How do you get PowerPoint for free?

This is easily the #1 question asked in Yahoo Answers. It has been answered countless times already. Here's a compilation of those answers.

1. Play Only

Most people who are looking for PowerPoint want to play presentations that were given to them by others. If you received a PowerPoint presentation as an email attachment or from a teacher, then all you need is a viewer to open and play the presentation.

PowerPoint Viewer 2007
Latest version for Microsoft Windows Users. Works with the new Microsoft Office 2007 and Microsoft Office 2008 file formats as well as the old Microsoft formats. FREE!

PowerPoint Viewer 2003
Older version for Microsoft Windows users. Works with .ppt and .pps files, but not with the new Microsoft file formats. FREE!

PowerPoint 98 Viewer for Macintosh
Older version for Apple Macintosh users. Works with .ppt and .pps files, but not with the new Microsoft file formats. FREE!
Requires OS 9 or Classic
There is no viewer for OSX. Use NeoOffice instead (see below)

2. Create, edit, and present

If you need  to be able to create and edit PowerPoint presentations you need  more than just a viewer. Microsoft PowerPoint or Sun Microsystems OpenOffice (a free product) is required.

Microsoft Office Enterprise 2007 Trial Version
For Microsoft Windows operating systems. 60 day trial
This Microsoft Office Enterprise 2007 software evaluation program is appropriate for Developers and IT Professionals. IMPORTANT: A product key is required to use this trial. See the Overview section for details.

Microsoft Office 2008 Trial Version
For Apple Macintosh users.
Coming soon (Summer 2008 maybe. No firm date has been announced).

Once the trial period is over you will have to purchase PowerPoint or use Open Office.

How to Buy Microsoft PowerPoint

For Microsoft Windows
For Apple Macintosh

Also, check retailers for specials. Sometimes Microsoft has promotions, such as this one:
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/features/2007/sep07/09-12ultimatesteal.mspx

Beware! There's a lot of questionable offers concerning Microsoft Office.
If you shop eBay and find tghe word "compatible" in the product description it is not Microsoft office that's being advertsed. Most likely it's a copy of OpenOffice, which is completely free. You'd be crazy to pay for it (see below).

Sun Microsystems OpenOffice
This is a free office suite that has a program called Impress that can open, create, and edit Microsoft PowerPoint presentations.

There are many versions of OpenOffice. Trying to figure out which version of OpenOffice to use is a bit tricky.

You would think that if you installed the current shipping build that you would get everything you need, but that's not the case. As I write this on 6/1/2008 the current shipping version is 2.4.  If you go to the OpenOffice web site and download the version that you get by following the web site's flow you'll get a version that does not handle the new Microsoft Office 2007 and Microsoft Office 2008 file formats and does not run Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) macros.

There is a converter that you can install yourself or have pre-installed in a bundle.

Windows users should click here for details on how to get a version of OpenOffice that works with the file formats and has some VBA spreadsheet support.
Windows users should install OxygenOffice (which includes OpenOffice), rather than OpenOffice from OpenOffice.org.


Mac users should click here to download NeoOffice, which has the converter built-in and has some VBA spreadsheet support rather than OpenOffice from OpenOffice.org.

OpenOffice, OxygenOffice and NeoOffice do not have some key components that are included in Microsoft Office. Microsoft Office installs new fonts to your computer. These fonts include some very nice unicode fonts. The Microsoft fonts are important in helping documents created in Microsoft Office have a consistent look from one computer to another. Macintosh and Windows versions of Microsoft Office install the same fonts so that documents look the same on both Mac and Windows computers.

Because OpenOffice does not install Microsoft fonts, when you use OpenOffice to open a document created in Microsoft Office, your computer may have to substitute a font from your computer's font collection to replace any Microsoft fonts that were used when documents were created. Sometimes this makes for odd looking display and printing when using OpenOffice.

OpenOffice support for the Visual Basic For Applications programming language is very limited. OpenOffice has no userform support. The object model is a little different, so most macros will have to be tweaked. VBA is supported only in Calc, the spreadsheet application.
 
When using OpenOffice, use File > Save As (instead of File > Save) and select Microsoft PowerPoint file type if you want to share your presentation with other PowerPoint users. You can change the default file type to Microsoft PowerPoint using OpenOffice's preferences so that OpenOffice always saves in Microsoft file formats. I leave it to you to decide whether OpenOffice is as good, better, or worse than Microsoft's Product.

Google Docs and other web based tools

If you don't mind being force-fed advertising, having everything you do analyzed then shared with advertisers, government agencies, or anyone else with cash to pay for information about you and everyone who looks at your presentations, then consider web 2.0 based tools. I don't consider these free because you pay the price by trading information about yourself and everyone who goes to the provider's web site to look at your stuff. Using the word "free" with such tools is deceptive in my opinion.

Google Docs:
http://www.google.com/google-d-s/intl/en/tour1.html

Microsoft Office Live
Requires FireFox
Requires that you send your Windows Hotmail user ID and password over the internet as clear text. Don't do it!
Barely works on Mac
http://home.officelive.com/

ThinkFree
http://www.thinkfree.com

ZoHo
http://www.zoho.com/

Stealing
AKA Pirating.
Bit Torrent, Limewire, and other file sharing services offer the ability to obtain without charge copies of office that are not legitimate.
Countless email messages offer Microsoft Office products at prices too good to be true. 
Here's how to protect yourself from piracy:
http://www.microsoft.com/piracy/

I hope you find this information useful.

Jim Gordon
Microsoft Macintosh MVP
May, 2008