Is there a way to save or convert a Powerpoint presentation so it can be viewed on a computer that doesn’t have Powerpoint?
I have PP2007 in Microsoft Office (PC), and I want to send to a friend who has a Mac and may or may not have PP. (I don’t want to ask him ahead of time, because it’s a surprise.)
PP2007 has many options under “Save as…” – not sure which one to choose. Or do I need somehow to convert it to a Quicktime movie?
Go to ‘Publish’ and the ‘Package for CD’…it will be viewable on a machine w/o PP.
Thanks ever so! 
You can probably also convert it to a PDF, which may be better. The “package for CD” might create something that a Mac wouldn’t know what to do with.
I was just going to suggest saving as a .pdf as well.
I want my viewer to see the animations, i.e., to have the slideshow play automatically. Will that happen if I save it as a PDF?
There will be no animations in a pdf.
Such a shame…
No, no animations in a .pdf
(tbh, there should never be animations in a PP, unless it’s for kids or something)
Can Windows Powerpoint export a Video (Movie) file? The Mac version can, and that should be playable on his machine.
There used to be a free viewer for Macs for PPT 98, but it seems to be no longer available, though I found some possible download sites. If you save the presentation as a PPT’98 file and used that viewer it might work. The viewers for more recent versions are Windows only.
Agreed. Animations and layers were the bane of my existence when I was producing web-streamed presentations.
By “animations,” I mean I want the slideshow to play, that is, automatically move from one slide to the next without intervention from the viewer. (I didn’t mean “animated” figures like in a cartoon.) I thought saving it as a PDF would create a document with a series of images, not a moving slideshow.
Sicks Ate, looks as if you’ve got it.
I’m looking at PP 2003, and the “Package For CD” command seems to be the one that’ll do what you want. I’ve never used the feature before, and I don’t know about PP 2010.
From the PP 2003 Help:
Make sure the included viewer works under OS X before you waste a lot of time…
If none of this works you can try using Google Docs. I didn’t suggest it before because of the animations, but if it’s just automatic slide transition then maybe it will work. I’ve barely used it for presentations so I’m not sure what features it supports.
Sorry for the confusion. Strike the word “animations” and substitute “automatic slide transitions.”