If I understand what you are asking correctly, you want to be able to
replace some defined record placement markers within a presentation with a
recordset and have the output stored to a directory of almost identical
PowerPoint presentations.

Interesting.  No, PowerPoint can't do all that.  It can do a global find and
replace text.  But this would be one field at a time, one record at a time.
A macro could speed up the process.

Is this something that you would use very often?

Take a look at PPTMerge, an add-in for PowerPoint .  It might be what you
are looking for.  http://www.rdpslides.com/pptools/merge/index.html

[TOP ISSUE - Are you having difficulty opening presentations in PPT 2003
that you just created in PPT 2003? -
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=329820]

Hello,

PowerPoint doesn't provide the functionality that you are looking for
without resorting to VBA or add-ins.

If you (or anyone else reading this message) think that it's important that
PowerPoint provide this kind of functionality (without having to resort to
VBA or add-ins), don't forget to send your feedback (in YOUR OWN WORDS,
please) to Microsoft at:

http://register.microsoft.com/mswish/suggestion.asp

It's VERY important that, for EACH wish, you describe in detail, WHY it is
important TO YOU that your product suggestion be implemented. A good wish
submssion includes WHAT scenario, work-flow, or end-result is blocked by
not having a specific feature, HOW MUCH time and effort ($$$) is spent
working around a specific limitation of the current product, etc.  Remember
that Microsoft receives THOUSANDS of product suggestions every day and we
read each one but, in any given product development cycle, there are ONLY
sufficient resources to address the ones that are MOST IMPORTANT to our
customers so take the extra time to state your case as CLEARLY and
COMPLETELY as possible so that we can FEEL YOUR PAIN.

IMPORTANT: Each submission should be a single suggestion (not a list of
suggestions).