Scrap PowerPoint 2003 since PowerPoint 97 is much better

[Steve Rindsberg]

No quarrels with your description of your experience with the upgrades.
I'm not a big fan of the new UI.

Yes 2003 has some neat features but I have to ask if any of the
following has really improved anyone's content or increased their
overall productivity?
1) Multiple masters

Yes, if you have to produce presentations with more than just title/other
backgrounds or with different elements on various slides for whatever reason.
That's something PPT users have been clamoring for since version 3 or before.
Now if only they'd also let us edit the autolayouts ...

2) Much better animations
3) Much better control of animations

Huge if you do much animation or need to create highly interactive
presentations. Minimal if you don't.

4) Password protection

If it had been implemented much earlier, it'd be more useful. As it is, it
means that too many people can't open your presentations at all, so it's of
limited use, IMO. More a case of "Better late than never; get it in now so we
can move forward with it." Not a reason to upgrade, though.

The changes to autocorrect were the single biggest F-up.

If I could hurt anybody on the dev team, it'd be the person who cooked that one
up. <g>

But it's improved a bit from 2002 to 2003, credit where credit's due.
And 2002 had quite a few weird little bugs that could leave nasty toothmarks;
fixed in 2003 (and replaced with others, sigh ...).

And on all of the computers I've used it on, there seems to be a nice increase
in responsiveness from 2002 to 2003. 97 still outruns them all. ;-)

It's all down to what you need PPT to do. New features will never be worth a
penny to the person who doesn't need them; they're gold to those who do.

On a final note... Anyone that follows this thread should realize that
the MVPs are not MS employees. I have a lot of respect for them and have
been helped immeasurably by their expertise. However, the fact that MVPs
have acquired that status means that they are heavily biased towards the
product. So a final Q for the MVPs...Is is possible for you to criticise
the product and maintain MVP status?

You haven't read many of my posts I take it? ;-)

People with kneejerk anti-MS biases won't, obviously, be nominated as MVPs.
As long as the criticism is fair, honest and unbiased, PPT gets it in the teeth.

Or to put it differently, how many people do you know who'd stand up in front of
a crowd of 1500 people and tell one of the head honchos at MS that his product
sucks? In so many words.

The product deserved it, everybody knew it and one of the PPT MVPs said it. The
1500 people were MVPs of various sorts and most, I'd say, joined in the ensuing
ovation.

 

[John O]

Of course I am serious!

I can see that now, my view was that the improvements from 97 to 2003 are
dramatic and hard to miss. If you don't need or use (or know about) the new
features, then I would definitely agree the upgrade isn't worth the price.

97 to 2000 wasn't a big jump for Ppt, then 2000 to XP was huge, and 03
polished it off. But the 03 UI has all that useless XP-eye candy, which put
me off at first, too. Still does, now that I think about it. I used 97 for a
while, and you couldn't pay me enough to go back to it now.
........well......yes you could. ;-)

-John O

 

[ron shapiro]

I have an Office 2002 question/problem. I have Office 2002 and my friend has
Office 2004 Apple. He can save PowerPoint slides as a jpg. (Save As) that
look much better than I can. Can you explain why? Which PC versions will
save jpgs in good quality (good resolution)?

Thank you.

Ron Shapiro

 

[Guest]

http://www.rdpslides.com/pptfaq/FAQ00052.htm
--

Did that answer the question / help?
_____________________________
John Wilson
Microsoft Certified Office Specialist
http://www.technologytrish.co.uk/ppttipshome.html