Office 2010 PowerPoint - ODF or XML - Which is best?

Dinarius

I'm about to use PowerPoint in Office 2010 for the first time for a class presentation.

It has prompted me to choose between Open Office XML and Open Document Formats as my default choice.

The presentation will comprise Jpeg slides and text.

Which one should I choose?

Many thanks.

D.

yoyo

Use the Microsoft Office Open XML, for the simple reason it supports all the Office features.

Nick

Dinarius

Nick,

Many thanks!

D.

Dinarius

I've just created a PowerPoint document of mostly images with titles.

I've just tried opening it on another laptop in OpenOffice using the format All Files.

Some of slides open fine, but some do not.

Some of the slides are 'Title and Content' layout, some are 'Picture with Caption'.

Any idea why some might not be opening OK in OpenOffice?

Thanks.

D.

mickgotsick

Is PDF an option? At least you'll know exactly how it will look on any computer.

Dinarius

mickgotsick wrote: »

Is PDF an option? At least you'll know exactly how it will look on any computer.

Think I've sorted it, thanks.

Seems that the captions in some slides weren't fully within their invisible boxes and thus corrupting the slide.

Thanks for the reply.

D.

Dinarius

What happening precisely is that I'm saving slides in PowerPoint at size 14 and they're opening in OpenOffice at size 30.

I can resize them in OpenOffice and resave on that computer, but it's a bit annoying.

D.

coylemj

OP, you never said in your original post that you wanted the option of opening the files in OpenOffice. If you had said so then I'm sure Yoyo would have given you a different answer i.e. you should have selected ODF as the format in order to make the files portable.

Saving to PDF can mess up fonts, it's not recommended unless you haven't a clue what s/w is installed on the PC that will run the pressie.

Dinarius

You're right, I didn't.

But, I want to keep the file as is on the Office machine.

I'll make the necessary adjustments on the OpenOffice laptop. Not too many slides anyway.

Thanks.

D.

mickgotsick

coylemj wrote: »

OP, you never said in your original post that you wanted the option of opening the files in OpenOffice. If you had said so then I'm sure Yoyo would have given you a different answer i.e. you should have selected ODF as the format in order to make the files portable.

Saving to PDF can mess up fonts, it's not recommended unless you haven't a clue what s/w is installed on the PC that will run the pressie.

The whole point of PDF (portable document format) is that it looks the same no matter what operating system or software is used to display it. If the presentation looks good when you render it, it will look good on the platform you present it.

coylemj

mickgotsick wrote: »

The whole point of PDF (portable document format) is that it looks the same no matter what operating system or software is used to display it. If the presentation looks good when you render it, it will look good on the platform you present it.

That's the theory but it isn't always the case. I have often downloaded a PDF file from a website and when I go to open it using Adobe Acrobat, I get a warning that font XXX is not installed on my machine which means it will not look exactly the same on my laptop as it did to the person who created it.

If you stick to standard fonts like Arial and Times New Roman there's no problem but when people lose the run of themselves and start using fancy fonts, the PDF file will potentially not look the same on other PCs.

You'll also lose special effects like animation and staggered bulleted lists if you save to PDF.

the evil lime

Also, consider that you could store the document in SkyDrive if you've got a Microsoft account (if you don't they're free) and then you can present out of the Power Point web application. Or you can get the Power Point viewer which is free and will view the presentation (though you won't be able to edit it like you could in the full desktop application, or the web application) - details here: http://office.microsoft.com/en-ie/powerpoint-help/view-a-presentation-without-powerpoint-2010-HA102000544.aspx

byte

You could keep the existing file as is, but save another version as ODF/PDF/whatever using the Save As function?

Dinarius

byte wrote: »

You could keep the existing file as is, but save another version as ODF/PDF/whatever using the Save As function?

That's precisely what I'm doing. I'm saving as a PDF.

How come I can create a PDF in PP? Or how come I can create a PDF without having an Adobe product? I thought that Adobe Reader was the only free bit of the equation?

Thanks again for the feedback.

D.

yoyo

Dinarius wrote: »

That's precisely what I'm doing. I'm saving as a PDF.

How come I can create a PDF in PP? Or how come I can create a PDF without having an Adobe product? I thought that Adobe Reader was the only free bit of the equation?

Thanks again for the feedback.

D.

The pdf format is actually open now, it is just Adobe make the most widely known PDF creation and viewing tools (and invented the format). You can use something like CutePDF to print pdf files from power point. (During install uncheck the toolbar installation!)

Nick

Dinarius

yoyo wrote: »

The pdf format is actually open now, it is just Adobe make the most widely known PDF creation and viewing tools (and invented the format). You can use something like CutePDF to print pdf files from power point. (During install uncheck the toolbar installation!)

Nick

Ahah! Thanks Nick.

D.