PP woes (says corrupt on open)

[Robie]

Hi

My users are complaining that their presentation are becoming corrupt or (worse) crashing PP presentations. I don't understand how this could be. OK, here the story.

1. I have created a PP template called say PP_NEW.dot. This also has a corresponding .PPA file for macros. All installed successfully on the network and users' PC for the .PPA file.
2. We also have another long standing PP template called say PP_A.dot (no .PPA). This is also in the same place on the network as per all other presentation templates.
3. Some users are complaining (even I can recreate this problem) is that when they open a previsouly created presentation (using PP_A.dot template), it either complains of corruption as soon as you open it or crashes after minor edits.
4. The users are blaming the new template PP_NEW for these issues. I don't understand how this can be possible when the original presentations were created using PP_A.dot.
5. I opened the same presentation at home (Windows XP/PP 2003) and it opened without any problems. Weird. (I have all the templates on local PC as per work).

pp corrupt.jpg

- This message is as soon as I open the presentation in Word2003 (funny thing is that it doesn't seem to show any messages when opened under PP2010).

We are using Windows 7/PowerPoint 2003.

Any ideas highly appreciated as I am under a cosh at the moment.

Thanks.

[HansV]

Although I haven't encountered this problem in PowerPoint (yet), I have seen similar issues with Excel workbooks in .xls format and Access databases in .mdb format that had been edited and saved in Office 2010. Even if you don't use any Office 2010-specific features, Office 2010 sometimes adds elements that Office 2003 cannot handle.
Has any of the files involved been saved from PowerPoint 2010?

[Robie]

Although I haven't encountered this problem in PowerPoint (yet), I have seen similar issues with Excel workbooks in .xls format and Access databases in .mdb format that had been edited and saved in Office 2010. Even if you don't use any Office 2010-specific features, Office 2010 sometimes adds elements that Office 2003 cannot handle.
Has any of the files involved been saved from PowerPoint 2010?

No - being opened on PP2003 (looks fine in 2010). The 'problematic' presentations were created few months ago on Windows XP pc using Word 2003. The only change has been a new PowerPoint 2003 template has been added to the list of PP templates.

Something I don't understand, which perhaps you can explain. How can a presentation created using template A can be affected by an addition of template Z?

[HansV]

The template PP_NEW.pot (I assume that you meant .pot instead of .dot) cannot have any effect on existing presentations. But the add-in (.ppa) is global, its code may affect all open workbooks.

[Robie]

The template PP_NEW.pot (I assume that you meant .pot instead of .dot) cannot have any effect on existing presentations. But the add-in (.ppa) is global, its code may affect all open workbooks.

Thanks - at least I am not going mad. In terms of PPA, I have put checks in the macro to only run if presentation is created using PP_NEW.POT, so hopefully it should not effect any other presentation.

Update: I still get the same problem after removing the ppa and all PowerPoint addins :-(.

[HansV]

I'm afraid I can't explain that (re: your update).

[DaveA]

See http://www.eileenslounge.com/viewtopic.php?f=28&t=6269" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

This worked for us when we got the same error message.

[HansV]

Good catch, Dave!

I had forgotten about that one.

[Robie]

See http://www.eileenslounge.com/viewtopic.php?f=28&t=6269" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

This worked for us when we got the same error message.

THANK YOU. That fixed the problem. :0)