techtips

Traveling With a PowerPoint Presentation
When taking a PowerPoint presentation on the road with you, your safest, surest option is to transport it on a portable PC. That way, you’re able to make the presentation with absolute confidence that fonts, colors, embedded graphics, and audio clips will work exactly as you expect. But if you can’t carry a computer with you, and you’re not confident that there’s a PowerPoint-equipped PC at your destination, you can always fall back on the PowerPoint “Pack and Go Wizard,” a program feature that will package your presentation for you. As the name implies, the “Pack and Go Wizard” assembles all the pieces of your presentation, including fonts and linked files, into a single compressed file. If you include the PowerPoint Viewer in the packed presentation, you can uncompress the presentation files and run them on any Windows PC without installing Office.

Using the
“Pack and Go Wizard”
To pack up a presentation, do the following:

  1. Open the presentation you want to pack.
  2. Choose “File,” “Pack and Go,” and begin
    following the wizard’s prompts.
  3. In step 3 of the wizard, “Links,” click the
    Embed TrueType Fonts option if your presenta-
    tion uses any fonts other than those included
    with Windows. In step 4, “Viewer,” include the
    viewer if you’re not sure whether the PC on
    which you’ll run the presentation includes a
    copy of PowerPoint 95 or later.

Running a Packaged File
The “Pack and Go Wizard” produces two files: a compressed file (with the .ppz extension) containing the presentation and supporting files, and an executable file (Pngsetup.exe) that unpacks everything at the destination. Copy both files to the PC on which you’ll run the presentation, and then run Pngsetup.exe. Specify where you want to store the unpacked presentation. PowerPoint unpacks the files and asks whether you want to run the presentation. If you click “Yes,” it appears onscreen. To run the presentation again, find the file icon (it will have a .ppt filename extension and be listed as type Microsoft PowerPoint Presentation). Right-click the icon and select “Show.”

If you have difficulties, refer to “Help” for more guidance and information. Tech Tips provides information on the use and maintenance of computers. PREL provides no guarantee against any loss that may occur to your computer system(s) as a result of using the advice provided herein. Professional assistance should be obtained as appropriate.

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