Drivel that cannot fit in a single panel comic.

Thursday, June 14, 2007

Bugs

I spent the afternoon tracking down a nice little PowerPoint 2007 problem.

A presentation was created in PowerPoint 2003. This presentation included embedded Flash and Shockwave files. The files play fine in 2003 and 2007 (as long as they are not saved in 2007). Changes were made to the presentation using 2007, now the Shockwave and Flash files do not work. Upon opening the presentation (saved in 2007) receive this message:

Some controls on this presentation can't be activated. They might no be registered on this computer.

This message appears whether opening in 2007 or 2003.

I spent several hours at the Microsoft site and other sites. A more qualified IT person spent several hours at the Microsoft site and other sites. Installing SwiffPlayer did not help. Anyway, all I can figure out is that 2007 causes some screw up with Active-X controls. From reading the forums on Microsoft's site, others are having the same problem. No solutions so far.

The person who made the presentation just informed me that the message does not appear if saved in the default 2007 format. Now the question is if it will play on a machine with 2003. According to Microsoft, it should.

Saving as a 2003 in 2007 causes a hiccup with the ActiveX controls. One would do that if trying to remain compatible with older versions.

The 2007 version is coming my way and I'm about to try it with my 2003.

Damn, received this message:

This file was created in a newer version of Microsoft Office PowerPoint. The file has been converted to a format you can work with, but ActiveX controls have been converted to static objects.

I'm downloading a file format compatibility converter from Microsoft to see if that solves the problem. Nope, the converter does not extend to ActiveX controls. Crap.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

HI :-)

I'm working on a ppt addin, and one of our customers complained on the same problem, he create presentation in ppt 2007 with flash video, then he save it in ppt format and opened with ppt 2003. He have the same message as you "this file was created in a newer version...". First thing to do was googling for an answer, and I find only your comment on this :-). Did you resolve this issue. I spend entire day on this, and I'm ready to quit :-(.

Best regards

Toonhead said...

Unfortunately, I did not resolve it and did not find a resolution at the Microsoft site (spent a couple of hours at the forums and knowledge base). The person doing the PowerPoint had to save it in 2007 and present it in 2007. Those with 2003 will not be able to see the flash.

The only other work around is to create another version in 2003 and save it in 2003. We found that the flash video worked in a 2003 created version of the presentation.

Unknown said...

Hi,

I get the same problem on my computer. A work around for me is to edit the presentation without viewing the slide show, then save. To test it view the slide show and close without saving. I think that powerpoint looses the plot over the flash object information once it has been viewed as part of a presentation.