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