PowerPoint 2004

[Grayson Hill]

Why is the 2003 version so much more robust? Am I just imagining
things or is 2004 a pale imitation of the Windows product. I can't
find multiple masters, a slide master palette, embed fonts or a dozen
other things. Am I just crazy? And is there a decent book out there
for Office for Mac that isn't for "Dummies." I don't need to know what
a font is. I need to know the real deep information.

 

[Oz Springs]

I haven¹t checked out the 2003 version because all the people I do work for
on PCs haven¹t upgraded to it yet. The City of London moves very, very
slowly with regard to software.

There is a Master Layout palette, under the Format Menu, choose ³Master
Layout...²

And no, you cannot embed fonts, but that hasn¹t bothered me much because the
City tends to use Arial or Helvetica or House fonts. One bank has its very
own font.

You can use multiple masters (see PowerPoint Help under the Help Menu and
search for ³multiple masters²). Multiple masters might provide a workaround
to the lack of a title page master - something which the PC version has and
its lack on the Mac has annoyed me for a long time. I don¹t know why
Microsoft has failed to provide one for Mac PowerPoint.

What are the ³dozen other things² missing from the Mac PowerPoint 2004? They
might be things we can whinge to Microsoft about for version 2006.

Sorry, don¹t know of a deep, intense book on PowerPoint, but you may want to
try CompMan.co.uk if you live in the UK. It has 115 books on PowerPoint
including a couple on PowerPoint 11, which I presume is a reference to
PowerPoint 2004 for the Mac. The rest, alas, seem to focus only on PC users.
Free postage to mainland UK on any book worth more than £5.

HTH



Oz

 

[Steve Rindsberg]

Good news, Bad news.

You can use multiple masters (see PowerPoint Help under the Help Menu and
search for ³multiple masters²). Multiple masters might provide a workaround
to the lack of a title page master - something which the PC version has and
its lack on the Mac has annoyed me for a long time. I don¹t know why
Microsoft has failed to provide one for Mac PowerPoint.

Good Sure it does.
Bad You'll probably hate yourself for not mentioning it sooner if I tell
you how long it's been there, so mum's the word.

View, Master, Slide Master
In the Slide Master, choose Insert, New Title Master

Voi, as they say once more than halfway through the chunnel, la.

Sorry, don¹t know of a deep, intense book on PowerPoint, but you may want to
try CompMan.co.uk if you live in the UK. It has 115 books on PowerPoint
including a couple on PowerPoint 11, which I presume is a reference to
PowerPoint 2004 for the Mac.

PowerPoint 11 is the internal version number of PowerPoint 2003 (Windows) but
sometimes Mac and PC PPTs share version numbers. PPT X is version 10.0 so
perhaps 2004 is 11.0 internally.

You can run this in the VBA editor to find out:

Sub WhichAmI()
MsgBox Application.Version
End Sub


================================================
Steve Rindsberg, PPT MVP
PPT FAQ: www.pptfaq.com
PPTools: www.pptools.com
================================================

 

[Steve Rindsberg]

Why is the 2003 version so much more robust? Am I just imagining
things or is 2004 a pale imitation of the Windows product.

In some ways it's more advanced, in others less so. It's partly a matter of
what the two different operating systems bring to the table (ie, that the
developers can use "for free" as it were). And it's partly a matter of
economics. Look at how many potential Windows Office sales there are vs Mac
Office sales. Where would you put the bulk of your development dollars if you
had to choose?

I can't
find multiple masters, a slide master palette,

The interface for this is weird indeed. But you can go to slide sorter view,
for example, choose the slides you want to apply a new master to and then use
Format, Design to choose a different template to apply to just the selected
slides. Watch out: it seems that if you have only one selected slide, the
default is to apply the new design to ALL slides. Hint: when you do this,
undo will save you.

Once you've applied add'l designs to some of your slides, you can do View,
Master, Slide Master and scroll through the different designs in the
presentation.

Note: I'm using X, not 2004 so you may see something a bit different. Or
wildly different for all I know. ;-)

================================================
Steve Rindsberg, PPT MVP
PPT FAQ: www.pptfaq.com
PPTools: www.pptools.com
================================================

 

[Oz Springs]

Thanks very much for this information about the title master. No, I don¹t
hate myself, I am always glad to find something I did not know about and can
use in the future if not right now as I work on that darned template I
mentioned yesterday. (It would have been handier to have known earlier, tho)

I cannot pull the charts apart even if that does solve the printing problem
(and I think it will) because this is a template and it is more important
that users have a chart in which to put data rather than a pretty picture
that prints out correctly. Also, it will be used more for onscreen display
rather than printing and the onscreen displays very well - with Quark
colours too.

And, looking at the printed slides again it seems that in fact the chart
background is printing correctly to my PostScript printer and the rest of
the slide background isn¹t. Ppt chart is a different app from PPT itself and
it is probably rendering the CMYK better than PPT.

 

[Steve Rindsberg]

I cannot pull the charts apart even if that does solve the printing problem

Understood; I'm suggesting this just as a test. By pulling them apart in PPT,
you can check the RGB colors of the bits that print differently.

And, looking at the printed slides again it seems that in fact the chart
background is printing correctly to my PostScript printer and the rest of
the slide background isn¹t. Ppt chart is a different app from PPT itself and
it is probably rendering the CMYK better than PPT.

Ah, CMYK rears its sometimes uncooperative if occasionally pretty head again.
;-)

Possibly the Graph app uses a different CMYK to RGB conversion formula than does
PPT itself. Another good reason to feed it only RGB in all cases.


================================================
Steve Rindsberg, PPT MVP
PPT FAQ: www.pptfaq.com
PPTools: www.pptools.com
================================================

 

[mlstromer]

You could try Peachpit Press books. They are typically very well
written and encompass all levels from beginner to advanced topics in
one book. The ISBN# for the Peachpit book is 0321247477 and was last
priced at Amazon for a little over $15. There were 3 other books from
other publishers also listed under the "Customers who bought this item
also bought these items" section for the Peachpit book.