Burning Powerpoints to CDs from my Mac for use on XP

Question

Burning Powerpoints to CDs from my Mac for use on XP

I am doing a presentation using my imac G5 powerpoint, but a) cannot burn the slide show onto CD, and b) when I mail the presentation to a friend with XP some of the pictures and formatting won't show up. The university runs XP as well.

iMac G5, Mac OS X (10.4.5)

Posted on Mar 18, 2006 9:10 AM

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Answer 1

mecklists

Level 4

1,795 points

Mar 18, 2006 9:49 AM in response to Johanna Bowie

Hi Johanna!

Unless your iMac doesn't have a CD burner, yes, you can burn your PowerPoint presentation on your Mac and pass it off to a Windows machine to read. If it's not working for you then we need to determine why. What happens when you try?

The pictures and formatting are most likely due to a couple of things. Your pictures are probably linked instead of being saved with the document. Be sure you not only email the PPT file but also the image files as well. Also, be sure to use fonts that both your Mac and Windows recipients will have. PowerPoint doesn't store fonts in the file. Stick with the basics such as Arial, Helvetica, Times, etc.

Finally, be sure that PowerPoint is the tool you need to use with your Windows folks. Many folks use it for page layout because they find Word too restrictive but need something in common with Windows users that can open the file. You may be better off using PowerPoint to create your document and then using Mac OS X's built-in print-to-PDF feature. This will create a file that can be opened in Adobe Reader on Windows and will preserve the exact appearance of your presentation without the worry of losing images or formatting.

Hope this helps! bill

1 GHz Powerbook G4 Mac OS X (10.4.5)

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Answer 2

Mar 18, 2006 10:18 AM in response to mecklists

Hi Bill,

When I try to burn the presentation to Ppt, the burn option button is hazy and won't respond to the cursor's click. (I'm a bit of a novice at this computer stuff, and am not familiar enough with the jargon to clarify any better; bear with me, I'll do the best I can to explain). I have tried burning to CD-Rs and CD-RWs, but was told it shouldn't make a difference. Also, I have burned music CDs and other documents successfully.

I will be using the PowerPoint tool, and, except for some of the diagrams not showing, it seems to work well for my purposes (so far - I have not attempted any animations or video clips yet, but will not need them for this presentation).

How do I save the diagrams with my document, to be sure they are not just linked? Or do I have to mail them separately? And it puzzles me, that some of them were not linked, because I followed the same procedure for all of them.

Thank you for the print-to-PDF advice. I will certainly try that if the other doesn't work. How do I convert the PDF files back to PPT for my presentation? Or will it matter?

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Answer 3

iFelix

Level 8

35,167 points

Mar 18, 2006 2:34 PM in response to Johanna Bowie

One option is to export the PowerPoint application as a Quicktime Movie which can then be played on a PC without worrying about fonts or pictures.

iFelix

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