How to Use Synthesia to Turn a Slide Deck Into a Training Video

The short answer: write the script into the deck's speaker notes, import the PowerPoint, choose a stock or personal avatar, fix the words it will mispronounce, let Assistant tighten the script while a product owner reads every scene, preview without spending credits, invite a colleague as a guest to comment, generate, and share by link or embed so later fixes reach every copy.

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The deck already exists. Every product team has one, presented live a dozen times by people who no longer have the hours to present it again, and the new starter in sales gets a recording of a call from last spring instead. Synthesia turns the deck into a presenter-led video that you correct by editing a line, not by booking another shoot. For plans and credits, see the Synthesia glossary entry.

Get these right before you import:

• The file. A .pptx of up to 1 GB or 150 slides, per the PowerPoint article. Basic and Starter cannot upload custom fonts, so expect a substitute font on those plans.
• A minute budget. A finished minute uses about 100 credits, and every plan includes 10 minutes of video a month; Starter adds 1,250 credits for $19 a month on monthly billing (pricing page, checked on 26 October 2026). For example, 15 slides at 30 seconds each are 15 x 0.5 = 7.5 minutes, inside the free allowance, so the first draft can be made on Basic, watermark included.
• One reviewer. Starter allows 3 guests and Pro 5, on the same page.

1. Write the speaker notes as speech

Speaker notes become the video's script on import, and a slide without notes gets a script written from the text on it, per the PowerPoint article. Write the notes in PowerPoint first, in the words a person would say out loud, one slide at a time. Read them aloud once; anything you trip over, the avatar will deliver flatly.

2. Import the deck

On the home screen, click Import PowerPoint, upload or drag in the file, choose the toggle options for the project and click Import. Text, shapes, images, videos and tables arrive as editable elements, fonts are detected, and a 4:3 deck is converted to 16:9. Slide animations do not come across, so any reveal the deck relied on has to be rebuilt with Synthesia's own animations.

3. Choose who presents

Pick a stock avatar, or use a personal one built from a photo or a short recording of a real colleague. Personal avatars start on Starter and need the explicit consent of the person shown, which also rules out celebrities and anyone who has not agreed, per the custom avatar article. Avatars stay inside Synthesia; they leave only as part of a downloaded video.

4. Fix the words it will say wrong

Product names and acronyms are where a training video loses its credibility. Highlight the word in the script editor, click Pronunciation, then type a phonetic spelling or record yourself saying it, listen to the preview and click Use; Apply to all fixes every instance in the video (pronunciation article). Saving a term to the workspace glossary is Enterprise only, so on other plans keep a list and repeat the fix per video. Regenerating a paragraph's audio costs no credits.

5. Let Assistant tighten it, and read every scene

Assistant is an agent built into the editor: in the Storyboard layout the script sits on the left, the visuals in the centre and the chat on the right, and you can ask it to make the video shorter, make the tone more executive, or rewrite a named scene, per the Assistant article. It changes the script and visuals itself, does not consume credits, and is listed for Starter, Creator and Enterprise plans.

Your check: because Assistant edits the video directly, the product owner reads each changed scene against the slide it came from and restores anything that drifted from what the product does. If your team drafts in Claude instead, Synthesia's MCP connector, in public beta, creates a draft from a chat at no credit cost; open it in the editor and run the same read before anything is generated.

6. Preview before you spend

Click Preview Scene Play in the script box to hear one scene, or the play button beside Generate for the whole video (preview article). Previews use no credits. The avatar does not move or speak in a preview, so judge the script, timing and visuals here and the performance after generating.

7. Bring in a reviewer as a guest

From the video's overview page, click Invite, enter the reviewer's email, choose Can Comment and send it as a guest invitation (guest article). Guests can view and comment on that video, nothing more, whatever permission you pick. They right-click the canvas, choose Add comment and can tag people, who get an email (comment article).

8. Generate

Click Generate. Credits are charged on the avatar footage produced, about 100 per finished minute, and only when something is generated, never while you edit or preview, per the FAQ on the pricing page. Every video passes automated and human moderation, which can add time (moderation article).

9. Share it so fixes travel

Click Share, then Create link, and copy the link or the embed code (sharing article). Embeds update wherever they sit when you change the video, which is why an embed beats a downloaded MP4 for anything that will change. Password protection starts on Pro; SCORM packages for a learning system are Enterprise only.

What the help centre warns about

Collected from the PowerPoint, preview, pronunciation and credits articles:

• Animations in the deck. Not imported; rebuild them in the editor.
• Judging the avatar in preview. It is not animated until the video is generated.
• A pronunciation changed after generating. Generate again for it to apply; the share link stays the same.
• Upgrading mid-cycle. Unused credits do not carry over; the balance resets to the new plan's allocation (credits article).

How to know it worked

Take the baseline from the last training video your team recorded: hours from brief to approved, and how many times it had to be re-shot. For the Synthesia version, log the hours from deck to approved video and the credits per finished minute from the usage dashboard. The real test comes at the next product change: time how long the update takes, from the changed line to a regenerated video. Removing words costs nothing and added words are charged by their duration, per the edits article.

Size the plan on that evidence, not on launch week. Plan credits reset every billing period and nothing rolls over, so a tier bought for the busiest month is paid for again in every quiet one; the pricing FAQ says credits bought separately stay valid for 12 months, which is the cheaper way to cover the peak.

FAQ

Can a colleague be the presenter?

Yes, as a personal avatar on Starter or above, with their explicit consent; it is built from their photo or recording, per the custom avatar article.

Does fixing one line cost the whole video again?

No. Only new footage is charged: edit three seconds and regenerate, and you pay for three seconds, per the FAQ on the pricing page.

Can the video go into a learning management system?

As a SCORM package, only on Enterprise. On other plans, share a link or embed the player on a page the LMS can open, per the sharing article.