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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.<ref name=Gaskins>{{cite web | url = http://www.robertgaskins.com/ | title = Home page | first = Robert | last = Gaskins}}</ref>
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.<ref name=Gaskins>{{cite web | url = http://www.robertgaskins.com/ | title = Home page | first = Robert | last = Gaskins}}</ref>
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==Operation==
==Operation==

Revision as of 21:52, 3 April 2009

Microsoft PowerPoint
Developer(s)Microsoft
Stable release
12.0.6211.1000 (2007 SP1) / December 11, 2007
Operating systemMicrosoft Windows
TypePresentation
LicenseProprietary
WebsiteMicrosoft Office PowerPoint
Microsoft PowerPoint (Mac OS X)
Developer(s)Microsoft
Stable release
12.1.1 Build 080522 (2008) / January 15, 2008
Operating systemMac OS X
TypePresentation
LicenseProprietary
WebsiteMicrosoft 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 the Mac OS X computer operating systems. The Windows version can run on the Linux operating system, under the Wine compatibility layer.

PowerPoint is widely used by business people, educators, students, and trainers and is 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.

History

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.[1]

Operation

PowerPoint presentations consist of a number of individual 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 or displayed live on a computer and 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:

  1. Entrance, emphasis, and exit of elements on a slide itself are controlled by what PowerPoint calls Custom Animations
  2. Transitions, on the other hand are movements between slides. These can be animated in a variety of ways
  3. Custom animation can be used to create small story boards by animating pictures to enter, exit or move

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.

Cultural effects

Supporters and critics generally agree[2][3][4] 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" suggesting a structure for a presentation), the difference in needs and desires of presenters and audiences has become more noticeable.

Versions

Versions for Microsoft Windows include:

  • 1990 PowerPoint 2.0 for Windows 3.0
  • 1992 PowerPoint 3.0 for Windows 3.1
  • 1993 PowerPoint 4.0 (Office 4.x)
  • 1995 PowerPoint for Windows 95 (version 7.0) — (Office 95)
  • 1997 PowerPoint 97 — (Office 97)
  • 1999 PowerPoint 2000 (version 9.0) — (Office 2000)
  • 2001 PowerPoint 2002 (version 10) — (Office XP)
  • 2003 PowerPoint 2003 (version 11) — (Office 2003)
  • 2007 PowerPoint 2007 (version 12) — (Office 2007)

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:

  • 1987 PowerPoint 1.0 for Mac OS classic
  • 1988 PowerPoint 2.0 for Mac OS classic
  • 1992 PowerPoint 3.0 for Mac OS classic
  • 1994 PowerPoint 4.0 for Mac OS classic
  • 1998 PowerPoint 98 (8.0) for Mac OS classic (Office 1998 for Mac)
  • 2000 PowerPoint 2001 (9.0) for Mac OS classic (Office 2001 for Mac)
  • 2002 PowerPoint v. X (10.0) for Mac OS X (Office:Mac v. X)
  • 2004 PowerPoint 2004 (11.0) for Mac OS X Office:Mac 2004
  • 2008 PowerPoint 2008 (12.0) for Mac OS X Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac

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].

File formats

PowerPoint Presentation
Filename extension
.ppt
Internet media type
application/vnd.ms-powerpoint
Uniform Type Identifier (UTI)com.microsoft.powerpoint.​ppt[7]
Developed byMicrosoft
Type of formatPresentation

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.

See also

References

  1. ^ Gaskins, Robert. "Home page".
  2. ^ "PowerPoint Presentations: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly". Shkaminski.
  3. ^ Allan, Jones (2003-08-18). "The use and abuse of PowerPoint in Teaching and Learning in the Life Sciences: A Personal Overview". Bioscience Education. Retrieved 2009-02-10.
  4. ^ "The Use of PowerPoint in Teaching Comparative Politics". Technology Source.
  5. ^ "PowerPoint Tips". Bit Better.
  6. ^ "Do More on Your Mac". Microsoft.
  7. ^ System-Declared Uniform Type Identifiers
  8. ^ "Microsoft Office Powerpoint 97 - 2007 Binary File Format Specification (*.ppt)". Microsoft Corporation. 2007.