Joseph Hinkle at MyITForum.com

I just finished up sanitizing a presentation about basic SMS software distribution troubleshooting that I created for our help desk at work. I plan to upload it as soon as I know how. I originally created it on PowerPoint 2007 for Windows and was curious to see how the new version handled all of the changes in 2007, like Smart Art and the updated themes engine.

I walked through the presentation a couple of times, removing the company-specific information, changing the Smart Art, and putting a relatively ugly stock theme on it. All told, it was seamless. I didn't have any problems with any of the updates that I did. The file formats seem to be completely compatible with one another, as I couldn't find any issues with the updated document in PowerPoint 2007.

One interesting design decision was to add ribbon-like functionality without destroying the existing menu structure. From a training perspective, it seems easier to pick up than the complete overhaul given to the interface in Office 2007. It isn't perfect, but the combination of tabs and buttons seen in the SmartArt ribbon is really nice.