Mac Office 2008: Powerpoint Presenter Tools

[syndalis]

I am transitioning a longtime Windows house to an all-mac environment (with Microsoft Servers for exchange, sharepoint, etc), but have run into a MAJOR issue with office 2008 that is going to make my end users upset and possibly run back to VMWare'd office.

When running with two displays in office 03 and 07, you could have the presentation in full screen on one display, and have powerpoint proper still running on the other one. From there, you can edit the slides "on the fly", so that you can make corrections while test-running presentations, or have a preview window of the final slide sitting off on your secondary display while you work on the main one. this has benefitted our users greatly over the years.

In moving to Mac Office 2008, I noticed that there is an option to either "view Slide Show" or "View Presenter Tools" on the slide show drop down, but no matter what I select, the same result occurs; slide show on one screen, full screen presenter tools on the other. This is doubly damning because not only do they lose the ability to edit the slides and use powerpoint like they used to during a presentation, but any attempt to switch to another app while in that mode (useful for quickly referencing an excel or word doc when asked a question) causes the screens to hop into mirrored mode, and will show you looking at notes in the middle of your presentation, and display them for everyone to see! This means that to have the same level of functionality they had before, you would have to either bring two computers to the presentation (not happening), or bring a PC (not a solution either).

Please tell me that I am overlooking something here, and that the two-screen slideshow functionality which has been the same in powerpoint for ages isn't this messed up in Powerpoint 08.

Thanks in advance!

 

[Mal]

Mac Office hasn't had that ability since v.X if I remember correctly. I don't know why for certain, but I also don't know of any other presentation program that does on the Mac. It was a nice feature, I used to use that to great comic advantage during youth group.

jW

 

[syndalis]

Mac Office hasn't had that ability since v.X if I remember correctly. I don't know why for certain, but I also don't know of any other presentation program that does on the Mac. It was a nice feature, I used to use that to great comic advantage during youth group.

jW

Well, for people doing presentations it is more than just a nice feature, it allows you to have wildly different content on your laptop screen than what is being presented on the main one, and not just a small paragraph of notes or the upcoming slides.

It seems almost silly to me that at the very least you can't bring another app to the foreground without Office forcing changes to your display settings... what the hell is that all about?

 

[nadyne]

Please tell me that I am overlooking something here, and that the two-screen slideshow functionality which has been the same in powerpoint for ages isn't this messed up in Powerpoint 08.

I'm sorry to say, but what you've observed is accurate: when you've got two screens, slide show and presenter view do the same thing.

Regards,
Nadyne.

 

[syndalis]

I'm sorry to say, but what you've observed is accurate: when you've got two screens, slide show and presenter view do the same thing.

Regards,
Nadyne.

PLEASE do me a solid and pass this along to the mac office 2010 team and let them know that this is one of those great features of powerpoint that needs parity between the mac and pc version. Just let us declare what screen we want to be the full screen one, and leave the option for the other one to be unaffected, so that other apps, or even powerpoint itself, can be usable. Just like the windows version.

PLEASE let them know this is important.

 

[MooneyFlyer]

PLEASE do me a solid and pass this along to the mac office 2010 team and let them know that this is one of those great features of powerpoint that needs parity between the mac and pc version. Just let us declare what screen we want to be the full screen one, and leave the option for the other one to be unaffected, so that other apps, or even powerpoint itself, can be usable. Just like the windows version.

PLEASE let them know this is important.

Yep, this is the single biggest annoyance I've had with PowerPoint Mac for sometime. There are possible workarounds that all stink.

PDF the file and put it on the other screen. You can then change slides on one screen without affecting your laptop screen. I like to keep my notes open on my laptop screen. This means that you have to go back and forth between the screens to change slides.

Another annoyance is that if you have an iCal reminder pop up and try to close it while in presentation mode PowerPoint loses it's mind for a while, stops the presentation, etc.

I think I have others too but I don't have a second screen attached right now and I can't remember what they are...

I'd like to try importing it to Keynote to see if that works but I haven't done that yet.

 

[nadyne]

PLEASE do me a solid and pass this along to the mac office 2010 team and let them know that this is one of those great features of powerpoint that needs parity between the mac and pc version. Just let us declare what screen we want to be the full screen one, and leave the option for the other one to be unaffected, so that other apps, or even powerpoint itself, can be usable. Just like the windows version.

As you might have noticed from my signature, I am on the Office:Mac team. It's a feature request that we're aware of.

The best way to send your feedback to us is to do so via the apps. In PowerPoint (or any other Office app), go to the Help menu, then select "Send Feedback". Then type in as much detail as you possibly can about what you're requesting: what you want, why you want it, how it impacts you to not have it, what workarounds you're trying to get at what you want. The more you tell us, the better we can understand what your goals are and why it's important. Be verbose, and make a great case for what you want.

This gets it into our system, and it's considered along with all of the other feedback we get when we're drawing up our plans. When we're having discussions about what features we need, it's much more meaningful if I can say "X users requested this feature via product feedback, and here are their use cases" rather than "someone once told me on a Mac forum somewhere that this is something they'd like".

Regards,
Nadyne.

 

[MooneyFlyer]

As you might have noticed from my signature, I am on the Office:Mac team. It's a feature request that we're aware of.

The best way to send your feedback to us is to do so via the apps. In PowerPoint (or any other Office app), go to the Help menu, then select "Send Feedback". Then type in as much detail as you possibly can about what you're requesting: what you want, why you want it, how it impacts you to not have it, what workarounds you're trying to get at what you want. The more you tell us, the better we can understand what your goals are and why it's important. Be verbose, and make a great case for what you want.

This gets it into our system, and it's considered along with all of the other feedback we get when we're drawing up our plans. When we're having discussions about what features we need, it's much more meaningful if I can say "X users requested this feature via product feedback, and here are their use cases" rather than "someone once told me on a Mac forum somewhere that this is something they'd like".

Regards,
Nadyne.

Nadyne,

Thank you for the response and you are always helpful. It is great to see that someone takes the time to read this forum and offer up insights and responses.

I'd hardly call this an enhancement though. This is just a bug. There is a check box and documented feature that simply doesn't work. I question whether this feature was actually ever tested given that I've yet to find a single situation where it works. If there is one, please let me know so that i can try it as well.

I work in a software company too and bugs are a fact of life -- but this is a big one that should be addressed because it makes common use models unworkable -- and there is no good workaround other than "deal with it."

Thanks again for your support -- it is truly appreciated.

 

[bbabaa]

Was this issue ever fixed in Office for Mac 2011?

 

[MooneyFlyer]

Was this issue ever fixed in Office for Mac 2011?

No -- at least not that I could figure out. Seriously pissing me off.

 

[Don.a.dio]

Problem with switched screens?

I too am disappointed presentation mode doesn't allow a different desktop view, even in Office 2011.

I additionally have the problem that presentation tools are shown on the screen while the presentation is transmitted to my desktop, when it should be visa-versa. Is there something I can do to fix that?