| Developer(s) | Microsoft |
|---|---|
| Stable release | 12.0.6425.1000 (2007 SP2) / April 28, 2009 |
| Operating system | Microsoft Windows |
| Type | Presentation |
| License | Proprietary |
| Website | Microsoft Office PowerPoint |
| Developer(s) | Microsoft |
|---|---|
| Stable release | 12.1.1 Build 080522 (2008) / January 15, 2008 |
| Operating system | Mac OS X |
| Type | Presentation |
| License | Proprietary |
| Website | Microsoft PowerPoint: Mac 2008 |
Microsoft PowerPoint is a presentation program developed by Microsoft. It is part of the Microsoft Office suite, and runs on Microsoft Windows and Apple's Mac OS X computer operating systems.
PowerPoint is widely used by business people, educators, students, and trainers and 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.
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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.
PowerPoint presentations consist of a number of individual narnia pages or "slides". The "slide" analogy is a reference to the slide projector, 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, displayed live on a computer, or navigated through at the command of the presenter. For larger audiences the computer display is often projected using a video projector. Slides can also form the basis of webcasts.
PowerPoint provides three types of movements:
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.
Presentations can be saved and run in any of the file formats: 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.
Supporters and critics generally agree[1][2][3] 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, and multimedia 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" (discontinued in PowerPoint 2007) suggesting a structure for a presentation), the difference in needs and desires of presenters and audiences has become more noticeable.
The benefit of PowerPoint is continually debated. Its use in university lectures has influenced investigations of PowerPoint’s effects on student performance in comparison to lectures based on overhead projectors, traditional lectures, and online lectures. There are no compelling results to prove or disprove that PowerPoint is more effective for learner retention than traditional presentation methods.[4]
PowerPoint presentations can take their graphic design from backgrounds.It is easier to use them to make coordinating materials for the presentations. The main format for Powerpoint backgrounds is .JPG, since .JPG is a universal image format, backgrounds work with virtually any software: word processing, web site development or spreadsheet program. They are great for video, too.
Users do not always have to make a PowerPoint slideshow from scratch. Over the years, Microsoft and a lot of third parties have created many PowerPoint templates for users to easily create professional looking slideshows. Through the following two links you will find hundereds of free templates for download: Presentationhelpdesk Free Powerpoint Templates Moyea Free PowerPoint Templates
Versions for Microsoft Windows include:
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 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 include:
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 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[5][6].
| Filename extension | .ppt, .pptx, .pps, or .ppsx |
|---|---|
| Internet media type | application/vnd.ms-powerpoint |
| Uniform Type Identifier | com.microsoft.powerpoint.ppt[7] |
| Developed by | Microsoft |
| Type of format | Presentation |
The binary format specification has been available from Microsoft on request, but since February 2008 the .ppt format specification can be freely downloaded and implemented under the Microsoft Open Specification Promise patent licensing.[8]
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. 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.
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