I mostly use Powerpoint on a Mac. Recently, I’ve become aware that there are several features in the PC version that don’t seem to be in the Mac version. One is Motion Paths, found in the custom animation menu, which allows you to specify a path for your animations. The others I’ve heard mentioned are Image Compression, which does just that and Photo Album, which allows you to import a whole bunch of images into a show all at once. Anyone know if there are plans to incorporate these features into Powerpoint for Mac or if there is some utility I could install that would enable these features?
Wow - a more perfectly suited question for me has never been posted. For, you see, IAAMPPD. (I am a Mac PowerPoint Developer).
Unfortunately there is no way I can discuss the up and coming version and what may or may not be included in it. What I can tell you is that Mac PPT2004 will support the displaying of Motion Paths from WinPPT files. If you open a WinPPT file on the Mac version, your Motion Path will play just fine in Slide Show. The 2004 version also has all of the Path Animations that the windows version does - like Color Typewriter, Swish, Boomerang, etc. Just not custom Motion Paths. As for Image Compression and Photo Album, I cannot say, but what specifically are you hoping to do with those features? I may be able to suggest a workaround. We do allow for some control over DPI and compression settings when exporting in different graphic formats.
Wow Dooku, have I mentioned lately how much I admire and respect your Sithness?
It is good to learn that if I do use Motion Paths on a PC they will play on a Mac. Here’s hoping that you and your clan are working on full implementation in the next MacPPT version. As for the other features I mentioned, I only brought them up as examples of the differences in the two platforms and was wondering if there were others. Mostly I am interested in Motion Paths because I have a client who likes as much animation as possible :rolleyes: and he saw someone else’s show that was more wiz-bang than his.
I have long been resistant to Powerpoint as I was trained doing graphics in Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop. I find it very difficult to get the same results when drawing in Powerpoint. What I usually do is compose the entire drawing in Illustrator using many layers that I can turn on and off. Then I export the whole thing to Photoshop (keeping the layers separate). In Photoshop I then flatten the image one layer at a time and save as tif files (10x7.5 inches @ 100dpi). Then in Powerpoint I insert each image into a slide (one on top of the next) with each image taking up the entire screen. Then I do simple animations to reveal each image. I know this is a very klunky way to do it and it also produces huge files. Do you have any suggestions on better ways I might use to get my Illustrator images into Powerpoint?
I’d say you’re doing fine with your Illustrator images if in fact you want them to animate. If you wanted just to place them you could set them as Picture Backgrounds. (Format | Slide Background | Fill Effects | Picture). You can also insert each one as TIFFs onto a different slide, then export the entire presentation as JPEGS and the internal QT compression might slim them down a little. (A little). I feel you re: drawing in PPT. I try to remind people that PPT is a presentation application, not a graphics application. I would never use PPT’s drawing engine to do anything even slightly complex. Photoshop gets the most use out of me in that regard.
Another thing I forgot to mention is that you can create custom motion paths on the Mac if you use Applescript or VB. The dictionary supports all of them. So you could write a script that basically calls them but it’s pretty clunky. Example:
tell app “microsoft powerpoint”
activate
set thepres to make new presentation
set theslide to make new slide at the beginning of the presentation
set therectangle to make new shape at the beginning of theslide
set thesequence to main sequence of timeline of theslide
add effect thesequence for therectangle fx animation type horizontal figure 8 path
set thesettings to slide show settings of thepres
set theSSW to run slide show thesettings
set the SSV to slide show view of theSSW
go to next slide theSSV
exit slide show theSSV
end tell
Easy peasy, eh? 
Yeah…Easy peasy…if you have the power of the dark side at your disposal.
Thank you for your help. I will pass the information along to my client that motion paths might be in development. I hope that will placate him for the time being.
It is good to know that an expert approves of my technique for getting graphics into Powerpoint.
Wait – he said Office 2004. That’s out NOW. That means you have motion paths NOW.
The version that’s out now supports motion paths created in WinPPT. It does not support creating them natively. IOW, you cannot create a new file in Mac PPT 2004, draw a shape, then assign it a motion path animation. The Object Model, however, does supprt creating them natively. So if you want to create them natively you will need to write a VB script or an Applescript.