What's new in Microsoft PowerPoint 2004

To learn more about a specific Microsoft PowerPoint 2004 feature, search for the feature in PowerPoint Help.

Presenter tools

The new Microsoft PowerPoint 2004 presenter tools help you better pace and deliver your slide shows by:

• Clearly displaying your notes for easier scanning.
• Timing your presentations with an on-screen clock, visible only to you.
• Keeping you on track with a thumbnail view of your entire presentation, which shows you the current slide and the next few slides all at once.
• Allowing you to make changes and adjustments on the fly, so that you'll always appear prepared and in control.

To use the PowerPoint presenter tools, on the View menu, click Presenter Tools.

Improved templates and clip art

In PowerPoint 2004, you can experiment with different slide show design templates with even greater ease! At a glance, the new thumbnail images show you what your presentation looks like with different design templates applied.

To quickly switch to a different design template, on the Formatting Palette under Change Slides, click the image of the template you want. Also, you can enhance standard templates by taking advantage of new clip art images. On the Formatting Palette under Add Objects, click Insert Clip Art .

Animation and transitions improvements

Animation effects and slide transitions created with PowerPoint for Windows now appear when you run those slide shows on the Macintosh. And what's more, with PowerPoint 2004, you can create impressive new animations and transitions that are compatible with PowerPoint 2003 for Windows.

Font improvements

PowerPoint font improvements give you greater control over how your text looks. You can now format your text as condensed or extended, and you can set a transparency option for your fonts.