Powerpoint - slides not expanding to full screen. Black borders on sides.

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Level 1

1 points

Powerpoint - slides not expanding to full screen. Black borders on sides.

I bought a new Mac Book for doing powerpoint presentations. Just uploaded the software and configured the computer and started working on the final touches to my presentations however there are two black margins / edges on each side of the powerpoint slide show.This is a problem for me as it makes the presentation look bad.
On all other Macs and PC's the full screen of the presentation can be viewed.
Is there something that I can download to fix the template so that the the presentation can be viewed in full screen? Lesleyhall1@hotmail.com

Mac Book, Mac OS X (10.4.7)

Posted on Aug 26, 2006 12:53 PM

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Answer 1

Bob Lang1

Level 5

4,090 points

Aug 27, 2006 4:29 PM in response to Paul&Les

Hi

Powerpoint is one of the few MS Office apps that I actually like using 😉

Your problem arises because the physical screen width:height ratio is 1280:800 whilst the default slide width:height ratio is 4:3. This is easily fixed from the File > Page Setup.... menu option. Choose the Custom option and set the width to 12.80 and the height to 8.00 (or 25.6 and 16.00, or any other similar pair of numbers).

However, before you start work making any slides, be sure to check that the projector you'll be using for your presentation actually works at this new ratio! You may need to get advice from the local A/V technician about which ratio gives the best overall result when projected on to a screen. It's quite possible for your nice widescreen slides to have the edges trimmed off, or be anamorphically compressed, when displayed on a projector that only supports 4:3.

If you're unable to check it out in advance, then you might be wise to produce two versions of your presentation: one at the standard 4:3 and one in widescreen.

Bob

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