Replies

Oooh, that’s a weird one. Do you have Norton Antivirus installed, by any chance? And Office XP SP-2? That combination tends to disrupt OLE embedded objects such as Excel charts, so who knows, it may be affecting this, too. There’s more info at http://www.rdpslides.com/pptfaq/FAQ00236.htm%5B/url%5D. I’m not sure anything there will help, but it would be worth a look.

Shyam Pillai has a program called Secure Pack that, I believe, also offers time restrictions. The target computers would need to have PPT installed, though; this addin isn’t designed to package the PPT file up with the Viewer or anything like that.

There’s a 30-day trial version of the program. Give it a shot.

Glad you got that figured out, Claude.

Just to add some information, no previous versions of PPT can open password protected PPT 2002 files. This is because, well, previous versions of PPT don’t even *know* what passwording *is*! (How’s that for anthropomorphization?) When users of previous versions attempt to open a passworded file, they’ll actually get an error message that states: “PPT can’t read .” This is similar to the type of message one would receive when attempting to open a corrupt file, so if you are using an earlier version of PPT and see this kind of error, it’s worth checking to make sure that the presentation wasn’t passworded.

Interestingly enough, when I was testing this to remind myself exactly what error I’d receive when trying to open a passworded presentation, I got the followng in PPT 97: “Memory is nearly full. You should save your work and close any other open presentations.” Funny, because PPT 97 will allow me to open a non-passworded presentation, even if I don’t shut down any other programs or presentations. And I’ve not seen this error before when attempting this exercise. (I suppose it could be related to betaware, though.)

I’ve seen only one report of toolbars not redocking properly after double-clicking an OLE object–in this case, it was with both MS Graph and Word tables. This was back in early 2001 over on the MS PPT newsgroup. We tried everything we could think of to pinpoint the issue. Never did figure out what caused the problem, but after the user double-clicked to edit an embedded Excel worksheet, all the toolbars magically started working properly again! So we never did really figure out the solution, either, but you might see if opening a Graph object or a Word toolbar “resets” them for you.

Sure wish I had a better answer for you. That one’s still a head scratcher.

In addition to the great info you’ve already received, MS MVP Shyam Pillai has a Capture Show addin that many people use to print out a slide as a series of animations. I don’t know if it will allow you to print just the first “slide” in the series (i.e., before the animations) without the rest, but it would be worth taking a look at. It’s free, so it won’t cost anything but time to try! http://www.mvps.org/skp%5B/url%5D

You’re welcome, Nancy.
You can also get to that dialog by going to Format/Autoshape while you have the autoshape selected. I just find right-clicking a bit easier.

Thanks, Wendell. I learn more and more each time I mess up!
I see the benefit of adding the KB article titles for the link description. Thanks for the info.

This is swiped from a list of spellcheck articles I keep hanging around for these questions. Not all of them will be relevant to your problem, but maybe some will give you some ideas. (These can be hard to diagnose without a lot of details, as you’ll see when you start reading the articles.)

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?…B;en-us;q241173%5B/url%5D
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?…B;en-us;q218537%5B/url%5D
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?…B;en-us;q214566%5B/url%5D
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?…B;en-us;q238546%5B/url%5D
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?…B;en-us;q245819%5B/url%5D
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?…B;en-us;q198198%5B/url%5D
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?…B;en-us;q245468%5B/url%5D
http://support.microsoft.com/?scid=kb;EN-US;Q305492%5B/url%5D
http://support.microsoft.com/?scid=kb;EN-US;Q185906%5B/url%5D

I’d first check your autoshape defaults for a shadow. It’s probably the one added from the shadow settings on the toolbar. Turn it off, then right-click the autoshape, choose format autoshape, then select the option for “default for new objects” on the resulting dialog box.

If the text is what’s shadowed–or is also shadowed–you’ll want to select the textbox, go to Format/Font, deselect the shadow option, and check the “default for new objects” box to create a new default font that has no shadow.

oops. Can one of the moderators fix the link with the double http:// please? (Still not used to these HTML boards, I guess!)
Thanks.

I’d also recommend Steve Rindsberg’s PPT2HTML for what you want to do here, Robert. (Sam gave you the link already.) I can tell you it really is an excellent product. It’s probably worth the money just to be able to stop beating your head against that proverbial brick wall!

Also, if I recall correctly, PPT 97 actually gave more control over whether the notes and outline panes showed in the final HTML, but I’m not absolutely sure of that.

Memory issues with Org Chart are usually related to having too many fonts installed. “Too many” is often a relative term, however, the usual sweet spot is to lower the number of fonts to below 500. Sometimes you’ll have to go even lower, though. Also, shortcuts in the WindowsFonts folder can cause similar errors in Org chart.

Then again, since logging on as an admin corrects the problem, it could be an issue with permissions. Check the info at http://www.rdpslides.com/pptfaq/FAQ00236.htm%5B/url%5D and at http://www.rdpslides.com/pptfaq/FAQ00023.htm%5B/url%5D for some things to try.

In addition to the recommendations you’ve already received, I’ve a number of workarounds for this listed on the multiple masters page of my site. URL’s in signature line.

I believe you’re referring to the ability to drag an object (or text) onto a placeholder and have the placeholder “grab” said object or text. That “feature” was removed in PPT 2002/XP, as it was confusing for many users. They couldn’t always understand why dragging something around on a slide resulted in the object becoming part of a placeholder.

I think this was supposed to be doable in PPT 2002/XP by holding down the ALT button while dragging the object to the placeholder, but it doesn’t seem to work.

I’ve not used the Projector Wizard in what seems forever. But if I have a chance to any time soon, I’ll play around and post back.

Probably the best thing to do, though, especially if nobody chimes in with better information than I’ve given you here (!!), is to just hook your laptop up to the projector and start the wizard. It can’t hurt anything!

Oh, and one thing to remember is to set your laptop back to primary when you’re finished. I’ve seen reports of people not being able to get PPT to “un minimize,” and it’s often because it’s still set to a secondary monitor.