I got an email from one of our newsletter subscribers, Mark, who had been checking out the Beta and was dismayed to find out that the "Insert from scanner" feature had been taken out of PowerPoint.

I must admit, I was surprised, because the 2007 release is supposed to be about uncovering "lost" features, not getting rid of them. And I sympathise with Mark because, as a teacher, not having this feature is probably going to double the amount of time it takes him to prepare lessons. (I'm also quite impressed - "high tech" lessons when I was at school meant a maths teacher using an overhead projector and a plastic "foil" to write up equations.) It certainly doesn't make for better results faster.

So where from here? The Office Online help provided the sort of clarity that can leave you tearing your hair out. Yes, it confirmed, the feature "Insert from scanner" was no longer available. It gave great instructions about inserting pictures from file, but diddly-squat about why this feature had been retired.

The PowerPoint newsgroup had nothing to add on the subject, but might be a good place to voice concerns. The PowerPoint blog has some really great info about picture layouts, and they are doing some seriously cool things with slides, all of which just makes the missing "Insert from scanner" even more frustrating.

Time to "Send a frown" I think.