Re: Powerpoint 2004 vs. Powerpoint v.X-2004 is SLOOOOOOOOOOW1


Jim Gordon MVP wrote:
Hi Dave,

There are so many ways of getting graphs into PowerPoint I don't know
where to begin.

I would think you would like to be able to take advantage of
PowerPoint's ability to animate various portions of a graph. In that
case PDF or any sort of picture format is a bad choice.

One of these days I have to make a full tutorial on the various ways of
dealing with graphs and PowerPoint.

Does it make a difference to you if the graphs are linked to the source
data? Are you planning to distribute the presentation files or just use
them on one computer?

Hi, Jim,

Thanks for getting back to me. Perhaps I should explain my situation.
My presentations are of scientific data, and don't really need to be
fancy. The audience is other scientists, so animated graphs would
probably not impress them.

I like to take my graphs out of Excel because I use the program to
analyze my data, and Excel offers enough options for different kinds of
graphs to allow me to display my data in a meaningful way. Therefore,
pictures of the graphs are perfectly OK with me, and I don't really
want to go have to use the MS Graph program. In addition, I sometimes
show other graphics in my slides, which are usually prepared using a
combination of PhotoShop and Canvas v.X. Since some of these graphics
are based on Tiff files, the file size can be quite large, though I can
alleviate that somewhat by saving the pictures as either jpegs or pdf
file (which is why it would be nice to be able to insert high
resolution pdf files in MS programs when it is so easy to save files as
pdfs in OSX). I haven't had a chance to look over the web site you
directed me to, so perhaps I will have other comments when I do.

Anyway, I am hopeful that Microsoft will be able to do something to
speed up PowerPoint in the next upgrade. I really like some of the new
features, so I don't want to go back to v.X, but the slow transitions
are a real problem with me.

Thanks,

--
Dave Fritzinger
Honolulu, HI

-Jim

--
Jim Gordon
Mac MVP
MVP FAQ
<http://mvp.support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=fh;EN-US;mvpfaqs>


Dave Fritzinger wrote:
Jim Gordon MVP wrote:

Hi,

PPT 2004 can be slower than v.X, but if you have the latest updates
installed it should not be that much slower. I think in most cases a G5
with a good graphics card should not feel slower.


This is not a "bit slower", but more like massively slower. To give you
an idea, I had a presentation that ran fine on a iBook G3 (with only
256 MB RAM). The same presentation, when run on a PM G5 (dual 2.0,
revA, 1 Gig, OSX.4, with an ATI 9600 graphics card) was painfully slow.
Sometimes it would take over 10 sec for the next slide to appear. I
have been able to alleviate some of this by changing the format of the
graphic elements (I had been pasting graphs from Excel into the slides.
Now I save as Pict, and use Canvas to save as JPG, since the Excel save
a JPG feature gives graphs with very low resolution). Still,
graphics-rich slides can take several seconds to appear.

I'd spend some time doing basic troubleshooting. Repair permissions and
run DiskWarrior. If you know how to examine memory with Apple's Activity
Monitor, have a look and see how much memory is being used.

For most presentations a low resolution graphic will display as nice as
a high resolution. If you have 600 dpi TIFFS turn them into 96 dpi JPEGS
and things should move a lot faster.

PDF files only display a poster of the first page of the document. You
don't see the entire file.


I think this is an error on the part of Microsoft, since it is so easy
to save graphics as PDF files on a Mac. Most of the time when I try to
display PDF files in Word or powerpoint, it is of an Excel graph, or a
picture from Canvas or Photoshop, meaning it is a single graphic
element. In the two Microsoft applications, the pdf files are displayed
in very low resolution, so as to be totally useless for presentations.

I should say that I am hoping to replace my iBook with a MacBook Pro
sometime in the near future. I am worried that Powerpoint, running
under Rosetta, will be pretty useless on this machine, and am strongly
considering trying Keynote instead.

Thanks for your help, Jim.

--
Dave Fritzinger
Honolulu, HI

-Jim



--
Jim Gordon
Mac MVP
MVP FAQ
<http://mvp.support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=fh;EN-US;mvpfaqs>


dfritzin@xxxxxxxxxxx wrote:

Hi,

Has anyone else noticed this problem? It was brought to my attention
recently when I borrowed a notebook to give a presentation that had
Office vX on it. My problem is that in Powerpoint 2004, many
transitions are very slow, espceially if the next slide has graphics in
it. For example, I have prepared a rather long Powerpoint slideshow on
my office Mac, a 1st generation PM G5/2.0 Gig, with 1 Gig of RAM,
running 10.4.5. When using the slide show mode on this machine, I have
to wait for several seconds for some of the slides to show up on the
screen. On my iMac G5 (RevB, 20"/2.0Gig with 1 Gig RAM), the situation
is similar. If I try to run the same show on my old iBook G3/700/256,
it is painfully slow. However, a similar presentation ran acceptably
fast on the iBook when run on Powerpoint vX.

What really brought this to my attention again is that when I borrowed
the Powerbook G4 (867 MHz, 640 MB RAM), which is running 10.3.9 and
Office vX, my slideshow ran faster on the Powerbook than on my
PowerMac, even though the PowerMac is a much more powerful machine?
What is going on with PowerPoint?

As a point of information, the presentation was originally created in
PowerPoint v.X, but has been highly modified in PowerPoint 2004. To get
it to run faster, I have changed graphs to jpg files (they were
originally just pasted in from Excel), and have made all other graphics
jpeg files, which helped quite a bit. However, graphics-rich slides
still hesitate for several seconds before coming on the screen.

One more issue, what is it with Microsoft applications and pdf files.
I have created pdf files that display excellently in both Adobe Acrobat
and Preview. However, when I put them into any Office application, they
show up as very low resolution graphics. What is going on?

Thanks for reading my rant. Any help would be appreciated. Also, is
Microsoft looking to improve this on the next version of Office?



.

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