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Another move by Google into Microsoft Office territory was recently announced with their purchase of Tonic. Later this year we can expect an online presentation system (a la Powerpoint) to join Google Docs and Spreadsheets as rivals to Microsoft Office.
We customers can make use of the Microsoft vs Google battle. Over in our sister publication, Office Watch, we're talking about using Google's services as a low-cost extension of Office to give you features either not available in MS Office or only possible for more money. Check out the first part of the series 'Using Google Docs & Spreadsheets to extend Microsoft Office'.
While Google's answer to Powerpoint will (presumably) come later this year there are ways to make your presentation portable and even online right now.
Most commonly, you need to put your Powerpoint files on a different computer for your speech or presentation. There are a few ways to do that.
Powerpoint viewer
The latest free Powerpoint viewer is available here, a 25MB download
It will run on any Windows 2000 SP4, XP SP1 or Vista computer and can display any PPT or PPTX file.
(for earlier versions of Windows like Windows 2000 SP3, Windows 98 SE, Windows ME and Windows XP you can download the Powerpoint 2003 viewer which will display .ppt files but not the newer Powerpoint 2007 formats).
All you need to do is copy the presentation file (PPT/PPTX) to the computer that you want to display it from. These days a USB 'key' is the easiest way to do that though you can email it, use a network share etc.
Make sure that your presentation is saved with all the fonts installed, otherwise the slides might not look the way you expect. Do that by going to Tools | Options | Save and choosing 'Embed TrueType fonts'. For display the 'Embed characters in use only' is sufficient however if you think you might tweak your slides at the last minute choose 'Embed all characters'
 Powerpoint - Embed fonts in PPT
Tip: include a copy of the Powerpoint viewer on the USB key if you can, just in case you need it. The display computer might not have the software installed or it's not the latest version (which can handle Powerpoint 2007 files).
If the display computer is a Macintosh then you must have Office for Mac installed on it since Microsoft (unsurprisingly) hasn't made a Powerpoint viewer for the Mac.
This method works fine as long as all the images and sounds are embedded (along with the fonts). Some files - notably movies are never embedded. Audio files have a small size limit for embedding so most likely they'll also be linked. You need to ensure those external files are also copied and in the same locations as they are on the production machine. Usually that's difficult which is where the next option comes in …
Article posted: Monday, 30 April 2007
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