Gmail can now view PowerPoint Presentations

Google has rolled out an integrated PowerPoint viewer for Gmail which enables you to view PowerPoint presentations as slideshows in your browser, without any dependency on PowerPoint or any third party app.

When you open an email which contains a PowerPoint Presentation (with .ppt extension), you’ll notice a new option “View as slideshow” along with other options like “View as HTML” and “Download” links. The down side is that the built-in viewer doesn’t support sound effects and transitions, you’ll have to manually move through slides using the keyboard or the on-screen arrow keys. Sadly, it’s also a bit handicapped because it fails to recognize the new Microsoft Office 2007 presentation format (PPTX filetype) as a PowerPoint file.

Although Google’s PowerPoint Viewer needs some polishing to be done, it’s still a reason to worry for Microsoft because most users, who purchase Microsoft’s Office Suite, use it to open the documents they receive and rarely to create new ones. Google’s Presentation App, which not just lets you to view, but also edit and create new presentations, is arriving this summer. Let’s keep our fingers crossed!

[via: Google Blogoscoped]

This post was published by on June 13, 2007

About the Author: Thilak Rao works as a Social Media Expert. He is one of the first professional bloggers from India, and he loves to write, travel and click photos. Follow him on Twitter @thilak

  • http://www.mrbambang.com mr.bambang

    Yeachh…I love Google so much. It also can’t host email with my own domain wtih all of Gmail services. And now, have new feature such as Power Point…hmm…I Like that… :)

  • http://www.avirtualexit.com Gili

    Gmail keeps adding features, as competence from Live and Yahoo get fiercer. Still web mail can improve a lot.

  • http://www.technologyevangelist.com Ed Kohler

    I used this for the first time yesterday and it worked great. It’s a major time saver vs. downloading and opening PPT.

  • Carmel0 Lisciotto

    It works ok…

    Carmelo Lisciotto

  • http://www.bidweblinks.com Wallace

    it is no doubt to use gmail instead of my own domain email.
    but i dont like the annoying advertisement indeed.