What’s New in PowerPoint 97?

Customize Your Presentations

New drawing tools   offer a range of capabilities, from more AutoShapes and text effects to the ability to fine-tune textures and shading. Bezier curves, 3-D shapes, and connectors allow you to create precise images.

Custom animation   You can control the sequence in which text, graphic objects, or items on a graph appear on slides in an electronic presentation. Now you can work on text animation, objects, and charts in one place. Preview all the objects you want to animate on a single slide, and rearrange their animation order with ease.

Custom shows   Create several presentations in one by defining topic-specific subsets of slides in presentations.

Share Your Work

HTML format   You can save presentations in HTML format and add hyperlinks that jump within a presentation or to other documents on the Web.

Remote presentations   Use one computer to control an electronic presentation displayed on another. For example, use your laptop to control a conference-room computer. Take advantage of on-screen presentation controls that remain invisible to the audience.

Work Smarter

Slide Finder   PowerPoint 97 makes it easy to find and reuse slides from existing presentations.

Automate tasks   Use Visual Basic for Applications to automate some of the tasks you perform in PowerPoint. For example, open a presentation, set up a template, or format a slide.

Reduced file size   Graphics and other objects are automatically compressed when you save in PowerPoint, reducing most files in size by approximately 50 percent.