Don't do this with PowerPoint. Seriously.

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In Do this before you use PowerPoint for anything serious we show you a few things you should always do before you get down to business using PowerPoint.

Here are a few things you shouldn't do in PowerPoint unless you really, really know what you're doing and why. And even then, think twice about it.

Don't save to an earlier version of PowerPoint

Windows PowerPoint 97, 2000, 2002 and 2003 and Mac PowerPoint 98, 2001, X and 2004 all use the same file format. Earlier versions simply ignore stuff they don't understand in PPT files saved by later versions. Just save your file normally if you want to share it with users of any of these PPT versions.

The rules are different if you use PowerPoint 2007, where you may have to save back to 97-2003 format so that others can use your presentations.

The only other backward-saving options are PowerPoint 95, PowerPoint 4 (in older versions of PowerPoint) and "PowerPoint 97-XXX & 95 Presentation" which saves both current and PowerPoint 95 versions of a presentation in the same file. Result: bloated files. Very big. See Why are my PowerPoint files so big? What can I do about it? for more information.

Unless really need to share files with people who still use PowerPoint 95, there's no reason to save as anything but the normal PPT file type. And for those people, you may find it simpler to give them a copy of one of the free PowerPoint viewers. Download Free PowerPoint Viewers

Don't copy and paste pictures and other content from the internet into PowerPoint

Instead, right-click the picture, choose Save Picture As and save it to your hard drive. Then use Insert, Picture, From File to bring the picture into PowerPoint.

If you copy paste from the net, you run the risk of creating a hard-to-remove link to the internet from your presentation. This may cause Windows to try to connect to the internet every time anyone opens the presentation. A real annoyance if ever there was one. And one that can be darned hard to track down and get rid of.

Don't link images

When you use Insert, Picture, From File to insert a picture into PowerPoint, you may notice an option to Link to the file. Unless you have a good reason for doing it, don't. PowerPoint's image links break very easily. It's generally safer and more effective to embed the files (in other words, insert them normally, not linked).

Contents © 1995-2008 Stephen Rindsberg, Rindsberg Photography, Inc. and members of the MS PowerPoint MVP team. You may link to this page but any form of unauthorized reproduction of this page's contents is expressly forbidden.

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