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Microsoft PowerPoint is a presentation program
Presentation program

A presentation program is a computer software package used to display information, normally in the form of a slide show. It typically includes three major functions: an editor that allows text to be inserted and formatted, a method for inserting and manipulating graphic images and a slide-show system to display the content....
 developed by Microsoft
Microsoft

Microsoft Corporation is a multinational corporation computer technology corporation that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of computer software products for computing devices....
. It is part of the Microsoft Office
Microsoft Office

Microsoft Office is a popular set of interrelated desktop applications, servers and services. Microsoft Office is collectively referred to as an office suite, for the Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X operating systems....
 system, and runs on Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows

Microsoft Windows is a series of software operating systems and graphical user interfaces produced by Microsoft. Microsoft first introduced an operating environment named Windows in November 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces ....
 and the Mac OS
Mac OS

Mac OS is the trademarked name for a series of graphical user interface-based operating systems developed by Apple Inc. for their Macintosh line of computer systems....
 computer operating systems. The Windows version can run on the Linux
Linux

Linux is a generic term referring to Unix-like computer operating systems based on the Linux kernel. Their development is one of the most prominent examples of free and open source software collaboration; typically all the underlying source code can be used, freely modified, and redistributed by anyone under the terms of the GNU GPL license...
 operating system, under the Wine
Wine (software)

Wine is a free software software application that aims to allow Unix-like computer operating systems on the x86 architecture or x86-64 architecture to execute programs written for Microsoft Windows....
 compatibility layer.

PowerPoint is widely used by business people, educators, students, and trainers and is among the most prevalent forms of persuasive technology. Beginning with Microsoft Office 2003, Microsoft revised the branding to emphasize PowerPoint's place within the office suite, calling it Microsoft Office PowerPoint instead of just Microsoft PowerPoint.






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Encyclopedia


Microsoft PowerPoint is a presentation program
Presentation program

A presentation program is a computer software package used to display information, normally in the form of a slide show. It typically includes three major functions: an editor that allows text to be inserted and formatted, a method for inserting and manipulating graphic images and a slide-show system to display the content....
 developed by Microsoft
Microsoft

Microsoft Corporation is a multinational corporation computer technology corporation that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of computer software products for computing devices....
. It is part of the Microsoft Office
Microsoft Office

Microsoft Office is a popular set of interrelated desktop applications, servers and services. Microsoft Office is collectively referred to as an office suite, for the Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X operating systems....
 system, and runs on Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows

Microsoft Windows is a series of software operating systems and graphical user interfaces produced by Microsoft. Microsoft first introduced an operating environment named Windows in November 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces ....
 and the Mac OS
Mac OS

Mac OS is the trademarked name for a series of graphical user interface-based operating systems developed by Apple Inc. for their Macintosh line of computer systems....
 computer operating systems. The Windows version can run on the Linux
Linux

Linux is a generic term referring to Unix-like computer operating systems based on the Linux kernel. Their development is one of the most prominent examples of free and open source software collaboration; typically all the underlying source code can be used, freely modified, and redistributed by anyone under the terms of the GNU GPL license...
 operating system, under the Wine
Wine (software)

Wine is a free software software application that aims to allow Unix-like computer operating systems on the x86 architecture or x86-64 architecture to execute programs written for Microsoft Windows....
 compatibility layer.

PowerPoint is widely used by business people, educators, students, and trainers and is among the most prevalent forms of persuasive technology. Beginning with Microsoft Office 2003, Microsoft revised the branding to emphasize PowerPoint's place within the office suite, calling it Microsoft Office PowerPoint instead of just Microsoft PowerPoint. The current versions are Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2007 for Windows and 2008 for Mac.

History

PowerPoint was initially developed in 1984 by Forethought, Inc., Sunnyvale, California, for the Macintosh computer. In 1987, Forethought was bought by Microsoft and became Microsoft's Graphics Business Unit, which continued to further develop the software.

Operation

PowerPoint presentations consist of a number of individual pages or "slides". The "slide" analogy is a reference to the slide projector
Slide projector

A slide projector is an opto-mechanical device to view Photography Transparency . It has four main elements: a fan-cooled electric light bulb or other light source, a reflector and "condensing" lens to direct the light to the slide, a holder for the slide and a focusing lens ....
, a device that has become obsolete due to the use of PowerPoint and other presentation software. Slides may contain text, graphics, movies, and other objects, which may be arranged freely on the slide. PowerPoint, however, facilitates the use of a consistent style in a presentation using a template or "Slide Master".

The presentation can be printed or displayed live on a computer and navigated through at the command of the presenter. For larger audiences the computer display is often projected using a video projector
Video projector

A video projector takes a video Signalling and projects the corresponding image on a projection screen using a lens system. All video projectors use a very bright light to project the image, and most modern ones can correct any curves, blurriness, and other inconsistencies through manual settings....
. Slides can also form the basis of webcasts.

PowerPoint provides three types of movements:
  1. Entrance, emphasis, and exit of elements on a slide itself are controlled by what PowerPoint calls Custom Animations
    PowerPoint animation

    PowerPoint animation is a form of animation which uses Microsoft PowerPoint and similar programs to create a game or movie. These animations are created slide-by-slide or by using PowerPoint's Custom Animation feature....
  2. Transitions, on the other hand are movements between slides. These can be animated in a variety of ways
  3. Custom animation can be used to create small story boards by animating pictures to enter, exit or move


With callouts, speech bubbles with edited text can be sent on and off to create speech. The overall design of a presentation can be controlled with a master slide; and the overall structure, extending to the text on each slide, can be edited using a primitive outliner
Outliner

An outliner is a computer program that allows one to organize text into discrete sections that are related in a tree data structure or hierarchy....
.

Presentations can be saved and run in any of the file format
File format

A file format is a particular way to encode information for storage in a computer file.Since a disk drive, or indeed any computer storage, can store only bits, the computer must have some way of converting information to 0s and 1s and vice-versa....
s: the 2003 default .ppt (presentation), .pps (PowerPoint Show) or .pot (template). In PowerPoint 2007 and Mac OS X 2008 versions, the XML-based file formats .pptx, .ppsx and .potx have been introduced, along with the macro-enabled file formats .pptm, .potm, .ppsm.

Cultural effects

Supporters and critics generally agree that the ease of use of presentation software can save a lot of time for people who otherwise would have used other types of visual aid—hand-drawn or mechanically typeset slides, blackboards or whiteboards, or overhead projections. Ease of use also encourages those who otherwise would not have used visual aids, or would not have given a presentation at all, to make presentations. As PowerPoint's style, animation
PowerPoint animation

PowerPoint animation is a form of animation which uses Microsoft PowerPoint and similar programs to create a game or movie. These animations are created slide-by-slide or by using PowerPoint's Custom Animation feature....
, and multimedia
Multimedia

Multimedia is media and content that utilizes a combination of different content format. The term can be used as a noun or as an adjective describing a medium as having multiple content forms....
 abilities have become more sophisticated, and as the application has generally made it easier to produce presentations (even to the point of having an "AutoContent Wizard" suggesting a structure for a presentation), the difference in needs and desires of presenters and audiences has become more noticeable.

Versions

Versions for Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows

Microsoft Windows is a series of software operating systems and graphical user interfaces produced by Microsoft. Microsoft first introduced an operating environment named Windows in November 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces ....
 include:

  • 1990 PowerPoint 2.0 for Windows 3.0
  • 1992 PowerPoint 3.0 for Windows 3.1
  • 1993 PowerPoint 4.0 (Office 4.x)
  • 1995 PowerPoint for Windows 95 (version 7.0) — (Office 95)
  • 1997 PowerPoint 97 — (Office 97)
  • 1999 PowerPoint 2000 (version 9.0) — (Office 2000)
  • 2001 PowerPoint 2002 (version 10) — (Office XP)
  • 2003 PowerPoint 2003 (version 11) — (Office 2003)
  • 2007 PowerPoint 2007 (version 12) — (Office 2007)


Note: There is no PowerPoint version 5.0 or 6.0, because the Windows 95 version was launched with Word 7.0. All Office 95 products have OLE
Object Linking and Embedding

Object Linking and Embedding is a technology that allows embedding and linking to documents and other objects developed by Microsoft. For developers, it brought OLE custom controls , a way to develop and use custom user interface elements....
 2 capacity — moving data automatically from various programs — and PowerPoint 7.0 shows that it was contemporary with Word 7.0.

Versions for the Mac OS
Mac OS

Mac OS is the trademarked name for a series of graphical user interface-based operating systems developed by Apple Inc. for their Macintosh line of computer systems....
 include:

  • 1987 PowerPoint 1.0 for Mac OS classic
  • 1988 PowerPoint 2.0 for Mac OS classic
  • 1992 PowerPoint 3.0 for Mac OS classic
  • 1994 PowerPoint 4.0 for Mac OS classic
  • 1998 PowerPoint 98 (8.0) for Mac OS classic (Office 1998 for Mac)
  • 2000 PowerPoint 2001 (9.0) for Mac OS X
    Mac OS X

    Mac OS X is a line of computer operating systems developed, marketed, and sold by Apple Inc., and since 2002 has been included with all new Macintosh computer systems....
     (Office 2001 for Mac)
  • 2002 PowerPoint v. X (10.0) for Mac OS X
    Mac OS X

    Mac OS X is a line of computer operating systems developed, marketed, and sold by Apple Inc., and since 2002 has been included with all new Macintosh computer systems....
     (Office:Mac v. X)
  • 2004 PowerPoint 2004 (11.0) for Mac OS X
    Mac OS X

    Mac OS X is a line of computer operating systems developed, marketed, and sold by Apple Inc., and since 2002 has been included with all new Macintosh computer systems....
      Office:Mac 2004
    Office 2004 for Mac

    Office 2004 for Mac is a version of Microsoft Office developed for Apple Inc. Mac OS X operating system. Microsoft has stated that Office 2004 would not be updated as a universal binary and therefore it runs on Intel Macs through the Rosetta emulation layer and not natively....
  • 2008 PowerPoint 2008 (12.0) for Mac OS X
    Mac OS X

    Mac OS X is a line of computer operating systems developed, marketed, and sold by Apple Inc., and since 2002 has been included with all new Macintosh computer systems....
     Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac
    Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac

    Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac is the most recent version of the Microsoft Office Office suite for Mac OS X. It supersedes Office 2004 for Mac and is the Mac OS X equivalent of Microsoft Office 2007, the latest version for Microsoft Windows....


Note: There is no PowerPoint 5.0, 6.0 or 7.0 for Mac. There is no version 5.0 or 6.0 because the Windows 95 version was launched with Word 7. All of the Office 95 products have OLE
Object Linking and Embedding

Object Linking and Embedding is a technology that allows embedding and linking to documents and other objects developed by Microsoft. For developers, it brought OLE custom controls , a way to develop and use custom user interface elements....
 2 capacity — moving data automatically from various programs — and PowerPoint 7 shows that it was contemporary with Word 7. There was no version 7.0 made for Mac to coincide with either version 7.0 for Windows or PowerPoint 97.

File formats


The binary format specification has been available from Microsoft on , but since February 2008 the .ppt format specification can be freely downloaded and implemented under the Microsoft Open Specification Promise
Microsoft Open Specification Promise

The Microsoft Open Specification Promise , is an irrevocable promise by Microsoft, published in September 2006, to not assert legal rights over certain Microsoft patents on implementations of an included list of technologies....
 patent licensing.

In Microsoft Office 2007 the binary file formats were replaced as the default format by the new XML based Office Open XML formats, which are published as an open standard
Open standard

An open standard is a standard that is publicly available and has various rights to use associated with it, and various properties of how it was designed....
. Nevertheless, they are not complete as there are binary blobs inside of the XML files, and several pieces of behaviour are not specified but refer to the observed behaviour of specific versions of Microsoft products.

Gallery


See also

  • PowerPoint animation
    PowerPoint animation

    PowerPoint animation is a form of animation which uses Microsoft PowerPoint and similar programs to create a game or movie. These animations are created slide-by-slide or by using PowerPoint's Custom Animation feature....
  • Slideshow
    Slideshow

    Slideshow is a modern concatenation of "Reversal film Show". A slideshow is a display of a series of chosen images, which is done for artistic or instructional purposes....
  • Comparison of office suites
  • Presentation software


External links

  • Tutorials and animations in regards to using PowerPoint.
  • Frequently Asked Questions on PowerPoint.
  • USAB 2008.