If you don’t have PowerPoint 2013 on your computer (or any other version of PowerPoint, for that matter), you can still view a PowerPoint presentation by using the PowerPoint 2013 Viewer. Use this link to download this useful free tool, install it and then you can view any presentation you like.
To install the viewer, download it to your computer and then double click PowerPointViewer.exe to run it. Follow the instructions on the screen to complete the installation. It’s a 60MB file, so depending on your internet connection, the download may take a while.
You can open, view and print presentations using the PowerPoint 2013 Viewer, but you cannot edit them. All transitions, videos and effects appear and behave in the same when viewed using the viewer as they do when viewed in PowerPoint 2013.
This viewer also supports opening password-protected Microsoft PowerPoint presentations.
PowerPoint 2013 Viewer even supports opening and viewing presentations created in PowerPoint 97 (and later versions). When you double click on a presentation, the viewer opens it only if a version of PowerPoint is not installed on the PC that is being used. If PowerPoint is installed, it opens the presentation and PowerPoint 2013 Viewer is not used. The viewer is used in PowerPoint’s absence.
You don’t have to double click on a presentation, though. You can run the viewer and the select a presentation to open using it. Click the Start button > Microsoft PowerPoint Viewer (you may have to search for it) and a navigation window will open for you to locate the presentation you need to open.
Find your presentation, select it and click Open. The presentation will open in the PowerPoint 2013 Viewer and will look just as it was intended. The jump to the next slide, press Enter on your keyboard or left click on the slide (as you would do if you were running PowerPoint itself). Press the escape key on your keyboard to close down the presentation and return to the navigation dialogue to choose the next presentation to view. When you don’t need the viewer any longer, close down the navigation window.