PowerPoint 2003

Introduction
Text & Slideshow Modes

Introduction

PowerPoint 2003 is here!

Let's explore all the new features.

Text & Slideshow Modes

Each subject is detailed in a visual slideshow mode with screenshots as well as a basic text mode. Click as required:

01. PowerPoint 2003 Viewer - View Slide

PowerPoint 2003 finally ships with an updated Viewer. The last Viewer was released with PowerPoint 97.

The new Viewer supports all new animations and transitions introduced with PowerPoint 2002 - however, it does not support ActiveX.

The PowerPoint 2003 Viewer plays PowerPoint presentations on Windows 2000, XP and 2003 with full fidelity—on Windows 98 SE and ME, the Viewer provides limited fidelity.

The new Viewer can be downloaded for free from the Microsoft site.

02. Package to CD - View Slide

Package to CD creates a copy of your presentation on a folder or CD that is completely self-sufficient—it embeds fonts, relocates linked files and also includes the Viewer. If there's one new killer feature that symbolizes the changes in PowerPoint 2003, this is it!

03. Faster and More Responsive - View Slide

PowerPoint 2003 is so much faster and responsive doing everyday tasks like opening and editing presentations.

It uses Microsoft's problem reporting system to advantage in fixing crashes and stability problems.

04. Tablet PC Support - View Slide

PowerPoint 2003 improves the annotation tools for the Tablet PC. Tablet PC users can now mark slides with 'ink' in Slide Show mode. Tablet PC users can also create their own notes on slides, and these notes can be saved along with the presentation.

05. New Pens - View Slide

In Slide Show mode, PowerPoint 2003 provides new pens: ballpoint, felt tip and highlighter. In addition, you can choose from 40 pen colors other than the eight colors of the presentation color scheme, for a total of 48 color options.

06. Windows Media Player Integration - View Slide

PowerPoint can now use the Windows Media Player to play media files rather than the aging MCI Control. WMP integration provides PowerPoint with niceties like automatic media codec download if a particular codec is not available on the delivery machine.

07. Full Screen Movies - View Slide

The movies you insert into PowerPoint can now be played full-screen. After playing, the movie returns control to the presentation slideshow mode.

08. Media Playlist Support - View Slide

PowerPoint now can playback media from industry standard playlist formats like ASX, WMX, M3U, WVX and WAX.

In PowerPoint (on the slide you want to begin playing the sounds), choose Insert | Movies and Sounds | Sound from File...

Navigate to folder contain the playlist (*.wpl, *.m3u or another format) file (you will probably have to change the "files of type" option to "All files (*.*)"

09. Research Pane - View Slide

The Research pane in PowerPoint allows you to integrate PowerPoint with existing and customized solutions that allow you to access knowledge sources like the Factiva’s Publications Library, Gale’s Company Profiles and Alacritude’s eLibrary.

You can already access Office Online through the research pane. Other third-party solutions include legal and medical knowledge bases. One popular extension of the research pane involves integrating the Google site within Office applications including PowerPoint.

Accessing the Research pane is as easy as Alt + clicking on any relevant word.

10. Thesaurus - View Slide

The Office thesaurus finally makes it to PowerPoint using the new Research task pane. Thesauri are available in several languages.

In addition, you'll also find the Encarta dictionary and encyclopedia available within PowerPoint as well as an online language translation service. All these options require you to be connected online when being used.

11. Integrated Help - View Slide

PowerPoint help is now integrated with online help. If you cannot find something you are looking for or if the help files have been updated, PowerPoint helpfully updates the content. You can also access the Assistance, Training, Communities and Downloads pages from the Help interface.

12. Office Online - View Slide

PowerPoint now integrates with the Office Online website so you can download new templates, get clipart and images for your presentation, get PowerPoint add-on products through the Office Marketplace and read columns and articles on using PowerPoint effectively.

13. Shift F5, Better Bitmap Export - View Slide

PowerPoint has now assigned Shift + F5 to the command that begins a slide show at the current slide, an improvement that many users have asked for since a long time.

Bitmaps in Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2003 are larger and have better resolution when exported.

14. Smart Tags - View Slide

The popular Smart Tag support is now implemented in PowerPoint 2003.

Select AutoCorrect Options on the Tools menu, and then click the Smart Tags tab—here you can choose to label text in your presentation with smart tags. Dates, financial symbols, and person names are included in the list of smart tag recognizers that ship with PowerPoint 2003.

15. Save presentations to SharePoint workspaces - View Slide

You can save your PowerPoint 2003 presentations to SharePoint workspaces where other team members and collaborators are provided access to updated presentations. With shared workspaces you can save task lists, related files, links, and lists of members working on a project. Shared workspaces require Microsoft Windows Server 2003 running Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services.

16. Reviewing and Sharing - View Slide

Using the Shared Attachment feature, you can attach your presentation to an Outlook 2003 e-mail message, thereby creating a Document Workspace. This allows your entire team to collaborate and review the presentation conveniently though a task pane.

Document workspaces require Windows Server 2003 running Windows SharePoint Services.

17. Integrated IRM (Information Rights Management) - View Slide

IRM management in PowerPoint allows you to create permissions for various levels of file access to any PowerPoint presentation you create, open or edit in PowerPoint 2003. Such files can be only opened in PowerPoint 2003 even though the file format is the same as earlier versions of PowerPoint since only PowerPoint 2003 is IRM aware. To use IRM and set permissions, you might be prompted to download Microsoft's IRM client the first time you use this feature through the File | Permissions option. Apart from setting permissions, PowerPoint also allows a file to expire using IRM technology.

18. Producer 2003 - View Slide

There's a new version of Microsoft Producer, the PowerPoint to online rich media converter from Microsoft that's available as a free download from Microsoft's site.

New features include an improved Synchronization Wizard. Producer 2003 also supports Windows Media 9 to achieve superior compression rates. According to Microsoft, you can see improvements of up to 20 percent for audio compression and 50 percent for video.

Producer 2003 also complies with existing e-Learning standards like IMS and SCORM.

A variable speed playback feature ensures that you can speed up or slow down presentations without changing the pitch of the presenter's voice. This feature requires Windows Media 9 on Windows XP Professional.

19. Features Removed - View Slide

The Meeting Minder and Send To Routing Recipient features have been removed from PowerPoint.

The Broadcast feature is removed as well. Microsoft plans to make it available as a separate add-in.

20. End Note - View Slide

Here's a quote from Richard Bretschneider, lead program manager for PowerPoint 2003.

On the more visible side, I'd reiterate that Package for CD will change the way people distribute PowerPoint presentations. Customers constantly related the fear that their presentation was going to look different on the recipient's machine, and that fear is justified because distributing linked documents is always tricky. With Package for CD handling the link fix-up, font embedding, and of course our new and very high fidelity viewer we believe we've given users new confidence in this area. I really think it's a great feature, one every PowerPoint user can appreciate.

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