modified using powerpoint too.Custom size slides will also be considered in the next version.
Hope this tool saves some productive time for the design community. 📣 Share and spread the news to the awesome designers out there🎊.
