Whether you are a student, a teacher, or an office worker, you must have heard of PPT when any speech or presentation is needed. PPT serves as wonderful assistance for people nowadays to present a detailed illustration of the point they try to make, leave a deeper visual impression on the audience, and help them quickly understand the speech.

But meanwhile, as a common office tool, the overall understanding of PPT is still on a surface level. In this post, we will give a general review of PPT to guide our readers to know what does PPT stand for.

What Does PPT Stand for

Short for PowerPoint, PPT stands for a presentation program containing a group of slides for displaying, which was originally developed by a software company in 1987. Then PPT is purchased by Microsoft and becomes an important part of the Microsoft Office suite.

The file extension of the PPT format is .ppt, and it is a binary file format acting as the default format from Microsoft PowerPoint 97 to Microsoft PowerPoint 2003. PPT files can add audio and visual elements, including text, graphics, embedded videos, and other multimedia, to greatly enrich a presentation.

However, a setback for the PPT format is that the file size can be so large that it might take more time to process or transfer if the PPT file contains too many images, audio, and so on.

PPT VS PPTX

These days, a new file format whose file extension resembles that of the PPT format is released on the market - PPTX. The similarity of the file extension between these two file formats triggers a question: Is PPTX the same as PPT?

PPTX is actually the new file format for PowerPoint. Since 2007, PPT has been replaced by PPTX as the default of Microsoft PowerPoint. It is a zipped XML-based file format which stores digital data in a compressed zip package and sharply reduces the file size. So is PPTX the same as PPT? The answer is clear. They are two different file formats.

Since the PPTX format becomes the successor of the PPT format, what are the advantages of the PPTX format compared to the other one? The PPTX format is better than the PPT format in the following aspects:

1.The PPTX format saves the file in a smaller size, releasing more space for users.

2.The PPTX format is more stable when opening or transferring a file, and is less likely to corrupt the file.

3.PPTX files are more compatible with different platforms and can preserve the backward compatibility while interoperating.

However, there is one fly in an ointment. Though the PPTX file can be viewed on many platforms or programs, it cannot be opened on the older Microsoft versions. In addition, the PPT format still could be used now.

It has been over 3 decades since the PPT format was initiated, and PPT has become an essential part of our life. Regardless of the face PPT is replaced by PPTX, PPT yet provides great convenience when delivering presentations.

In case you may need to convert PPT files into PDFs without changing the display in other screens for a better presentation, try SwifDoo PDF, a great PDF converter.

Lydia is an English columnist for AWZware. She is familiar with different technology products such as office software, location changers, and video software applications. Focused on tech blog writing, she is willing to solve your problems with up-to-date information.