Fixing PowerPoint Annoyances: How to Fix the Most Annoying Things about Your Favorite Presentation Program

2017-07-07 02:10:07

2.5. ACTIVATION, VERSIONS, AND CORRUPTION

2.5.1. Transfer Your Settings to a New Computer

THE ANNOYANCE: I'm getting a new computer next week, and I want to keep all my customizations. Is it possible to save them, or am I destined to hunt down individual toolbar files and such?

THE FIX: In Office XP and 2003, you can use the Save My Settings Wizard to save your customizations. Go to Start All Programs Microsoft Office Microsoft Office Tools Save My Settings Wizard. Unfortunately, the Save My Settings Wizard is no longer available for Office 2000.

If you just need your PowerPoint toolbar, you can try saving the *.pcb file and moving it to the appropriate location on the new computer. (This file is where PowerPoint stores all your customizations.) To locate your *.pcb file, right-click the Start button and select Search. Type *.PCB in the "file name" box, and remember to check both the "Search system folders" box and the "Search hidden files and folders" box. If you have multiple versions of PowerPoint installed, you may have multiple *.pcb files, too.

Microsoft Redefines the Centimeter

Microsoft, in its infinite wisdom, redefined the centimeter in PowerPoint 95, 97, and 2000. In those versions, 1 inch equals 2.4 centimeters instead of 2.54 centimeters (which is the conversion in the rest of the world).

If you're using one of these versions and need an accurate measurement on your printout, you can do a few different things.

If your printer driver allows it, set your print scale to 106%.

Right-click the object, choose Format AutoShape, and input the correct size on the Size tab.

Use inches instead of centimeters for your rulers (see "Make PowerPoint Rulers Show Centimeters") and uncheck the "Scale to fit paper" box in the Print dialog. For a conversion table showing inches, actual centimeters, and PowerPoint centimeters, visit http://support.microsoft.com/?id=189826.

Although it seems ridiculous and arrogant, Microsoft actually did this for a reason: they wanted PowerPoint's invisible one-pica grid to work consistently with either inches or centimeters. By making 2.4 centimeters equal 1 inch, it makes 12 grid units equal 1 inch and 5 grid units equal 1 centimeter. In PowerPoint 2002 and 2003, Microsoft centimeters equal "real" centimeters.

2.5.2. Office Tells Me to Reactivate

THE ANNOYANCE: I reformatted my hard drive and reinstalled Office a couple of weeks ago, and I keep getting a screen that says I have to activate. Why? I already activated when I installed Office the first time.

THE FIX: Yeah, certain changes to your computer, and sometimes a reinstall, will prompt Office to request activation. If you let it go long enough, your Office applications will revert to reduced-functionality mode. You should be able to start the Office applications 50 times before you have to activate.

Just follow the prompts to activate, or go to Help Activate Product. If youre unable to activate by Internet, choose the option to activate by telephone. The activation wizard will give you the appropriate telephone number to dial.

Microsoft has this to say about your privacy and Office activation: "During activation, the product ID and a non-unique hardware identification are sent to Microsoft. The product ID is generated from the product key used to install the software and a generic code representing the version and language of Office being activated. The non-unique hardware identification represents the configuration of your PC at the time of activation. The hardware identification does not include any personally identifiable information about you, any information about other software or data that may reside on your PC, or any information about the specific make or model of your PC.

The hardware identification identifies only the PC and is used solely for the purpose of activation. Office can detect and accept changes to your PC configuration. Minor upgrades will not require re-activation. If you completely overhaul your PC, you may be required to activate your product again."

2.5.3. Edit PPS Files

THE ANNOYANCE: Someone sent me a PPS file and I want to edit it. Someone else told me that you can't edit a PPS file. Who's telling the truth?

THE FIX: The only difference between a regular PowerPoint file (PPT) and a PowerPoint Show file (PPS) is the last letter, which tells Windows how to open the file. PPS files open in Slide Show view when double-clicked, and PPT files open in Normal (edit) view when double-clicked. PPS files can be edited. Simply open PowerPoint, go to File Open, navigate to the PPS file, and click Open. Voila!

2.5.4. Help Files Only Available Online

THE ANNOYANCE: Office 2003 really tires me. I hate having to be online to use the Help files.

THE FIX: Actually, you don't have to be online to use the Help files. A scaled-down version of Help ships with Office and is available on your hard drive. The benefit of using online Help is that it's continually updated based on customer feedback.

If you find that your Internet connection is too slow or otherwise interfering with your work, you can limit your searches in Help to just those files on your hard drive. In PowerPoint 2003, select Help Customer Feedback Options, choose the "Online Content category, and uncheck the "Show content and links from Microsoft Office Online" box (see Figure 2-20).

2.5.5. Understand the Background Printing Setting

THE ANNOYANCE: I get an mso9.dll error when I try to print. What do I do?

THE FIX: Select Tools Options, click the Print tab, and uncheck the Background printing box.

Contrary to popular belief, the Background printing setting does not help you print slide backgrounds. Rather, this setting prints your presentation as a background process so you can continue working in PowerPoint while you're printing. You might find it helpful if you're using a printer that relies on your computer's memory when it prints.

Figure 2-20. The Online Content settings determine whether you search online content or not when using the Help files.

2.5.6. Dealing with Different Versions of PowerPoint

THE ANNOYANCE: I use PowerPoint 2002 at home, but my office uses PowerPoint 2000. Will this cause me problems?

THE FIX: It shouldn't. The easiest solution is to disable the new features in PowerPoint 2002. Select Tools Options, click the Edit tab, and check the "New animation effects," "Multiple masters," and "Password protection boxes. That way you won't be tempted to use these new features that PowerPoint 2000 doesn't support. (Turning off "New animation effects" also turns off the new transitions, which include comb, fade smoothly, newsflash, push, various shapes, wedge, and wheel.)

These features can be turned off in PowerPoint 2003 as well. If you're only moving between PowerPoint 2002 and 2003, you don't need to worry about turning these features off, as the new animation, multiple masters, and password protection features are the same in these two versions.

If you already created a presentation using some of the new animations and transitions, and need to show the file to someone using PowerPoint 97 or 2000, you can download PowerPoint Viewer 2003 to show the presentation (http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=428D5727-43AB-4F24-90B7-A94784AF71A4&displaylang=en).

2.5.7. Password-Protect Your Presentations

THE ANNOYANCE: I don't want anyone to change my presentation. How can I protect it?

THE FIX: PowerPoint 2002 and 2003 offer password protection. To set or modify a password, select Tools Options and click the Security tab. You can also select File Save As, click the Tools button, and choose Security Options.

The PowerPoint Viewers

Microsoft has two PowerPoint Viewers, which you can download for free. Both allow people to view PowerPoint files without having to purchase and install the full PowerPoint application.

Both viewers have limitations, but generally, PowerPoint Viewer 2003 supports the new features introduced in PowerPoint 2002 and 2003, including passwords, multiple masters, and some animations and transitions. PowerPoint Viewer 97 is mostly useful for showing presentations created in PowerPoint 97 or 2000.

You can include the viewer(s) when you send a PowerPoint file to someone, or, better yet, just include a link to the appropriate download page on the Microsoft web site. PowerPoint Viewer 2003 is available at http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=428d5727-43ab-4f24-90b7-a94784af71a4&DisplayLang=en, and PowerPoint Viewer 97 is available at http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=7C404E8E-5513-46C4-AA4F-058A84A37DF1&displaylang=EN.

You can require a password to open the presentation, modify the presentation, or both. If you just want to prevent people from making changes to your file, enter a password in the "Password to modify" box (see Figure 2-21).

Figure 2-21. You can apply passwords to files in PowerPoint 2002 and 2003 using the Security tab.

If you protect a file with a password, the file can be opened only in PowerPoint 2002, 2003, or PowerPoint Viewer 2003. If you attempt to open a password-protected file in PowerPoint 97 or 2000, you will see the following error message: "PowerPoint can't open the type of file represented by <filename>."

Other options for protecting a presentation include creating a self-extracting file using WinZip (http://www.winzip.com/), distributing a PDF of the file, and creating a series of images of the slides. Or, consider using Secure Pack (http://skp.mvps.org/securepack/index.htm) to protect your files. You can download a free, 20-day trial version, but the retail version will cost you $100. For more information on each of these software packages, visit the PowerPoint FAQ (http://www.rdpslides.com/pptfaq/FAQ00038.htm).

2.5.8. My Presentation Is Corrupt

THE ANNOYANCE: A client emailed me her presentation, but I get an error message that says the presentation is corrupt. She worked on this thing for two weeks! Any way to recover the file?

THE FIX: Before you determine that the file is indeed corrupt, find out if a password was added to it in PowerPoint 2002 or 2003. If the file does have a password and you're trying to open it in a previous version of PowerPoint, you will receive the following error: "PowerPoint can't open the type of file represented by <filename>." Ask the person who created the file to resave it without the password, or use PowerPoint Viewer 2003 if you simply want to view the presentation.

If you're using PowerPoint 2003 and have problems opening files created in previous versions of PowerPoint, click Help Check for Updates and install the latest Service Pack (SP) or Service Release (SR) for Office 2003.

If you received the file as an email attachment, it may have become corrupted as it traveled through cyberspace. Ask the sender to zip the file using Microsoft Windows XP's built-in zip function or a program such as WinZip, and then resend.

You can also select Insert Slides From File, browse to the corrupt file, and click the Insert All button (see Figure 2-22). If Insert All fails to work, select and insert individual slides.

Figure 2-22. If you have a corrupt presentation, you may be able to recover at least part of it using Insert Slides From File.

If that doesn't work, try Impress, the presentations application found in the StarOffice (http://www.staroffice.com/) and OpenOffice (http://www.openoffice.org/) productivity suites. Because Impress does not include all of PowerPoint's functionality, or support certain elements in its import utilities, it may open files PowerPoint identifies as corrupt, allowing you to recover at least part of the presentation file.

Still stuck? The following steps show you how to open the file in Word.

Open Word and select File Open.

In the Open dialog box, choose "Recover Text from Any File" from the "Files of type" drop-down menu.

Navigate to your corrupt file, select it, and then click the Open button.

Prevent PowerPoint File Corruption

The following tips will help you prevent corruption of your PowerPoint files:

Never work from removable media. "Removable media" means anything other than your hard drive. Floppy disks, CD-ROMs, Zip or Jaz disks, USB flash drives, network serversany and all of the above count as removable media. If you value your work, use those media types only for transporting your files. If you have a file stored on some kind of removable media, use Windows Explorer to copy the file to your hard drive and then open it. When you finish working on the file, save the file to your hard drive, and then copy it to your removable media.

Turn off fast saves. Select Tools Options, click the Save tab, and uncheck the "Allow fast saves box.

Save, Save, Save. Select Tools Options, click the Save tab, and check the "Save AutoRecover info every x number minutes. If PowerPoint crashes, it may be able to retrieve some of your file. Note that this option does not perform a regular save every x number of minutes. It's up to you to save your work regularly. Press Ctrl+S or select File Save every now and then. And, of course, make sure you save to your hard drive, not to removable media.

Save As and save the file with a new name (for example, MyFile3.ppt). You can also use Sequential Save, a free add-in from Microsoft PowerPoint MVP Shyam Pillai, which makes this task much easier (http://skp.mvps.org/seqsave.htm).

Practice good hard drive maintenance. Good hard drive maintenance can help your computer run more smoothly and cut down on file corruption as well. Standard practices include searching for and deleting .tmp files, emptying the Temporary Internet Files folder, and running ScanDisk and Disk Defragmenter regularly.

Zip files before sending through email. Sending PowerPoint files as email attachments sometimes corrupts them, although this doesn't seem to happen nearly as often as it used to. As a precaution, you can use the built-in zip capability in Windows XP or a program such as WinZip to zip the files before you send them. Although zipping is often associated with compressing the file size, if you're using PowerPoint 97 or later, you probably won't see much file size benefit. You will, however, ensure that your PowerPoint file arrives at its destination intact.

If you are able to recover the text in Word, you can move the text back into PowerPoint. First, spend some time with the styles in Word so that the text ends up where you want it in PowerPoint. All text formatted as Heading 1 will become slide Title text in PowerPoint. Heading 2 styles will become primary bulleted text. Heading 3 styles will become secondary bulleted text, and so on. When you finish formatting the text, select File Send To Microsoft Office PowerPoint. Word starts PowerPoint if its not already running, creates a new presentation, and enters the text on the slides.

After you finish, return to the Open dialog box in Word and choose All Word Documents from the "Files of type" drop-down menu. Otherwise, you may see strange things happen when you subsequently open Word documents.

If you use CorelDraw or Presentations (part of the WordPerfect Office Suite), you can try to import the PowerPoint slides as a last-ditch effort to recover a corrupted file. You could also try PowerPoint Recovery (http://officerecovery.com/powerpoint/), which lets you recover corrupted presentations, although I have not had any luck using this tool. You can download a free demo, but the full version will cost you $149.

Unhide Windows File Extensions

Windows XP hides file extensions (.doc, .ppt, .xls, etc.). Talk about a dumb default! If you type the file extension along with the filename in the Save As dialog box, or change the filename in Windows by right-clicking and choosing Rename, Windows will append the file extension to the filenamebut you won't see it. So you can end up with files named presentation.pps.ppt and myfile.ppt.ppt. Of course, if you intended to create a .pps file by simply renaming the file in Windows, the file won't behave like a .pps if Windows automatically adds .ppt to the end.

To keep Windows from being so very helpful, open My Documents, select Tools Folder Options, click the View tab, and uncheck the "Hide extensions for known file types box.