Microsoft PowerPoint X

Cost

Microsoft has set pricing for PowerPoint X at:

• $399 for the full version.
• $149 for the upgrade.
• $129 for academic purchases.

The Apple online store is selling both the full version and the upgrade for a little less.

• $369.95 for the full version.
• $149.95 for the upgrade.
• $129.95 for academic purchases.

Amazon.com is also selling the full and upgrade version for even less

• $349.99 for the full version.
• $134.99 for the upgrade.

Just as with Word X, the cnet Shopper.com price comparison site did did not list prices for PowerPoint X. It is probably safe to assume, however, that most online retailers are selling the full version of PowerPoint X between $399 and $345.

For those who work at the University of Utah, the Office of Software Licensing (OSL) is offering single user license for $31 and $4 for the media.

Various reviews have reported finding PowerPoint X to be much faster both when building slides and when using the slide sorter view than PowerPoint 2001. The significant changes to PowerPoint X give users more control over a greater variety of presentation elements. It provides more formats upon which to build presentations and more effects to enhance them. The following is a list of the newest features to PowerPoint X.

PowerPoint Packages: The PowerPoint Package option allows users to pack their presentation and all linked files into one folder. This gives them the freedom to move the complete presentation to a network share, put it on a disk, or burn it to a CD without losing any linked pictures, sounds, movies, hyperlinks, or other files. Once a PowerPoint package is created, all media will stay intact and work properly when sent to and opened by another user.

PowerPoint Movies: PowerPoint Movies now provide a higher level of fidelity between an original presentation and the QuickTime movie that is based on it. Movies can now include any combination of animations, slide transitions, and real interactive features such as action buttons and hyperlinks.

True Transparency: With the Quartz 2-D drawing environment, PowerPoint X now provides users even more image manipulation power by allowing them to decide just how transparent any drawing or picture should be.

QuickTime Transitions: With full support for Apple QuickTime, PowerPoint can use QuickTime transitions to move between slides in a presentation. With the true transparency features of Mac OS X, users can now "Fade In" and "Fade Out" from one slide to the next.

Multiple Slide Masters: PowerPoint X supports the use of more than one slide master and title master in a presentation. Users can apply slide masters and title masters to single slides or multiple slides at a time, and if they need to copy slides from one presentation to another, PowerPoint can be set to copy the slide and title masters along with the slides.

Multiple Language Support: PowerPoint provides full support for Mac OS X language settings so that users can work in other language by using the Microsoft Language Register tool. PowerPoint also provides full support for displaying, entering, and printing euro currency values.

PDF: PowerPoint X slides can be printed to a PDF file allowing users to utilize Acrobat to add various effects and transitions not available in or practical for PowerPoint. The transition to and open format like PDF also gives the user the freedom to create presentations that can be run almost anywhere.

Issues

Performance Issues: Several people have reported that whenever they try to use PowerPoint X's new graphics intensive features such as Movies or Transitions, the application slows down to a crawl. When pressed, Microsoft admitted that the new version was much slower almost making any animation unusable. To see a company memo regarding this issues visit the URL below:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;q312249

Inconsistent Prefs Control Panel: One reviewer lamented that unlike Word X and Excel X, PowerPoint X retains the older tabbed-window interface for its preferences control panel.