Viewer - Windows/Mac

[Guest]

I have packaged a presentation on a CD along with the PP Viewer, but I also
want to make this presentation available to those with a Mac. I see that
there is a Mac version of the viewer (PP Viewer 98 - is this new enough??)
but what I am wondering is: can I, working on a computer with Windows XP,
get the Mac version and put it on my CD? I'd just like to know whether this
is possible before I start, to avoid any frustration on my part if it isn't,
or if there are some tricks or shortcuts I should know about beforehand.

 

[Steve Rindsberg]

I have packaged a presentation on a CD along with the PP Viewer, but I also
want to make this presentation available to those with a Mac. I see that
there is a Mac version of the viewer (PP Viewer 98 - is this new enough??)
but what I am wondering is: can I, working on a computer with Windows XP,
get the Mac version and put it on my CD? I'd just like to know whether this
is possible before I start, to avoid any frustration on my part if it isn't,
or if there are some tricks or shortcuts I should know about beforehand.

This may be a much deeper bucket of worms than you'd intended to dive into, but
here goes:

PPViewer 98 should be able to open most current PPT files, but won't be able to
play back any of the new animation effects introduced in PPT 2002. There'll
surely be other limitations ... it's quite old, after all.

A bigger problem is that it only runs in Mac Classic mode (that is, it won't
run "native" under Mac OS/X.) You may want to check in the
Mac.Office.PowerPoint group to see if Viewer98 still even *works* on newer
Macs.

Note also that AutoRun doesn't work on Macs, and that Macs only partially use
file extensions (.PPT, .PPS etc) to work out what program "owns" a file. You
can't really be certain that the show will start when a Mac user doubleclicks
the show's icon. They may need to start PPT or the viewer and use File, Open
to open it. If they do that in PPT, that'll open your show in edit mode, not
as a slide show.

Are we having fun yet?

The Mac viewer's available here:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=E25CB1E5-209C-4A58-B28
3-23E84B616477&displaylang=en

It's an HQX file, which again may not run automatically when the user
doubleclicks it. I'd ask in the Mac group about this as well.

It might be simpler to include a readme file with the link above and suggest
that Mac users download and install it themselves if they don't already have it
or PPT.

 

[Guest]

Thanks, that helped a lot and saved me a lot of work (I've already put
probably 50 hours into this project). Sounds like too much of a pain for
something that might not even work as it should. I think I will just do as
you suggest and take the easy route of the readme file. I already have one
of those for the CD as a whole.