Powerpoint is a powerful presentation tool. However, with changing versions it becomes very difficult to open powerpoint across different version. With upgrade, the new version of powerpoint can open the files created using the older versions. However the older versions of Powerpoint cannot open the files created with the new version of Powerpoint.

A classic example is that Powerpoint 2007 can open files created using earlier versions of Powerpoint like Powerpoint 97, 2000, XP and 2003. However, older Powerpoint versions cannot open the file created using the new versions of Powerpoint like Powerpoint 2007 and 2010. Forward compatibilty is always a problem with Powerpoint and MS office.

However, you can ensure that everytime you save Powerpoint files you save them in older formats. Let’s see how to ensure that every time you save a file it will be saved in an older format to ensure the overall compatibility. All we have to do is to ensure that everytime the powerpoint file is saved, it’s saved in .PPT format rather than .PPTX. You can manually change this everytime you are saving the file or just make sure that files are saved in PPT format automatically everytime. Let’s see how to ensure this:

1. In Office PowerPoint 2007, click on Office button or in Office PowerPoint 2010, click on File tab.

2. In Office PowerPoint 2007, click on PowerPoint Options. In Office PowerPoint 2010, click on Options in the left pane.

3. Go to the Save section on the left pane.

4. Under the “Save presentations” section, select PowerPoint Presentation 97 – 2003 from the Save files in this format drop down list.

5. Click OK button.

Next time, on everytime you will save the file it’ll be saved in .PPT (97-2003) format.