Powerpoint not dependable -- far too many problems: very disappointed. Know something better?

[Anna]

Hi,

I have been using PP (2000 and then XP) for four-five years now as a
professional tool -- I teach sociology and I need someplace where to
collect my presentations for the classroom+my notes+links to resources
(images, movie files, and so on).

In time PP became my personal knowledgebase: after a couple of years
my file was 6MB, contained 300 slides with notes Now 7MB, 500 slides.

One and a half years ago, problems began: first my file got somehow
corrupted: couldnt be opened. I took me several hours of work to get
it somehow repaired, and something got lost anyhow.

Then one day my notes were lost. I know there was a note bug in PP97,
but this happended on PPXP, I swear. Luckily, I had a back up file,
but it took me another day of work to get me back where I was.

In the meantime I decided to save the embedded images as external
files, and to link to the files from within the slide: this way, I
thought, the file would be smaller and more handy -- less likely to
get corrupted again.

Last, a couple of days ago I find out all my link to external images
dont work anymore (what used to be /dir/image.jpg has been
misteriously transformed in .../.../dir/image.jpg): more days of work
lost.

At this point (a bit too late, you may say) I feel PP is not reliable
at all. Not a professional piece of software. I open my file, and am
afraid what is coming next.
Also, and most important, I have no sense I can check everything I
wrote or created is still there: what if I lost one or two notes
attached to my slides? it may take months before I come to know it.
And what if I keep on using it: in another couple of years' time I
would come up with 800 slides, with much more at risk.


Now, if you have any suggestion, that would be highly appreciated.
In particular:
- any hint on the link problem?
- any suggestion in general on another software that could do me good?

- I know many will say: break your file into smaller presentations;
well that would make the whole process I need to develop almost
impossbile: I need ONE single place from where to organize my work, my
notes, my files, my images, ecc,...

I tried OpenOffice, when I was in serach for somthing better, but it
ran too slow, and didnt cut a very good figure to me, all in all.

Please give me a hand, any help/suggestion/discussion will earn my
gratefulness.


Best,
Anna

 

[David M. Marcovitz]

Anna,

I'm not sure what you are trying to do with this big file that breaking
it into smaller files is problematic. You can link the smaller files
together, possibly having a separate file that is a menu with links to
all the other files. Perhaps, if you explain in more detail what you
want to do that prevents your breaking up the files we can give you a
better solution.

You might also want to look into the add-in that allows you to save
multiple versions of your file (someone, help me out here; I can't
remember where to find it off the top of my head). That is, if you save
the file, it retains the previous version you saved so if something gets
lost, you can go back a couple of versions and not lose so much work.

--David

--
David M. Marcovitz
Director of Graduate Programs in Educational Technology
Loyola College in Maryland
Author of _Powerful PowerPoint for Educators_
http://www.loyola.edu/education/PowerfulPowerPoint/

(e-mail address removed) (Anna) wrote in @powernews.inwind.it:

 

[Sonia]

Sequential Save by Shyam at http://www.mvps.org/skp/seqsave.htm

 

[David M. Marcovitz]

Thanks, Sonia. I did a quick search for "serial save" and got nothing.
--David

--
David M. Marcovitz
Director of Graduate Programs in Educational Technology
Loyola College in Maryland
Author of _Powerful PowerPoint for Educators_
http://www.loyola.edu/education/PowerfulPowerPoint/

 

[Anna]

David M. Marcovitz:

Anna,

I'm not sure what you are trying to do with this big file that breaking
it into smaller files is problematic. You can link the smaller files
together, possibly having a separate file that is a menu with links to
all the other files. Perhaps, if you explain in more detail what you
want to do that prevents your breaking up the files we can give you a
better solution.

David,

there are number of reason that make splitting my file not feasible:
- the most important is that I need to have everything at hand because
a lot of my work depends on making links, findind relationships, ecc,
Therefore the fact that I can preview all my slide in one window, can
move sets of slides back and forth when I need to rearrange things,
ecc, is of vital importance
- then there is a question related to slide numbering (wont be one
numbering but many; not good), slide format (if I change format it
wont aplly to all if they are in different files), printing will
become more complex (the more the files, the more I have to work to do
things such as printing, exporting to pdf, and so on)
- in general I have noticed in time the so many and so important
advantages of having one and only one such things as: one note file,
one personal root folder, one of everything; otherwise I'd go crazy
with all the material I find myself handling these days.

My best,
Anna

 

[Guest]

Anna,

Thanks for those answers. The next question is: Why do you use PowerPoint?
It sounds like you are maintaining a database, rather than creating a
presentation. Perhaps, Access is a better choice. With Access, you can set
up queries to select certain pieces of information and reports to print it
varying formats.

--David

David M. Marcovitz
Author of _Powerful PowerPoint for Educators_
http://www.loyola.edu/education/PowerfulPowerPoint/

 

[TAJ Simmons]

Anna,

Powerpoint is not bug free. Most software has a bug in it.

I feel that a lot of the problems you are experiencing is due to the shear number of slides in one file.

PowerPoint has limits. You seem to have found them.

First off.... how to avoid getting the file corrupt in the first place
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/assistance/HA011168771033.aspx

How to get "pathless" links (or fix your links) to images / videos etc
Sounds/Movies don't play, images disappear or links break when I move or email a presentation
http://www.rdpslides.com/pptfaq/FAQ00155.htm

- I know many will say: break your file into smaller presentations;
well that would make the whole process I need to develop almost
impossbile: I need ONE single place from where to organize my work, my
notes, my files, my images, ecc,...

I'm going to say ** Break it down!. **

By all means keep it in the same directory.

If you have worries over printing and slide numbers.... you can set each part/chunk/split to start from a slide number
you choose (File > Page Set up > start numbering slides from)

Then when you want to assemble your "current presentation". Open each part (say 4 files).
Then create a new presentation, then view > slide sorter > then copy and paste each slide you want into a new
presentation (or Insert > Slides from file).

Or consider getting a third party slide organizer searcher

http://www.accent-technologies.com/

or this
http://www.accent-technologies.com/powersearch/index.asp

Cheers
TAJ Simmons
microsoft powerpoint mvp

awesome - powerpoint backgrounds,
free powerpoint templates, tutorials, hints and tips etc
http://www.powerpointbackgrounds.com




"> Hi,

 

[Anna]

David M. Marcovitz:

Anna,

Thanks for those answers. The next question is: Why do you use PowerPoint?
It sounds like you are maintaining a database, rather than creating a
presentation. Perhaps, Access is a better choice.

Hi David,

I use PPT because I need presentations! I need a package that allows
me both to gather/organize knowledge AND to present it to others.

Any alternative to PPT?

Anna

 

[David M. Marcovitz]

I wonder if a database (like Access) to collect and organize your data
combined with PPTMerge
(http://www.rdpslides.com/pptools/merge/index.html) to merge that data
into PowerPoint might not be the best solution. Access will elegantly
(depending on your geeky or not-so-geeky definition of "elegantly")
manage all your stuff while the merge tool (I've never used it, but I'm
sure Steve can tell you if it will suit your purposes) will turn the
managed data into beautiful slides on an as-needed basis for
presentation.
--David

--
David M. Marcovitz
Director of Graduate Programs in Educational Technology
Loyola College in Maryland
Author of _Powerful PowerPoint for Educators_
http://www.loyola.edu/education/PowerfulPowerPoint/

(e-mail address removed) (Anna) wrote in

 

[Steve Rindsberg]

David M. Marcovitz:


David,

there are number of reason that make splitting my file not feasible:
- the most important is that I need to have everything at hand because
a lot of my work depends on making links, findind relationships, ecc,
Therefore the fact that I can preview all my slide in one window, can
move sets of slides back and forth when I need to rearrange things,
ecc, is of vital importance
- then there is a question related to slide numbering (wont be one
numbering but many; not good), slide format (if I change format it
wont aplly to all if they are in different files), printing will
become more complex (the more the files, the more I have to work to do
things such as printing, exporting to pdf, and so on)
- in general I have noticed in time the so many and so important
advantages of having one and only one such things as: one note file,
one personal root folder, one of everything; otherwise I'd go crazy
with all the material I find myself handling these days.

There are undeniable advantages to having all of your resources in one place.
There's also an undeniable problem with it: PowerPoint wasn't designed to do
the job.

However, there are quite a few apps that let you search a whole collection of
PPT files and assemble presentations from the slides found in them.
PointCapture and Presentation Librarian are two. There are others, and most
of them are available in inexpensive desktop versions; usually free demos are
available. I'd definitely have a look.

The workflow then becomes: choose the slides you want, import them into an
existing pres. or create a new one from them. You'd then be able to apply
design changes to all of the slides in the new pres w/o affecting your source
files.

If you need to handle lots of text notes, I'd highly recommend Ecco, a now-free
app that's a combination of PIM and outliner. VERY powerful, and rock-solid
reliable.



--
Steve Rindsberg, PPT MVP
PPT FAQ: www.pptfaq.com
PPTools: www.pptools.com
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Apologies for the delayed response.
Just back from PowerPoint Live 2004
Had a great time, learned a lot
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