Talk:Microsoft PowerPoint

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This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Microsoft PowerPoint article.
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Contents

[edit] Criticisms Again

The criticism section should be removed, as they are discouraged under wikipedia guidelines. Most of the criticisms themselves are not necessarily criticisms directed at Powerpoint, but presentation software in general. Consider moving to Presentation software.

  • It is used to guide and reassure a presenter, rather than to enlighten the audience;

This is a prime example - This is not specific to powerpoint

  • Unhelpfully simplistic tables and charts, resulting from the low resolution of computer displays;

Openoffice Impress and Keynote will also suffer here

  • The outliner causing ideas to be arranged in an unnecessarily deep hierarchy, itself subverted by the need to restate the hierarchy on each slide;

Not just powerpoint

  • Enforcement of the audience's linear progression through that hierarchy (whereas with handouts, readers could browse and relate items at their leisure);

Not just powerpoint

  • Poor typography and chart layout, from presenters who are poor designers and who use poorly designed templates and default settings;

This isn't powerpoints fault. Should all presentation software be banned because some people can't design?

  • Simplistic thinking, from ideas being squashed into bulleted lists, and stories with beginning, middle, and end being turned into a collection of disparate, loosely disguised points. This may present a kind of image of objectivity and neutrality that people associate with science, technology, and "bullet points".

Keynote also uses bullet points as default.

  • Every slideshow made usually ends up looking like everybody elses due to the provided templates for slideshows.

I disagree. Most companies make their own templates, which PowerPoint makes pretty easy.

Matt-thepie (talk) 19:12, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

I agree with that. There have always been bad presentations, and overhead transparencies typed with typewriters and copied on black&white copiers were even worse. As presentation consultant Jerry Weissman points out: If you have an illegible handwriting, would you blame it on Mont Blanc company? --Ute-s (talk) 11:16, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Criticisms Section

The criticisms section is non-neutral POV. Someone fix.

[edit] Misc

131.109.43.30 18:21, 3 January 2007 (UTC) The adjective powerpointy does not apply only to PowerPoint presentations. It applies to anything where gloss > substance. You are hiding it in here. It is no more part of PowerPoint itself than fontitis is part of Microsoft Word.

Also, the history of the concept of a PPFZ is interesting in itself, and shows corporate culture differences.

Finally, the issue of whether advertising, gloss, persuasion technolgoies, are a problem in themselvse is not going away, and requires more articles not less.

Restore the original article, please. If you feel it's unbalanced, balance it.

But it is not part of a descripton of PowerPoint as such. All there should be here is a link.


Since powerpointy is only tangentially related to PowerPoint, I agree that an article about it should not be merged with an article about PowerPoint, not even with an article about presentation software. branko

The link to David Beatty leads to a person who died 1936, he can't be identical with the mentioned professor. Who knows more? Ute-s 19:01, 28 Oct 2003 (UTC)

NPOV issues here. The article is decidedly anti-slideshow and in particuar anti-powerpoint. Jeff Anonymous 23:23, 19 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Ok, fixed I think. The criticisms aren't any shorter, but they're all attributed now. And I removed the quote from "Cathy Adams" because Google hardly knows her, and there's no apparent reason to include her opinion and not the opinion of the other sixty squillion college-level computing teachers.
However, I still very much doubt that "Jim Gray" is Jim Gray. -- Mpt 14:11, 15 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Nice re-write. Much better.

The very worst thing about Powerpoint is that it is such a dreadful distraction. It's really difficult to concentrate properly on what the speaker is actually trying to say when you are constantly being distracted by stupid (or even sensible) images. I think it reduces your "effective IQ" during a lecture by ... oh .. about one-third. Assuming that I'm not the only person to have ever noticed this, has anyone ever done a study to investigate it? Put numbers on it? If not, there is a phD for a psych major there for the taking. ;) Tannin 14:21, 15 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Will a History major do? I just, uh, "rested my eyes" through a History lecture because I knew the PowerPoint slides were going up on the Web shortly thereafter. The rest of the class were complaining that the slides were going by too fast for them to copy.
Meanwhile, "Jim Gray" appears to be James Gray, a communications coach in Toronto. Wikipedia's quote can't be backed up on the Web, but it may be from the 2003-06-11 Toronto Globe (the quote was added two months later). EntmootsOfTrolls, is that where you got it from? If so, what makes James Gray important enough to be in this Wikipedia article while the world's other sixty bazillion communications coaches with opinions on PowerPoint are not? -- Mpt 00:26, 17 Mar 2004 (UTC)
Ok, that quote's been removed, but even with that and my rewrite, the article's still very dodgy. The History section has been copied almost verbatim from an excellent New Yorker article, and then it jumps straight from PowerPoint 1.0 to talk in depth about PowerPoint XP, and then it makes no mention of PowerPoint 2003. And "David Beatty" still isn't David Beatty. -- Mpt 11:45, 21 Mar 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Change the Mac logo

The Powerpoint for Max logo is from an old version of Microsoft Office for Mac. Could someone replace it with the one from the current version.

The PowerPoint for Mac logo is updated, I took this from the 2004 version. I plan to update this again once Office.Mac 2008 is released. Achiu31 (talk) 02:51, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

This has been updated to the 2008 icon. Ordeith (talk) 04:33, 18 January 2008 (UTC).

[edit] Whats new in PowerPoint 2003 ?

Anyone know how is PP 2003 different from the previous versions ? I could not find any info on the Microsoft website. Jay 16:01, 19 Jan 2005 (UTC)


One big (good) difference is that in PPT 2003, you can have entrance and exit animations, in previous versions, exit effects were not possible. Also, many functions such as custom animation, slide transition, clip art, clipboard, slide layout and so forth appear in a task pane instead of a dialogue box, which was the case in previous versions. (I don't really like this.) Also, the overall "look" has changed, of course, you would expect minor visual changes between versions, just like windows 2000 doesn't look the same as windows XP. --Kormerant 03:38, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Projectitis

Does anyone know of any 'cultural impact' stuff on Microsoft Project, in the spirit of Edward Tufte? I'm trying to expand Problems with project management software.

Mkoval 17:24, 27 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I don't, but if I were cleaning up that article I would rewrite the bullet points as real paragraphs, and I would remove the recommendations section. Rhobite 01:27, Mar 28, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] VFD?

Is this just vandalism? If not, then why? Aidan 11:19, Apr 25, 2005 (UTC)

According to the last edit, it seems it was just vandalism. Aidan 11:20, Apr 25, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Include S5 link?

If we're including links to other presentation programs, the HTML+CSS+JavaScript library known as S5 by Eric Meyer (and colleagues) should probably be in there:

http://www.meyerweb.com/eric/tools/s5/

[edit] Removed Office Links

I removed the links to Outlook, Access and Word because they add no information. --Jasy jatere 14:49, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] PPT format

There's no mention of the PPT format. (Is it open/closed, and maybe where is reference documentation available.) -- Felix Wiemann 18:57, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Why have 'Microsoft' in the title?

Since the program didn't originate with Microsoft, and in common parlance there's no other thing called 'PowerPoint', why have the (IMHO, superfluous) Microsoft moniker in the article title? --moof 06:40, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

This article is about Microsoft's product, PowerPoint. 165.21.154.109 18:20, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Usage Of Powerpoint For Art Purposes

I have been using Microsoft Powerpoint in almost all my designs/vector artworks and I think it's essential to mention that this program is a very good tool for Vector Graphics and other Object-Based graphics.

I would like to show you a couple of Vector artworks (not too fancy) I made over the Powerpoint. And until this day, I keep discovering the amazing potentials within this software. I might disagree with the Criticism of it lacking the ability to make the presentations far more 'interesting' than normal basic ones.

Search in, and you'll find your way through to a good reliable program for either Presentations or Vector/Objects graphics.

Here are works completely done using Microsoft Powerpoint:

Or these other ones, done by me - Using MS Powerpoint (published on Deviantart)


I hope these are enough to show that Powerpoint is capable of handling vectors. (Though it is a vector-based program, but never used for art/graphical purposes). Omernos

[edit] software concept

Name:Ceferino E. Cases Jr. Major Proj.#:1 Yr & Sec: I-Rose Date:03/04/06 Lesson:#2 Teacher:Mrs.Galura

                      Software Concept

Summary:Soft refers to all instructional programs and data that are both execut - able and readable by the computer that stores or uses them. Software have many uses some categories are publishing,design,research,embedded software and busi-ness application. Some software help run the computer system by controlling hard ware components,while others help users perform different tasks. There are software which teach and inform,help to build,create,and solve complex problems.

Software can be free,shared,or used for general usage and special requirements.Bold text'

[edit] Broken link

The link at at the end of the Cliff Atkinson sentence is broken. Olin 22:46, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Does 2003 trash earlier animations?

Subject line says it all really - is there some compatability issue so that 2003 trashes animations done in XP (2002)? Or vice versa perhaps (one of those gotchas like you work on it in 2003 and take it back to 2002 and it's broken?) If anyone knows about this it would be a useful part of the article. Thanks. 138.37.199.206 17:01, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

There are no differences in animation between versions 2002/xp and 2003 and no compatibility issues. Animations changed from version 2000 to 2002, old presentations can be shown in newer versions of PowerPoint. Issues arose because with PowerPoint 2002 the old PowerPoint Viewer 97 was delivered, which could not display the new animations. But as a new version of the Viewer is available for free since 2003, this is not worth mentioning in the article. --Ute-s 19:41, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Positive cultural effects?

This section badly needed to be removed. Powerpoint can be used for good or bad. NPOV doesn't require artificially creating two sides to every argument. This section shows nothing that could not be done in any good office presentation or slideshow software, or more easily done with better software. This is similar to artists producing elaborate artwork using only mspaint, an amusing challenge but by no meansa positive cultural effect. The article ends with a quote that entirely punctures any notion of powerpoint having postive cultural effects

"Quite frankly, I have to side with Tufte on this one," Guterman said. "Byrne thinks it's funny that this tool exists, and he wants to play with it. Tufte is going for the jugular. But they both in different ways understand that PowerPoint is a broken tool." http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/ptech/12/30/byrne.powerpoint.ap/

[edit] microsoft powerpoint

give me definitions about microsoft powerpoint

[edit] Career Uses?

What kind of careers use, and are based on powerpoint?--131.109.43.30 18:21, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

  • Doctors, astronaughts, business, lecturers etc. They are mostly for presentations purposes.Cocoma 05:43, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] clean up

I know you MS haters need a criticism section in all MS articles, but this one is horrible. I am removing it until I or someone else comes up with something that makes even a slight amount of sense. I read this section twice and I still don't understand what the author was trying to get across other than some people saying they don't like ppt. Those aren't critisisms, those are opinions. And is this section trying to blame the columbia shuttle disaster on ppt??? rediculous... --Nytemunkey 17:48, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

  • I reinstated the columbia part, the discussion is about the concept of slide shows and hasn't got anything to do with hate of microsoft but about how presentations are given and what effect powerpoint as the most popular presentation software has had.. if you read the sources correctly you would see that nasa itself invited the expert to look at its communication procedures..

Romanista 15:51, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Mac Version

There is barely any version of the mac versions of PowerPoint past the history even though there have been mac versions even after Microsoft bought the program. I added in history for the mac versions, although it may need some clean up. Also, can anyone who knows more about the mac version put information about them into the article or even gather its icons? The windows version has this but the mac version lacks it.--BaRiMzI 20:17, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] New material about PowerPoint history

Some new material on the history of Microsoft PowerPoint which might be useful

The Wall Street Journal, June 20, 2007; Page B1
Portals column by Lee Gomes
"PowerPoint Turns 20, As Its Creators Ponder A Dark Side to Success"
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB118228116940840904.html [1]
(this link to the column is at least temporarily free and open to non-subscribers)

Gomes includes links to sites listing some early PowerPoint development papers etc

Robert Gaskins personal home page
http://www.RobertGaskins.com/ [2]

GBU Wizards of Menlo Park website
("Archives of ... the people who created PowerPoint at Forethought Inc. and at the Microsoft Graphics Business Unit ... 1984-1994.")
http://www.gbuwizards.com/ [3]

Salamandrine 23:51, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] "Prewar Planning" criticism has no place here

The criticism to US's use of PowerPoint is largely irrelevant to the software itself. Even if they used beautifully made Word documents projected on a wall, the effect would be the same. The paragraph deserves no more than a sentence referring to the idea that presentation programs often get abused. --169.200.78.18 22:13, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. Tufte's critism is enough imo. 219.74.23.131 12:54, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

i said that the power point are very absolute —Preceding unsigned comment added by 189.136.66.47 (talk) 18:12, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Fair use rationale for Image:PPT1.jpg

Image:PPT1.jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Wikipedia:Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to insure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.

If there is other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page. Note that any fair use images uploaded after 4 May, 2006, and lacking such an explanation will be deleted one week after they have been uploaded, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.

BetacommandBot (talk) 20:00, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] New CACM article with material on PowerPoint history, Dec 2007

"PowerPoint at 20: Back to Basics" by Robert Gaskins

Communications of the ACM, Volume 50, Issue 12 (December 2007), Pages 15-17, ISSN:0001-0782.

PowerPoint at 20 (full text PDF 63 KB)

PowerPoint at 20 (full text HTML 15 KB)

PowerPoint at 20 (CACM citation only)

Salamandrine (talk) 17:03, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Fair use rationale for Image:PowerPoint Icons 2.png

Image:PowerPoint Icons 2.png is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Wikipedia:Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to insure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.

If there is other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page. Note that any fair use images lacking such an explanation can be deleted one week after being tagged, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.

BetacommandBot (talk) 07:29, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] PPT Format

The formats PowerPoint saves in should be mentioned. The only comments are about the PowerPoint Show formats (such as pps.). Formats such as pps, ppsm, ppt, pot, and so on should have a section? Should I add it or not? Comments? Emprovision (talk) 19:41, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

I agree. Add them. Dvferret (talk) 01:39, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

I did so (some user had already put in the XML-based formats when I came back, but I added the Macro-Enabled formats).--Emprovision (talk) 15:52, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Screenshot

Hi guys, how do you capture the image that the Aero Glass Border/Form is also transperent. thx,86.32.62.49 (talk) 13:29, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Look for a program called Windowclippings. -/- Warren 02:47, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Criticism Section Pointless

The criticism section has criticisms about users and programs in general and nothing specific about PowerPoint. It needs to be removed. Dvferret (talk) 01:43, 24 April 2008 (UTC)