New Windows in Powerpoint

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How do I open a new window in Powerpoint and view the 2 windows on different
monitors (using a dual monitor set up). When I open a new window, I am
unable to move only the second window to the second monitor - the first comes
with it. I do not have this problem in Word, Excel, or Outlook. It's as if
with the other apps, a new program window is opened, but with Powerpoint, the
2 windows are within the same program window.
 
PowerPoint is a single instance program, it does not allow multiple windows
open at the same time.

However, you can do what you are asking within a single window, using 2
panes.
1) Do not maximize the PowerPoint window
2) Manually grab the edges of the window and stretch it across both screens
3) Open both of the presentations you want to work on
4) Use the Window => Arrange all function in PowerPoint


--
Bill Dilworth
A proud member of the Microsoft PPT MVP Team
Users helping fellow users.
http://billdilworth.mvps.org
-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_
vestprog2@ Please read the PowerPoint FAQ pages.
yahoo. They answer most of our questions.
com www.pptfaq.com
..
 
They should have made it like the others. The setup they used makes
PowerPoint hard to use in certain situations, like when you have to edit and
display two different presentations at the same time.

For example, when you are changing the corporate branding of a PowerPoint,
and the original creator of the PowerPoint manually colored the text on
certain pages instead of using a theme, and the new template has a light
background and the old has a dark background. In this situation, you have to
go slide by slide to identify text that was white in the old version and turn
it black in the new version. Also, many of the images somehow got out of
place when the new theme was applied so that now has to be fixed... slide by
slide. Thats a lot of alt-tabbing. And tiling the windows is not a perfect
answer either because each presentation is shown small and hard to edit at
that size, forcing you to maximize it to full screen anyway.

I hope future versions allow us to take advantage of our multiple monitor
setups. The fact that PowerPoint can't do it adds a ton of mouse clicks and
keystrokes to an already tedious task.
 
Scott M. Stolz said:
They should have made it like the others. The setup they used makes
PowerPoint hard to use in certain situations, like when you have to edit
and
display two different presentations at the same time.
Click to expand...

Yes and no. PPT is very demanding on the hardware so they elected to make
it single instance only.
 
Being a single instance application does not determine how the windowing
works. For example, GIMP (gimp.org) can have dozens of separate windows open
at the same time, all independently movable to separate monitors, yet only
one instance of GIMP is running.

You can't use the excuse that its a single instance application because that
refers to how many processes are being run, not how many windows or documents
are open.

In fact, WinWord.exe is running right now as a single instance, yet has two
different documents open on two different monitors.

Scott M. Stolz
http://blog.morepossibilities.info/
 
You can't use the excuse that its a single instance application because
that
refers to how many processes are being run, not how many windows or
documents
are open.
Click to expand...

Not my excuse, you seem to have me confused with Micrsoft. <g>

But what you don't realise is that while it might be possible to do as you
suggest in editing mode things take on an entirely higher level of
complexity when you run one of the presentations. I suppose MS could do it
if they forced you to close any other open presentations when you run one.

In fact, WinWord.exe is running right now as a single instance, yet has
two
different documents open on two different monitors.
Click to expand...

And text is magnitudes easier to deal with than the objects people put in
PPT. <g>

The good news is, PCs are becoming more capable and MS may change this in
future versions.

Austin Myers
MS PowerPoint MVP Team

Provider of PFCMedia, PFCPro, PFCExpress
http://www.pfcmedia.com
 
What's interesting though is that apparently there is a way to display the
presentation on one monitor while showing the notes on another. So they do
have some limited dual monitor support in PowerPoint... just not when you are
editing it. :)
 
Here's something interesting. If you have PowerPoint open in any monitor
other than your primary monitor, and you click to Play the Slideshow, the
slidewhow will show up on the primary monitor and the PowerPoint editor will
remain open on the second monitor. As you go through the presentation, each
slide moves on BOTH screens and you can even edit the slideshow while you are
watching it! Pretty cool.

So, as far as using up resources, it already supports dual monitors and uses
up lots of resources. I don't think it was done because of resource
problems, I think it was done because they didn't expect people like me to
edit two PowerPoints simultaneously and have to switch back and forth as much
as I have to in this case.

PowerPoint is already generating child windows for each presentation in the
editor, which can be tiled to be shown simultaneously. It doesn't take much
extra processing power to put the same content into full independently
movable windows that can be dragged onto another monitor.

I think its just a feature goof.

Scott M. Stolz
http://blog.morepossibilities.info/
 
Feel free to suggest it to MS. If enough people request a feature change
than they have an easier time justifying the programming resources to make
it happen.

Just out of curiosity, what do you want the two windows to do that the two
panes does not? Is it just ease of set-up?


--
Bill Dilworth
A proud member of the Microsoft PPT MVP Team
Users helping fellow users.
http://billdilworth.mvps.org
-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_
vestprog2@ Please read the PowerPoint FAQ pages.
yahoo. They answer most of our questions.
com www.pptfaq.com
..
 
Unless you have huge monitors, the two panes are small. And if you are
aligning and editing finer details, you have to zoom or maximize anyway,
which defeats the purpose of having two panes.

I spent most of the day converting a presentation with large seismic plots
and images from the old company branding to the new. Unless you have it
displayed large, it can be hard to see the finer details of the more
complicated slides. Arrows and stars identify oil and gas in the ground on
the plots, and proper placement is a must. And for some reason, when
converting from one theme to the other, many of those slides got messed up
and had to be fixed. So I had to go slide by slide and compare them and make
sure the new version matched the old one exactly (except for the theme, of
course).

Problems included: cropped images suddenly becoming uncropped; images
scaled to a certain size suddenly were original size; some objects such as
stars somehow got distorted and elongated. Only about 5% of the slides were
messed up simply by changing the theme.

So having both open at the same time at 100% on different monitors is mostly
for legibility. You can have both presentations at 100% size instead of less
than 50% with the panes. On my square monitor, the slide winds up being
about 25% of the full size when in the panes.

Of course, it would been nice if changing the theme didn't mess up the
images and objects in some situations. Then there would be less need to
check each one so closely.

Scott M. Stolz
http://blog.morepossibilities.info/
 
Scott M. Stolz said:
Unless you have huge monitors, the two panes are small.
Click to expand...

I'm still hazy on the concept here ... the two independent windows (were PPT to
allow it) would be pretty much the same size as two windows within one PPT
instance, wouldn't they?
So having both open at the same time at 100% on different monitors is mostly
for legibility. You can have both presentations at 100% size instead of less
than 50% with the panes.
Click to expand...

But by stretching the PPT window across both monitors and arranging the two open
PPTs within that area, the slides are about as close to 100% as they'd be in
individual windows.

The only real drawback I can see is that you don't have a set of menus/toolbars
for each instance.

In any case, I'm not arguing against a multi-instance PPT; I'd like to see such
a thing, actually. But unless you can make a solid case for it, the benefits
it'd bring, the pain it causes by not being available, it's unlikely that MS
will see it as a feature worth expending resources on.
 
The two windows in one instance is a decent workaround, but my two monitors
are different sizes, and PowerPoint divides the windows 50/50. Which means
the window on the smaller monitor ends up sharing space on the larger monitor
and I have to manually adjust the windows to fit properly. Not a big deal,
but seems like an unnecessary pain.

As far as being a resource hog, that's fine because I choose it, and can
decide whether that's an issue at that particular time. Let Microsoft give
me an alert saying it will require addition resources and let me select the
option not to see the alert again!
 
The two windows in one instance is a decent workaround, but my two monitors
are different sizes, and PowerPoint divides the windows 50/50.
Click to expand...

Click! The light went on. Thanks!
 
Click! The light went on. Thanks!
Click to expand...

Ditto. I didn't get it until he mentioned different resolution displays.

Very good point jd, thank you.


--
Bill Dilworth
A proud member of the Microsoft PPT MVP Team
Users helping fellow users.
http://billdilworth.mvps.org
-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_
vestprog2@ Please read the PowerPoint FAQ pages.
yahoo. They answer most of our questions.
com www.pptfaq.com
..
 
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