switching to mac - powerpoint question

[rodsandreins]

Hi all- we are getting ready to make the switch, last real concern I have is
for my daughter, who is in Jr. High. She will begin using PowerPoint in class
this year. My worry is that she will encounter difficulties if she does a presentation at home using PowerPoint for mac, then takes it to school where she will likely have to run it on a pc... please excuse my ignorance, I have no experience with this stuff, just trying to head any problems off at the pass! Will a PowerPoint for mac presentation run seamlessly on a pc??
Thanks for your help...

 

[bluefiberoptics]

If you want to be extra careful, use Microsoft Office 2004 for Mac until Office 2008 for Mac comes out.

 

[vanmacguy]

Hi all- we are getting ready to make the switch, last real concern I have is
for my daughter, who is in Jr. High. She will begin using PowerPoint in class
this year. My worry is that she will encounter difficulties if she does a presentation at home using PowerPoint for mac, then takes it to school where she will likely have to run it on a pc... please excuse my ignorance, I have no experience with this stuff, just trying to head any problems off at the pass! Will a PowerPoint for mac presentation run seamlessly on a pc??
Thanks for your help...

There are a couple of the real power-user things that don't carry from the Mac back to the PC. But for a fairly standard PowerPoint slide deck, you won't notice any difference at all.

So I'd say you're fine.

Cheers.

 

[Father Jack]

Powerpoint presentations made on Office 2004 for Mac will work fine on PC's in college ...

 

[rodsandreins]

Thanks!

Boy you guys are quick! Thanks for easing my fears Office 2008 will likely be out before she needs to use it. Thanks again!

 

[yellow]

You have to be careful on image formats.

Some that looks fine on a Mac, won't even show up on the PC because (for some reason) it requires QuickTime be installed.

Tiff images might be the most common source of this issue.

 

[xUKHCx]

You have to be careful on image formats.

Some that looks fine on a Mac, won't even show up on the PC because (for some reason) it requires QuickTime be installed.

Tiff images might be the most common source of this issue.

I've found this usually relates to how the images were placed in Powerpoint to begin with. For example if you drag and drop images in then you will get that error. However if you "insert" the picture then all is well.

 

[yellow]

I've found this usually relates to how the images were placed in Powerpoint to begin with. For example if you drag and drop images in then you will get that error. However if you "insert" the picture then all is well.

Ah, could be.

I encounter it time to time with my users, but that may be that they are taking the lazy shortcut.

One thing to note, OP, it's best to resize images before inserting them in PPT. A 10MB picture that gets inserted and then resized within PPT, is still 10MB. Chop it down in Photoshop (or some lower-priced equivalent) before inserting it to keep the PPT file size sane.

 

[CalBoy]

Boy you guys are quick! Thanks for easing my fears Office 2008 will likely be out before she needs to use it. Thanks again!

One last little note that no one really brought up:

Chances are, some of your daughter's teachers are Mac users themselves, and if they have a choice as to what computer they use in class, they often go Mac. During my senior year in high school, two of the classes that involved the most presentations (Government/Civics and Physics), were taught by Mac users (they both brought their own Powerbooks to class). So, if your daughter is going to be doing extensive presentations (they become more elaborate on a daily basis), then you might also look at iWork solely for Keynote. I suggest you still buy Office 08, but tell your daughter to try out the trial of iWork and compare the differences between a Powerpoint presentation and a Keynote presentation.

 

[rodsandreins]

One last little note that no one really brought up:

Chances are, some of your daughter's teachers are Mac users themselves, and if they have a choice as to what computer they use in class, they often go Mac. During my senior year in high school, two of the classes that involved the most presentations (Government/Civics and Physics), were taught by Mac users (they both brought their own Powerbooks to class). So, if your daughter is going to be doing extensive presentations (they become more elaborate on a daily basis), then you might also look at iWork solely for Keynote. I suggest you still buy Office 08, but tell your daughter to try out the trial of iWork and compare the differences between a Powerpoint presentation and a Keynote presentation.

Yep- we noticed at back to school night that her homeroom teacher had a row of school pc's in the room, but a big fat 24" iMac on his desk.

 

[CalBoy]

Yep- we noticed at back to school night that her homeroom teacher had a row of school pc's in the room, but a big fat 24" iMac on his desk.

This was a common sight in my high school as well. The district would often provide old PCs for the teachers, but many of them would go out and get their own Macs and bring them in because they just couldn't stand using the PCs. When your daughter gets her Mac, tell her to try creating a PowerPoint presentation, and then tell her to create the same presentation in Keynote. She might find Keynote to be a better quality product (most do).

On a side note, what Mac are you buying her? If it's a portable or a mini, she would just as easily be able to take the Mac with her to school for major projects/presentations if she really wanted to use Keynote.

 

[vanmacguy]

Yep- we noticed at back to school night that her homeroom teacher had a row of school pc's in the room, but a big fat 24" iMac on his desk.

Having used both Keynote and PowerPoint, I would say that Keynote is the superior software too. True it's missing some of the power user features, but it's fantastic at doing what most users need to do most of the time.

And the whole suite of iWork is cheaper than PowerPoint on it's own.

Cheers.

 

[rodsandreins]

On a side note, what Mac are you buying her? If it's a portable or a mini, she would just as easily be able to take the Mac with her to school for major projects/presentations if she really wanted to use Keynote.[/QUOTE]

Not portable, it'll be a family Mac- most likely a 20" iMac, waiting till Leopard is out- so not much longer. We'll probably buy iWork and have her use Keynote when possible, but we do expect to see PowerPoint become a necessity as they're using it a LOT at her future high school.
Again, thanks for all the help everyone!

 

[CalBoy]

Not portable, it'll be a family Mac- most likely a 20" iMac, waiting till Leopard is out- so not much longer. We'll probably buy iWork and have her use Keynote when possible, but we do expect to see PowerPoint become a necessity as they're using it a LOT at her future high school.
Again, thanks for all the help everyone!

Ahh, ok. Well, it's probably better if she's proficient with both in any case. Best of luck and be sure to ask more questions if you're ever in need.

PS: Fix the quote in your post; you need

in front (just copy and paste).

 

[CRAZYBUBBA]

Hi. Firstly congrats on making the big switch for your daughter, the mac has improved my grades significanty (Mostly due to the small things, stability, spotlight, etc).

I'm a college student and use powerpoint for my presentations, i have only encountered a problem once, when I had linked a video in the presentation to my iMac at home, suffice it to say that it didn't work. Otherwise, i've never had an issue with compatibility and everything has come out the same when presenting with a PC. With that said, keynote has some interesting features which can reallly impress your powerpoint using audience, so its a good way to cheaply boost your grades.

 

[CrackerJacker]

Late point to make - Something that you'll find with Keynote is that it's extremely simple to make something look extremely eyecatching. I've recently completed a Degree course in Animation, where everyone had to make several big presentations to their peers. I had only used Powerpoint once before, and my classmates all had prior experience. However, as the only Mac user, and having recently purchased Keynote, I put in the hours, and made the best presentation(The on-screen part, not me talking) out of a group of nearly a hundred. I would put that a lot down to Keynote allowing a very flexible yet polished style to what it produces.

Plus, if you get iWork, then there'll be Pages aswell, and the work templates for letters and essays kick ass!

 

[sushi]

Hi all- we are getting ready to make the switch, last real concern I have is for my daughter, who is in Jr. High. She will begin using PowerPoint in class this year. My worry is that she will encounter difficulties if she does a presentation at home using PowerPoint for mac, then takes it to school where she will likely have to run it on a pc... please excuse my ignorance, I have no experience with this stuff, just trying to head any problems off at the pass! Will a PowerPoint for mac presentation run seamlessly on a pc??

Basic presentations are no problem at all.

Animations and pics/video are where you get into issues.

Note, this can happen between different versions of PPT for Windows as well.

If you want to be extra careful, use Microsoft Office 2004 for Mac until Office 2008 for Mac comes out.

No, if you want to be extra careful, get Parallels, load Windows and run Windows Office 2003/2007.

One thing to note, OP, it's best to resize images before inserting them in PPT. A 10MB picture that gets inserted and then resized within PPT, is still 10MB. Chop it down in Photoshop (or some lower-priced equivalent) before inserting it to keep the PPT file size sane.

I am sorry, but putting a 10MB picture in a PPT presentation is not a good idea and is a waste of storage space.

Remember that the best resolution that you will see the picture is what is your laptop monitor or the projector that you are going to use -- whichever is less.

Usually a jpeg around 300-500K is enough definition for almost any picture that you want to show.

And yes, you must import the picture into PPT otherwise you are merely linking the picture to PPT so that you must keep the photos with the presentation. This is not a good way to do it if you are going to move the presentation.

I'm a college student and use powerpoint for my presentations, i have only encountered a problem once, when I had linked a video in the presentation to my iMac at home, suffice it to say that it didn't work.

Yes, for some reason, Microsoft uses quicktime for the Mac and AVI files for the Windows.

It should be the same for both versions so you can go from Mac to Windows and vice versa. Unfortunately, Microsoft doesn't seem to understand this concept with some pic formats and video files.

But other than video and pics, I've had very few problems with using PowerPoint 2003 Windows and 2004 for Mac.