Why and How to Finalize a Presentation

Why need to finalize a presentation?

These days, most presentations are delivered electronically, either in person, by e-mail, or from a Web site. As you develop a presentation, PowerPoint 2007 attaches identifying and tracking information to it as properties. If your presentation will never leave your computer, you don't have to worry that these properties might contain something that you would rather other people did not see.

However, if the presentation file is going to be shared with other people, you will want to remove this identifying and tracking information before you distribute the presentation. This is known as "scrubbing" a file. The scrubbing process is carried out by the Document Inspector, a PowerPoint 2007 feature that checks a presentation for various types of behind-the-scenes information, reports what it finds, and removes the types you specify.

How do you finalize a presentation?

One solution is to mark your presentation in PowerPoint 2007. The properties attached to the file by PowerPoint include the name of the author, the title, when the file was created and updated, and so on. You might want to enter other properties, such as keywords, to help you easily find the presentation or to keep track of its status. You enter properties in the Properties pane.

You might also want to mark it as final before distributing a presentation. This feature (new in PowerPoint 2007) saves the file, deactivates most PowerPoint tools, and displays an icon in the status bar to indicate that no further changes should be made to the presentation. This process does not lock the presentation, however; if you want to make additional changes to the presentation, you can turn off the final status.

The best solution to burn PowerPoint to DVD & convert PowerPoint to video

Another solution is to save your presentation as DVD or video that is safe from plagiary. This would be of great help if you are using 2003 PowerPoint. If you don't want to bother yourself with those complex PowerPoint edits, just take the one-step option - PowerPoint to DVD and PowerPoint to video Burner

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PPT vs. PPS

If you are a novice user of PowerPoint, you may sometimes get confused by a couple of PPS or PPSX presentations. You may wonder what utterly its difference is from a normal PPT or PPTX extension, and how should he view the PPS presentations in a PPT manner.

Before discussing the difference, you should be aware that no technical difference exists between PPT (or PPTX) and PPS (or PPSX) files. Both of them are based on MS PowerPoint technology.

Compare PPT & PPS

Yet the two presentation extensions show individual focus as in each definition:

PPT is the default file extension for saving presentations in MS PowerPoint 2003 and earlier, while PPTX the default in PowerPoint 2007 and later.

PPS refers to PowerPoint Show, i.e. the show mode extension in PowerPoint 2003 and earlier -- PPS files will run in "play-presentation" mode when double-clicked. Similarly, PPSX works as the show mode in PowerPoint 2007 and later.

Random exchange of extension is available for both PPT and PPS files. It means that you can rename a PPT to a PPS causing no content change; and vice versa. However, this does not work with PPTX and PPSX files, although they share much similarity.

The difference between PPT and PPS lies in how they are treated by PowerPoint. By default, PPT and PPTX files are opened in edit mode that lets you to use all the menus and commands, while PPS and PPSX files in slideshow (play-presentation) mode without a PowerPoint interface. You may need to press the ESC key to exit a PowerPoint Show when it finishes.

Convert PPT to PPS

PPS offers you a complete and stream viewing pleasure of PowerPoint presentations. To convert a PPT file to a PPS, you can try the following two methods:

Tip 1 Rename the PPT file by changing its extension to *.pps. To make that, you may need to uncheck the option "hide extensions for known file types". Or simply go to Windows Explorer > Tools > Folder options > View. Ignore the message of gloom and doom! Note that it does not work in MS PowerPoint 2007.

Tip 2 Open the file in PowerPoint and move the cursor to Save As. Scroll down in the Save as Type box till you find PowerPoint show *.pps.

Convert PPS to PPT

Is there any way of converting a PPS file back to PPT format? Of course yes. Simply open the PowerPoint Slow, go to File dropdown and resave it as a PPT. Again, note that it fails to work in 2007 MS PowerPoint due to a security check built in which checks the extension against the actual file type.

If you want to edit a PPS or PPSX file without changing the extension, take either of these tips:

1. In Windows Explorer, drag and drop the PPS or PPSX file into an empty PowerPoint window.

2. Launch PowerPoint and open a PPS or PPSX using the File/Office button or the Open option to edit a presentation.

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