PPT97: Types of Presentations PowerPoint 97 Can Open and Save

This article describes the presentation formats that PowerPoint 97 can open. It also describes the formats PowerPoint 97 can save presentations to.

Opening and Saving

PowerPoint 97 can open presentations created by the following versions of PowerPoint:

• Microsoft PowerPoint 97 for Windows
• Microsoft PowerPoint for Windows 95, versions 7.0, 7.0a, 7.0b
• Microsoft PowerPoint for Windows, versions 2.0, 2.0e, 3.0, 4.0, 4.0a, 4.0c
• Microsoft PowerPoint for the Macintosh, versions 3.0, 3.0b, 4.0

PowerPoint 97 can also open presentations created by these third party products*:

• Harvard Graphics for MS-DOS, version 3.0 (.ch3, .sh3)
• Harvard Graphics for MS-DOS, version 2.3 (.cht, .shw)
• Lotus Freelance for MS-DOS, version 4.0 (.drw, .shw)
• Lotus Freelance for Windows, versions 1.0 - 2.1 (.pre)

*To open these types of presentations, you must install the appropriate Presentation Translator(s). These are not installed automatically.

PowerPoint 97 can save presentations in the following formats:

• Microsoft PowerPoint 97 presentations (.ppt)
• Microsoft PowerPoint 97 shows (.pps)
• Microsoft PowerPoint 97 templates (.pot)
• Microsoft PowerPoint 97 & 95 presentations (.ppt)**
• Microsoft PowerPoint for Windows, version 4.0 (.ppt)
• Microsoft PowerPoint for Windows, version 3.0 (.ppt)

**This is a special format that both PowerPoint for Windows 95, version 7.0 and PowerPoint 97 can read natively.

Importing and Exporting

PowerPoint 97 can also create presentations based on a variety of document formats. These formats include:

• Text files (.txt)
• Rich Text Format files (.rtf)
• WordPerfect 5.x documents (.doc)***
• WordPerfect 6.x documents (.doc, .wpd)***
• Works 4.0 for Windows 95 documents (.wps)***
• Works 3.0 for Windows documents (.wps)***
• Word documents (.doc)***

***To import these formats, you must install the appropriate Text converter(s), which are not installed automatically.

PowerPoint 97 can export presentations as outlined in the Rich Text Format (.rtf). It can export individual slides as Windows Metafiles (.wmf). If you install the optional HTML authoring components, PowerPoint 97 can export presentations as HTML (which means images of the slides are exported as JPEG (.jpg) or GIF (.gif) files.)

The third-party products discussed here are manufactured by vendors independent of Microsoft; we make no warranty, implied or otherwise, regarding these products' performance or reliability.