Q A friend of mine has created a PowerPoint presentation and wants to give it to customers who don't have PowerPoint on their PCs.

A Microsoft provides special viewers for a number of applications, including PowerPoint, but you will need to know what operating system your customers will be using to view the presentation. Windows 95/NT users need ppview97.exe, while Windows 3.1 users require the 16-bit version ù ppview16.exe. You will find both viewers on this month's cover CD.

A word of warning: presentations created in PowerPoint 97 may appear different when run with the older viewer. This is because the 16-bit version can't read the newer formats directly, but must convert presentations to PowerPoint 4.0. If you know that your customer is running Windows 3.1, it's a good idea to save your slideshow in the earlier version before forwarding it.