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Improve slide show performance

If your presentation seems to be running slowly, try one or more of the following:

Settings

• Reduce the resolution for the slide show presentation display.

  How?

  1. On the Slide Show menu, click Set Up Show.
  2. Under Performance, in the Slide show resolution box, click 640x480 in the list.

  Note  Changing resolution may cause the slide image to be slightly shifted. If this happens, either choose a different resolution or click Use Current Resolution.

• Set the color depth to 16 bit for optimal performance. For information on changing the number of colors displayed on your monitor, see Microsoft Windows Help.
• On the Slide Show menu, click Set Up Show. Under Performance, select the Use hardware graphics acceleration check box. If your computer has this capability, Office PowerPoint 2003 will attempt to use it.

Note  If you notice performance problems with the slide show after you change this setting, turn off the option. Your computer may not have this capability.

Animations

• Animation performance will be much better with a video card that has Microsoft Direct 3D. (Direct 3D is a component of Microsoft DirectX, which is a set of advanced multimedia system services built into the Microsoft Windows operating system.) Many video card manufacturers take advantage of this technology; check with the documentation you received with your computer to find out if Direct 3D is supported.
• Reduce the size of pictures and text that are animated. Click the picture or text placeholder, and drag the sizing handles to reduce the size of the object.
• Don't use animations that include fading, rotating, or scaling. You can replace these effects with other animations.
• Try not to use large gradients or transparent objects. Instead, choose solid color fills.
• Reduce the number of simultaneous animations. Try changing the simultaneous animations to sequential animations.
• Reduce the number of by-letter and by-word animations. For example, use these only for the title of a slide, instead of applying them to every bullet.