How to Open Old PowerPoint Files

If you are running older versions of PowerPoint or Microsoft Office (like PowerPoint 2003 or 2000) and you want to open a PowerPoint presentation that was created in a recent version such as PowerPoint 2007, 2010, PowerPoint 2013, or Microsoft Office 360, then you can do that by installing a compatibility pack named Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack.

Learn How to Open Old PowerPoint Files

You can download and install the compatibility pack with updates so that you can open, edit, and save files that were created in newer versions of Microsoft Office, and also files that use a modern Open XML Format. The updates include all high priority updates from Microsoft Update and also the Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack.

Along the history of PowerPoint, there were different file formats and versions of PowerPoint available. However, the most popular ones were .ppt and .pptx file types.

You can use the Office Compatibility Pack together with Microsoft Office Word Viewer 2003, Excel Viewer 2003, and PowerPoint Viewer 2003 to view files that are saved in the new presentation file formats.

You may check the PPT version first, to understand what is the version of Microsoft PowerPoint that you have installed in your system.

It is important to note that depending on what version of Office that you are running, you must have Office 2003 Service Pack 3 (SP3) or Office XP Service Pack 3 (SP3) installed. If you are running Office 2000, you do not have to install any updates.