Transitioning between software versions is always an adventure. Many of our clients have found the need to distribute templates in both PPT 2003 and PPT 2007. Here’s the 5 most important discoveries we that we made on our adventure.

1. PPT 2003 and 2007 are not compatible (especially from a design perspective)…don’t believe me? Open PPT 2003 and PPT 2007 at the same time… try to cut and paste a slide from one to the other…can’t happen.

Advice: Graduate to PPT 2007, especially if you are the lead content author in your organization. There are far more creative options in the new version and you can always save down to a lower version of PPT.

2. Templates (.potx) are not the same as Themes (.thmx). Themes provide style guidelines: layouts, fonts, colors and effects but no practical examples save with this file type. Templates demonstrate the use of theme elements in sample slides.

Advice: Build templates that have a set of reference slides for our clients to use: Title, Subtitle, Text, Chart, Color Scheme are typically in our starter set.

3. Color Schemes: the good news is 2007 offers more accent color choices; the bad news is the color schemes do not map properly if you transition from 2003 into 2007. If you import an older presentation you get an annoying “hangover”. In the theme color menu you will see a heading “This Presentation” with a palette associated with it. If you edit your color scheme this palette does not update…arghh.

Advice: Do not start a 2007 template design from a 2003 presentation that will save you from dealing with the “hangover” palette.

4. Charts: if you two versions of Office on your computer you are in for a wild adventure in this department. PPT 2003 uses MS Graph to create charts while PPT 2007 uses Excel. We have suffered through frustrating crashes and crazy color shifts trying to update client projects because we need both versions of Office.

Advice: Open Excel 2007 before creating or editing charts in PPT2007 if you have two versions of Office on your computer

5. Layouts: We love that you can add multiple text placeholders with descriptive prompts in 2007 but beware custom layouts and customized prompts are removed in earlier versions of PowerPoint.

Advice: Test your layouts on slides before distributing a template or presentation. Delete extra layouts that are not needed.

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• PowerPoint 2007… My Favorite Feature. - August 4th, 2009