Upgrading Reference for Localized Versions of Office

Sharing PowerPoint Presentations Across Language Versions

Just as with nonlocalized versions of Microsoft PowerPoint, localized PowerPoint 97 can open and read PowerPoint 2000 presentations directly, but localized PowerPoint 95 must have the PowerPoint 97 converter for PowerPoint 95 installed, or PowerPoint 2000 presentations must be saved in PowerPoint 97-2000 & 95 format.

PowerPoint 4.0 users can open PowerPoint 2000 presentations if they install the PowerPoint 97 converter for PowerPoint 4.0.

Users of PowerPoint 2000 and previous localized versions can share presentations as follows:

• In PowerPoint 2000, you can open and edit any presentation created in a previous localized version of PowerPoint, regardless of the language, provided the operating system supports the language of the file.
• In localized PowerPoint 97, you can open and edit PowerPoint 2000 presentations, regardless of the language, provided the operating system supports the language of the file.
• In localized PowerPoint 95, in addition to an operating system that supports the language of the file, you need the following to open PowerPoint 2000 presentations:

  You must have the PowerPoint 97 converter for PowerPoint 95 converter installed.

  – or –

  The file must be in PowerPoint 97-2000 & 95 format.

• In localized PowerPoint 4.0, in addition to an operating system that supports the language of the file, you must have the PowerPoint 97 converter for PowerPoint 4.0 installed to open PowerPoint 2000 presentations.

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Opening presentations from previous localized versions in PowerPoint 2000

When you open PowerPoint 95 or PowerPoint 4.0 presentations in PowerPoint 2000, PowerPoint 2000 converts the text to Unicode. Because PowerPoint 2000 and PowerPoint 97 both support Unicode, PowerPoint 2000 does not need to convert PowerPoint 97 text.

PowerPoint 2000 can display English and European text in presentations from any language version of PowerPoint 97, PowerPoint 95, and PowerPoint 4.0. If PowerPoint 2000 users have enabled the appropriate language in Microsoft Office Language Settings, PowerPoint 2000 can display text in any language provided the operating system supports the language of the file.

Note   Some unknown characters might appear when you open an English or European-language version of PowerPoint 95 or PowerPoint 4.0 presentation in the Korean, Simplified Chinese, or Traditional Chinese versions of PowerPoint 2000. To correct this problem, click Options on the PowerPoint 2000 Tools menu, and then click the Asian tab. Clear the Convert font-associated text check box.

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Opening PowerPoint 2000 presentations in localized PowerPoint 97

PowerPoint 97 can directly open and read PowerPoint 2000 presentations. However, to display Asian or right-to-left (Arabic, Hebrew, Farsi, or Urdu) text that doesn’t match the language version of PowerPoint 97, you must have the appropriate language support installed on your computer.

For Asian text, you can install the Office 97 Asian support files, but for right-to-left text, you must use a compatible right-to-left language version of PowerPoint 97.

Localized versions of PowerPoint 97 can display PowerPoint 2000 text as shown in the following table.

Note   Layout for the Asian text in PowerPoint 97 might be different than it is in PowerPoint 2000.

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Opening PowerPoint 2000 presentations in localized PowerPoint 95 and PowerPoint 4.0

Depending on the language, PowerPoint 95 can open and read PowerPoint 2000 presentations by using the PowerPoint 97 converter for PowerPoint 95 or if they are saved in the PowerPoint 97-2000 & 95 format. Similarly, PowerPoint 4.0 can open and read PowerPoint 97 and 2000 presentations by using the PowerPoint 97 converter for PowerPoint 4.0, depending on the language.

Note   The PowerPoint 97 converter for PowerPoint 4.0 cannot be used with Asian versions of PowerPoint 4.0. Therefore, users of Asian versions of PowerPoint 4.0 cannot open PowerPoint 2000 presentations.

Localized versions of PowerPoint 95 and PowerPoint 4.0 can display PowerPoint 2000 text as shown in the following table.

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See also

If your organization is upgrading from a previous version of PowerPoint, there are several strategies for making a smooth transition, beyond cross-language considerations. For more information, see Upgrading to PowerPoint 2000.

The Unicode standard provides unique character values for every language that Office supports and makes it even easier to share multilingual documents. For more information, see Sharing Multilingual Documents.

For some languages, you need to have an operating system and fonts that allow you to display and edit the text. For more information, see Configuring Users' Computers in an International Environment.