.PPT

Introduction

PPT is the binary presentation format of Microsoft PowerPoint 97 to 2003, and the default until PowerPoint 2007 replaced it with PPTX. PowerPoint still opens and saves it as “PowerPoint 97–2003 Presentation”. Earlier versions of PowerPoint also used .ppt for older formats of their own.

Microsoft publishes the format in full as [MS-PPT]. .pps is the same format saved to open straight into the slide show, and .pot a template.

Structure

The file is a compound file, which starts with the signature D0 CF 11 E0 A1 B1 1A E1 and holds named streams. The PowerPoint Document stream holds the presentation as a tree of records, each with an 8-byte header: a version and instance (2 bytes), a record type (2 bytes) and a length (4 bytes). Container records hold other records, so slides, masters, notes and the text and shapes on them nest inside each other. The Current User stream points to the latest edit in the document stream, because PowerPoint can save by appending changes. Pictures are kept in a Pictures stream.

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