July 1984: The idea was created

“Presentation Graphics for Overhead Projection”

Robert Gaskins was hired by Forethought Inc. as
vice president of product development. His task
was to create a new software for graphical
personal computers like Microsoft Windows and
Apple Macintosh. Already 1 month later, Gaskins
came up with the idea of PowerPoint. Back then,
the project description was labeled as
“Presentation Graphics for Overhead
Projection”. For the next year they continued to
work on the first specification of the software.
November 1984: Start of development
Development officially started under the name “Presenter”. However,
they started to work on the Macintosh version first. The first developer
besides Gaskin was Thomas Rudkin, who joined after 6 month
January 1987: Funding by Apple

To continue development, the team needed

more money. Apple's Strategic Investment
Group selected the company for its first
investment. One month later, when they
announced the software at the Personal
Computer Forum in Phoenix, famous Apple
CEO John Skully reportedly said “We see
desktop presentation as potentially a bigger
market for Apple than desktop publishing
21. January 1987: The name PowerPoint
was established
Originally, they chose to keep the name “Presenter” for the final software.
However, to everyone's surprise, when they tried to register the trademark,
their lawyers replied that the name was already used by another software
product. The team had to find a new name quickly and thought about
“SlideMaker” and “OverheadMaker”. According to Gaskins, one night he came
up with “Power point” randomly under the shower. Initially, nobody liked it,
but when his collegue Glenn Hobin independently had the same idea (he saw
a sign on an airport reading “POWER POINT”), they took it for an omen and
stuck with the name. The reason why the name now is a single word with an
upper-case P is that back then it was required in the naming of all Macintosh
software applications. The common belief that PowerPoint got its name
because it “empowers” people is therefore wrong.
20. April 1987: PowerPoint 1.0
(Macintosh)
The first 10.000 copies of the first
version of PowerPoint for Macintosh
shipped from manufacturing by
Forethought Inc. The release was
received quite well by the media,
commenting it “People will buy a
Macintosh just to get access to this
product.
July 1987: Acquisition by Microsoft
In early 1987 Microsoft started an internal project to develop a
software to “create presentations”. Shortly after, they heard that a
company called Forethought had nearly finished such a software. The
successful release of PowerPoint 1.0 convinced Microsoft to buy the
company entirely.
May 1988: PowerPoint 2.0 (Macintosh)
One year later, the second version of the software
was introduces. It included color, more word
processing features, find and replace, spell
checking, color schemes for presentations, guide to
color selection, ability to change color scheme
retrospectively, shaded coloring for fills.
May 1990: First Windows version of
PowerPoint
Almost 3 years later, the presentation
software was finally released for
Windows PCs. It was announced at the
same time as Windows 3.0 and was
using the same version number as the
current Macintosh variant (2.0).
May & September 1990: PowerPoint 3.0
It was the first application designed
exclusively for the new Windows 3.1
platform. New features were: full support
for TrueType fonts (new in Windows 3.1),
presentation templates, editing in outline
view, new drawing, including freeform
tool, flip, rotate, scale, align, and
transforming imported pictures into their
drawing primitives to make them editable,
transitions between slides in slide show,
incorporating sound and video.
February & October 1994: PowerPoint 4.0
The new version included among others:
Word tables, rehearsal mode, hidden slides.
Moreover, Microsoft first introduced a
standard "Microsoft Office" look and feel
(shared with Word and Excel), with status bar,
toolbars and tooltips.
July 1995: PowerPoint 95 (new version
naming)
To align PowerPoint with all other Office
applications, Microsoft decided to skip versions
5 and 6 and instead call it PowerPoint 95.
October 2003: PowerPoint 2003
The 2003 version was the first to include
the now called "Presenter View": tools
visible to presenter during slide show
(notes, thumbnails, time clock, re-order
and edit slides). Furthermore, it included
an option to "Package for CD" to write
presentation and viewer app to a CD.
January 2007: PowerPoint 2007
It brought a new user interface (a changeable
"ribbon" of tools across the top to replace
menus and toolbars), SmartArt graphics, many
graphical improvements in text and drawing,
improved "Presenter View" and widescreen slide
formats. Another major change was the
transition from a binary file format, used from
1997 to 2003, to a new XML file format.
June 2010: PowerPoint 2010
This release added: sections within
presentations, a reading view, save as video,
insert video from web, embedding video and
audio as well as enhanced editing for video
and for pictures.
October 2012: PowerPoint for Web was
released
The first time ever, the presentation
software could be used in your web
browser without any installation.
January 2013: PowerPoint 2013
• Changes: online collaboration by
multiple authors, user interface
redesigned for multi-touch screens,
improved audio, video, animations,
and transitions, further changes to
Presenter View. Clipart collections
(and insertion tool) were removed,
but were available online.
July 2013: First PowerPoint app for
Android & iPhone
Finally the famous presentation software came
on your mobile device with the first versions for
Android and iOS. Giving presentations but as
well basic editing of slides was already
supported on the small screens. However, there
wasn’t an iPad optimized version just yet.
September 2015: PowerPoint 2016

• Finally the famous presentation software came on your mobile device

with the first versions for Android and iOS. Giving presentations but as
well basic editing of slides was already supported on the small
screens. However, there wasn’t an iPad optimized version just yet.
September 2018: PowerPoint 2019

New things in 2019: Morph transition, easily remove image

backgrounds, inserting 3D models and SVG icons and a handy Zoom
feature.