Howard,
You are correct. This was a change made in PPT 2007. Unfortunately, there is
no way to revert to the PPT 2003 style of handling.

Regards,
Shyam Pillai

Image Importer Wizard
http://skp.mvps.org/iiw.htm

"Howard Beale" <Howard Beale@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:B4F4AD5C-DA3D-457E-BCB5-2D763FB5AA07@microsoft.com...
> I'm using PowerPoint 2007, but working in legacy file format mode because
> some of my clients use PowerPoint 2003. I've noticed that PowerPoint 2007
> seems to treat master slide placeholders, particularly slide numbers,
> differently than in 2003. Specifically, slide number placeholders are
> showing
> up as manipulable objects on individual slides.
>
> This means I have to be very careful when using 'Select All', selecting
> multiple objects by dragging, etc. Is there any way to make PPT 2007 treat
> background objects the way 2003 did?
>
> Thanks.