[CRITICAL UPDATE - Anyone using Office 2003 should install the critical
update as soon as possible. From PowerPoint, choose "Help -> Check for
Updates".]
Hello,
PowerPoint does not have the built-in ability to save presentations as
video files or other video formats such as DVD-Video and, even if it did,
there would be significant loss of interactivity (because DVD-Video and
PowerPoint slide show have very different capabilities in this area) and
loss of visual fidelity (DVD-Video resolution is less than typical computer
display resolution and most television will not render colors the same way
that a computer display will).
However, if your family and friends all have computers running Windows 98
Second Edition or later and you are using PowerPoint 2003, you can use the
capability built into the product (Package for CD command). This solution
bundles the presentation and, by default, all of it's supporting (linked)
files as well as the new PowerPoint Viewer 2003 to a CD so that when the CD
is loaded on to a supported system the presentation will be opened up
automatically in the viewer. The same feature includes an option to Save to
Folder instead of CD so that you can create a portable, distributable
folder which can be moved to another system, server, etc.
If you are not using PowerPoint 2003 there are a variety of 3rd party
workarounds that I will leave to others to suggest.
So, If you (or anyone else reading this message) think that PowerPoint
should include the ability save presentations to DVD-Video (even with
unavoidable loss of some interactivity capabilities), or provide additional
options for distributing presentations in full fidelity (which might
eliminate the need to save presentations as DVD-Video), don't forget to
send your feedback (in YOUR OWN WORDS, please) to Microsoft at:
http://register.microsoft.com/mswish/suggestion.asp
As with all product suggestions, it's important that you not just state
your wish but also WHY it is important to you that your product suggestion
be implemented by Microsoft. Microsoft receives thousands of product
suggestions every day and we read each one but, in any given product
development cycle, there are only sufficient resources to address the ones
that are most important to our customers so take the extra time to state
your case as clearly and completely as possible.
IMPORTANT: Each submission should be a single suggestion (not a list of
suggestions).
John Langhans
Microsoft Corporation
Supportability Program Manager
Microsoft Office PowerPoint for Windows
Microsoft Office Picture Manager for Windows
For FAQ's, highlights and top issues, visit the Microsoft PowerPoint
support center at:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?pr=ppt
Search the Microsoft Knowledge Base at:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?pr=kbhowto
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