Set the character PowerPoint 97 and the Viewer use in place of picture bullets

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You can use pictures as bullet characters in PowerPoint 2000 and beyond, but PowerPoint 97 and the free Viewer don't support picture bullets. When they open a presentation that uses picture bullets, they convert the bullet into a default bullet character. Depending on the chosen bullet font and default character, this may look silly ... the bullet could become a "d" or the like.

You can control the character that earlier versions of PPT use in place of picture bullets, though.
Here's how you do it for a text box. This should also work for the text placeholder on the master slide.

• Select the text box
• Choose Format, Bullets and Numbering
• Click Customize
• Pick From ASCII (it defaults to Unicode, don't want that)
• Pick a font or use default text (Arial's safe)
• Pick the bullet character you want. Decimal 149 is the normal small bullet.
• Click OK the click OK again.
.

Now go through the whole drill again but this time apply a picture as a bullet.

PowerPoint 2000 and on will use your picture bullets, but PowerPoint 97 and the viewer should use the bullet character you chose in the steps above.

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