Power Point

[quartet-man]

Okay, here is the deal. Our Laptop we use for Power Point presentations has Office 2003. None of the computers in the church have a newer version and really don't need to. However, sometimes speakers, members etc. will bring in presentations for special things (besides our normal slides) and more and more it seems to be newer versions. Yes, I know they can save in older versions (or at least presume they can), but it never happens. They bring it in however they saved it and it won't display. The Laptop does not have internet access and least once I tried to download the needed stuff to get it to work, but it always happens in a time pinch (before a funeral, service etc.)
Communicating things beforehand to people might help some, but it doesn't get done and I am unsure it would work all of the time as people will bring stuff in without notice at times.

If we HAVE to upgrade, I guess we will, but would a Power Point viewer work, or is there another solution we can do that would keep this from happening?

I bought a Office Home and Student with three licenses for home on a Black Friday special and hoped to give one version to that Laptop if possible (since we wouldn't need Outlook on it anyhow), but it says not for use in Non profits, business or governmental, so that is out.

[Force Flow]

The office compatibility pack or powerpoint viewer would probably do the trick.

[juppy]

The Powerpoint viewer was what I put on my computer quite awhile back when my cousin kept sending me Powerpoint files and I couldn't see them (I don't have any version of PP on this computer). Installed the viewer and it works fine. Can't alter or make new PP files with just the viewer, but if you just need to be able to see their file, I would think it would do the job.

[strollin]

Here's a link to the MS PP viewer. Download: PowerPoint Viewer - Microsoft Download Center - Download Details

"Microsoft PowerPoint Viewer lets you view full-featured presentations created in PowerPoint 97 and later versions."

"This download works with presentations created in the following Microsoft Office programs:
Microsoft PowerPoint 2010
Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2007
Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2003
Microsoft PowerPoint 2002
Microsoft PowerPoint 2000
Microsoft PowerPoint 97"

[glc]

The Office Compatibility Pack will allow you to not only open, but edit presentations with your PP 2003.

Download: Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint File Formats - Microsoft Download Center - Download Details