The new PPT viewer was released last week and I have spent some time testing presentations with it.
First, this is not a light weight, quick download – but a full application at 60MB! It also needs to be truly installed vs. the previous versions that could be run directly from a CDROM or USB drive.
Aside from those two factors there is nothing but praise for the viewer at this point! It handles ALL animations, transitions, trigger events, media, etc. From what I have tested, it runs everything that the full application runs – yeah!
I do not have a KB article or other official document to verify this, but I was told the PPT 2010 viewer is basically the full PowerPoint application when it comes to viewing a slide show (hence the large install file). This allows the viewer to play everything the full application does AND it does all the backend stuff like hardware acceleration (not available in any previous viewer).
Get it from Microsoft, free here.
– Troy @ TLC