E-learning tool, online

PPTX2SCORM

A web page that turns a PowerPoint or PDF file into a lesson for Moodle. Upload, convert, download.

Project record

What it is: An online converter for .pptx and .pdf files
Who it’s for: Anyone who needs a lesson in Moodle and doesn’t want to install anything
My part: Designed and built it
Status: Not online at the moment
Built with: Python, Django

PPTX2SCORM’s page, in Serbian: a box to drop a .pptx or .pdf file, a “Convert to SCORM” button, and four short feature descriptions. — Screenshot · The converter’s only page

The situation

The add-in needs PowerPoint on Windows and has to be installed. People also needed something simpler: a free, quick way to convert a file for Moodle without installing anything, one that also works when all you have is a PDF.

What I built

PPTX2SCORM is one page. You drop a .pptx or .pdf file on it, press Convert, and download a SCORM 1.2 package that’s ready for Moodle.

The package keeps the slides’ titles, text, images and layout, and includes a lesson player with navigation, progress tracking and the option to continue where you left off. A history page lists earlier conversions.

SCORM 1.2 The version of SCORM that almost every learning platform supports.

How it works

Four steps, and the last one happens in Moodle:

Drop the file A .pptx or .pdf, onto the page.
Convert The server turns each slide or page into part of a lesson.
Download You get a .zip: the SCORM package.
Add to Moodle Create a SCORM activity and upload the .zip.

What’s inside a SCORM package

lesson.zip
imsmanifest.xml The list of contents. Moodle reads this first.
index.html The player: an ordinary web page.
slides/ Text, images and layout from your file.
scorm.js Tells Moodle how far the learner got.

Diagram · Simplified. File names vary, but every SCORM package has a manifest.

My part

I built the converter in Python with Django: the upload page, the processing of PowerPoint and PDF files, and the package generator.

The result

Making a Moodle lesson from a presentation became something you can do in a browser, in a few seconds, with nothing to install.

The public version isn’t online at the moment. If you’d like to see it working, write to me.

Technical details

For developers: the stack and how the pieces fit together.

Backend: Python, Django
Processing: PDF and PowerPoint conversion runs in background workers, so the page stays responsive during large uploads
Output: SCORM 1.2 package with a manifest and an embedded SCORM API wrapper
Input: .pptx and .pdf