Basics

Import Beta

Bring an existing PowerPoint deck, PDF, or SVG into SSHOW as a fully editable project — every page becomes a scene you can keep designing.

Beta

Import is in beta. It works today, but conversion is faithful rather than perfect — some elements are approximated or skipped, and the details keep improving.

Already have a deck or document? Import recreates it inside SSHOW as editable scenes and objects, so you can refine it with the full toolset instead of starting from a blank canvas. Each page or slide becomes its own scene.

An imported slide opened in the editor, its text, shapes, and images listed as separate, selectable layers in the panel.
Importing turns a flat deck back into editable scenes — every text box, shape, and picture is its own object you can move and restyle.

What you can import

Import reads three formats — the decks and documents most work already lives in, plus SVG vectors.

The Import panel with three format tabs — PPT, PDF, and SVG — a file picker, and a progress bar.
The Import panel — pick the source format tab, choose a file, then import. A summary reports what came in.
PowerPoint A .pptx deck — slides become scenes of editable shapes, text, images, and groups.
PDF A .pdf document — each page is rebuilt as editable text, vector, and image objects.
SVG SVG vectors — paths, shapes, text, and embedded images come in as editable objects.

How importing works

Importing replaces the current document, so start from a new or empty project.

  1. 1

    Open Import from the menu to bring up the Import panel.

  2. 2

    Pick the source format — the PowerPoint (.pptx), PDF (.pdf), or SVG (.svg) tab.

  3. 3

    Choose your file. Its name and size appear so you can confirm before importing.

  4. 4

    Import. SSHOW rebuilds the file as scenes and objects, then shows a summary of what came in and anything it skipped.

Tip Import into a fresh project — it replaces whatever you have open, the same as opening a file.

What comes through

Each format reconstructs differently. Here's what to expect from each — and what's approximated or left behind.

PowerPoint
Slides become scenes, and shapes, text boxes, pictures, and groups are mapped to native SSHOW objects with their fills, strokes, rotation, and flips. What PowerPoint can do that SSHOW can't yet represent — charts, tables, SmartArt, and embedded media — is skipped and listed in the summary, and text with mixed styling is flattened to a single style. Master and layout backgrounds are brought in behind each slide.
PDF
Each page becomes a scene, rebuilt as editable text, vector paths, and images recovered from the file, with their colors. Because reconstruction is never exact, the original page is also kept as a hidden, locked image at the very bottom of each scene — switch it on whenever you need a pixel-faithful reference. Fonts fall back to the closest available match, and styling like bold, italics, and exact line breaks may not survive.
SVG
An SVG's paths, shapes, and text come in as editable vector objects. Rectangles, circles, and ellipses stay editable primitives (rotated or sheared ones bake to a path), lines, polygons, and paths transfer as bezier paths, and gradients and colors carry over. Embedded raster images come in as their own image objects too — a true vector import, never baked to raster.

The import summary

When an import finishes, SSHOW reports what it did so nothing slips by unnoticed.

  • It counts the objects that came in, so you know roughly how much was reconstructed.
  • Anything it couldn't bring in — an unsupported chart, a flattened text style — is listed by reason, so you know what to rebuild by hand.

Tip Skim the summary after each import. It's the fastest way to spot what needs a second pass before you keep designing.

Good to know

Import is a strong starting point, not a perfect copy. A few things to expect:

  • Replaces your document — importing opens the file in place of what's on screen, just like opening a project, so import into a new one and keep your original safe.
  • Faithful, not exact — the layout and content come across, but advanced fills, effects, and any animation or interactivity in the source aren't reconstructed.
  • Fonts fall back — when a source font isn't available, the closest match is used, which can shift spacing and line breaks. Set the fonts you want after importing.
  • PDF keeps a reference — every imported PDF page carries the original as a hidden layer you can switch on to compare against the rebuilt version.

Note Treat an import as a head start you finish in SSHOW, not a one-click conversion. As SSHOW leaves beta, fidelity will keep improving — review the result, fix what the summary flags, and keep your original file as the source.