file size

[Brian Lunde]

Our office is running Office XP and have a few copies of
2003 we are testing. We have been having some backward
compatibility issues with the presentations created in
2003 and used by the XP users. The last presentation we
created in 2003 was 2MB and grew to 280MB when resaved in
the powerpoint 97-2003 format. Two things:

Is there a fix for the compatibility issues?

And if not is that kind of exponential growth to be
expected?

Thanks to all in advance.

 

[Kathy J]

Brian,
All PowerPoint versions since PPT 97 use the same format. You shouldn't need
to back save at all when going from PPT 2003 to PPT 2002 (XP).

The growth you are seeing is because the file includes both the current file
format and the PPT 95 file format. The PPT 95 format does very little
compression, while the current format does a very good job of file
compression.

I would suggest trying just regular saves and see if it works better. If you
are having other compatibility problems besides the size, let us know.

Oh - and since you are just trying Office 2003, I recommend you get the
required updates for Office 2003 if you haven't already. They make a big
difference. Access the updates by going to Help--> Check for Updates from
any of the Office 2003 products.

--
Kathryn Jacobs, Microsoft MVP PowerPoint and OneNote
Author of Kathy Jacobs on PowerPoint - Available now from Holy Macro! Books
Get PowerPoint answers at http://www.powerpointanswers.com
Featured Presenter at PPT 2004 - http://www.pptlive/com

I believe life is meant to be lived. But:
if we live without making a difference, it makes no difference that we lived

 

[Sonia]

The problem is that you shouldn't save to anything but Presentation(*.ppt).
PowerPoint 97-2003 all use the same file format. When you save in what is
shown as PowerPoint 97-2003 & 95 Presentation it is actually saved in 2003
format and in 95 format. PowerPoint 95 did not compress the file, so you're
presentation has ballooned in size.