Mac/PC Compatibility: The Answer

[Paul Seymour]

There's a major limitation in the cross-platform compatibility of
PowerPoint. If you add animations to your presentation on a Mac, as animated
GIFs or QuickTime movies, these animations will not work on a PC. The only
workaround is to move your animations and your presentation over to a PC,
and then manually add them in there.

Microsoft and some of its MVPs expend a fair amount of energy to prevent
this limitation from becoming widely known. On this board, I've seen quite a
number of users reporting this problem, and receive "solutions" from the
MVPs which will not solve the problem at all. Eventually, they give up or
find a different way of doing it, but rarely do they post back here what
they did in the end. So here's the answer to all of you having troubles with
this.

 

[Steve Rindsberg, PPTMVP]

Care to quote chapter and verse on this, Paul? Particularly examples of
anyone, MS, MVP or otherwise, trying to prevent this from becoming known?
If you're going to impugn reputations, have the courtesy to be specific and
to back up your accusations, please.

How about some specifics regarding the problem? You add an animated GIF to
which version of PPT on Mac, then play it back on what version on PC? It
matters.

I've just tried adding an animated GIF to PPT X (it works) then saving it
and moving the file to a PC running PowerPoint 2000 and playing it back (it
works).

If you're talking about earlier versions of PowerPoint on PC or the free
PowerPoint Viewer, then no, animated GIFs don't work. Never have. Known
limitation, often quoted by MVPs and others. AniGIFs should work in the new
PC PPT viewer that's just been released, however.

If you're linking GIFs or any other pictures, that will nearly always fail
X-platform or just between two different Macs or PCs. Again, known issue,
nobody's trying to hide anything.

Quicktime movies are a different animal. They're always linked, and the
links will break, again almost as a sure thing. Who has tried to hide this
from you?


--

Steve Rindsberg PPT MVP
PPTLive ( http://www.pptlive.com ) Featured Speaker
PPTools: http://www.pptools.com
PPT FAQ: http://www.pptfaq.com

 

[TAJ Simmons]

Paul,

info on the powerpoint FAQ

Animated GIFs don't animate
http://www.rdpslides.com/pptfaq/FAQ00060.htm

PC to Mac and Back
http://www.rdpslides.com/pptfaq/FAQ00281.htm

From microsoft (cross platform tips)
http://www.microsoft.com/mac/produc...Y/tips_tricks/officex/pp_crossplatformtip.xml

At the end of the day the mvps are all volunteers. They didn't ask to be
mvps. They just help the best they can. I don't believe we cover anything
up.

Eventually, they give up or find a different way of doing it, but rarely do

they post back here what they did in the end.
I wish people would post back with how they managed to get around certain
limitations. The shared knowledge gets added to the powerpoint FAQ quite
regularly.

Cheers
TAJ Simmons

 

[Benjamin Amsaleg]

Well, here is something you may want to add in your Mac-PC FAQ on PPT

Embedded objects (word table, excel table or graph) to not move properlly
from Mac to PC.
If you use Office X on one end and Office 2000 or above on the PC end, you
should use the Powerpoint table tools instead of using either Word or Excel
to create and managed table.
It's a bit slower but your slide will them cross over plate-form with one
problem less

 

[Steve Rindsberg, PPTMVP]

Noted, and thanks for posting that.

 

[TAJ Simmons]

Thanks Benjamin.

TAJ

Well, here is something you may want to add in your Mac-PC FAQ on PPT

Embedded objects (word table, excel table or graph) to not move properlly
from Mac to PC.
If you use Office X on one end and Office 2000 or above on the PC end, you
should use the Powerpoint table tools instead of using either Word or Excel
to create and managed table.
It's a bit slower but your slide will them cross over plate-form with one
problem less

 

[Jonathan Nebeker]

I have had great success importing into Keynote PPT documents with
embedded tables that don't display on Mac PPT X.