Animation not rendering properly in PPT 2007

[Dave Jenkins]

Environment: XP SP3, Office 2007 SP1, NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GTX graphics

I'm having difficulty getting a certain set of animation to render properly
in PPT 2007.

You can go here (http://www.mediafire.com/?mww3qdkwhmm) to get a single
slide that contains some not-very-complicated animation. I’ve stripped away
lots of fluff, and got it down to a pretty simple case. I believe this slide
had its genesis as a .pptx, but when I got it, it was a .ppt.

It behaves well on 2003, and on one of the 2007 systems I’ve got. But on
another Office 2007 PC I use, it does not, for me – shapes 2 and 3 all show
up at the same time and only after I click the mouse or hit the space bar;
and (depending on how many shapes are involved, delay settings, etc.) the
user may have to click the mouse an extra time to get the slide to advance.


Here’s a link to short video [.swf] that displays what I’m talking about:
http://screencast.com/t/Wazqkq0H6 (In FireFox, I have to zoom out a few
notches in order to be able to see the entire screen. YMMV.)

Steve Rindsberg has suggested that I might jiggle the graphics accelerator
settings to slow things down, but it continues to fail on any of the settings
available to me. I've also modified the screen resolution, and that had no
effect on the rendering of the animation.

It appears to be something on this particular PC that’s interfering with the
correct rendering – anybody have any idea as to what that might be? Or other
things I might try to pin down the source of the problem?

Thanks.

 

[Troy Chollar]

First point is not critical to the example, but the sample is a .ppt - the
2003 format vs. the .pptx 2007 format.

Second, have you toggle on/off PPTs Hardware Acceleration? In PPT go to
SLIDE SHOW >> SET UP SHOW >> USE HARDWARE GRAPHICS ACCELERATION.

I have found that if your graphics card has only dedicated video ram then
turn on this setting. If the graphics card has no dedicated memory (shared
memory) or split dedicated/shared turn off this feature.

--
Troy
TLC Creative Services, Inc.
A MS PowerPoint MVP
www.tlccreative.com
www.ThePowerPointBlog.com

 

[Dave Jenkins]

Hi Troy:

Thanks for the advice.

Unfortunately, none of things you mention has worked. I did change the
accelerator use in Slide Show setup (didn't work), changed resolutions, etc.
- no appreciable difference in behavior.

I did discover one thing, however. If I change the second two animation
steps in my sample problem to run on a mouse click, everything works fine -
it's only when they're set up to run "After Previous" that the problem
occurs. Not sure how useful or informative that is, though... It's like the
function that tells step n that step n-1 has finished isn't working correctly.

--
Dave Jenkins
K5KX

First point is not critical to the example, but the sample is a .ppt - the
2003 format vs. the .pptx 2007 format.

Second, have you toggle on/off PPTs Hardware Acceleration? In PPT go to
SLIDE SHOW >> SET UP SHOW >> USE HARDWARE GRAPHICS ACCELERATION.

I have found that if your graphics card has only dedicated video ram then
turn on this setting. If the graphics card has no dedicated memory (shared
memory) or split dedicated/shared turn off this feature.

--
Troy
TLC Creative Services, Inc.
A MS PowerPoint MVP
www.tlccreative.com
www.ThePowerPointBlog.com

Environment: XP SP3, Office 2007 SP1, NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GTX graphics

I'm having difficulty getting a certain set of animation to render
properly
in PPT 2007.

You can go here (http://www.mediafire.com/?mww3qdkwhmm) to get a single
slide that contains some not-very-complicated animation. I've stripped
away
lots of fluff, and got it down to a pretty simple case. I believe this
slide
had its genesis as a .pptx, but when I got it, it was a .ppt.

It behaves well on 2003, and on one of the 2007 systems I've got. But on
another Office 2007 PC I use, it does not, for me - shapes 2 and 3 all
show
up at the same time and only after I click the mouse or hit the space bar;
and (depending on how many shapes are involved, delay settings, etc.) the
user may have to click the mouse an extra time to get the slide to
advance.


Here's a link to short video [.swf] that displays what I'm talking about:
http://screencast.com/t/Wazqkq0H6 (In FireFox, I have to zoom out a few
notches in order to be able to see the entire screen. YMMV.)

Steve Rindsberg has suggested that I might jiggle the graphics accelerator
settings to slow things down, but it continues to fail on any of the
settings
available to me. I've also modified the screen resolution, and that had
no
effect on the rendering of the animation.

It appears to be something on this particular PC that's interfering with
the
correct rendering - anybody have any idea as to what that might be? Or
other
things I might try to pin down the source of the problem?

Thanks.

 

[Enric Mañas]

Dave,

Round-trip "Animation_Problem.ppt" and check it again...

HTML "Round-tripping" to repair corruption
http://www.pptfaq.com/FAQ00526.htm

(Round-trip it on 2003)

Very cordialmente

Enric
--
Enric Mañas [PowerPoint MVP]

Hi Troy:

Thanks for the advice.

Unfortunately, none of things you mention has worked. I did change the
accelerator use in Slide Show setup (didn't work), changed resolutions,
etc.
- no appreciable difference in behavior.

I did discover one thing, however. If I change the second two animation
steps in my sample problem to run on a mouse click, everything works
fine -
it's only when they're set up to run "After Previous" that the problem
occurs. Not sure how useful or informative that is, though... It's like
the
function that tells step n that step n-1 has finished isn't working
correctly.

--
Dave Jenkins
K5KX

First point is not critical to the example, but the sample is a .ppt -
the
2003 format vs. the .pptx 2007 format.

Second, have you toggle on/off PPTs Hardware Acceleration? In PPT go to
SLIDE SHOW >> SET UP SHOW >> USE HARDWARE GRAPHICS ACCELERATION.

I have found that if your graphics card has only dedicated video ram then
turn on this setting. If the graphics card has no dedicated memory
(shared
memory) or split dedicated/shared turn off this feature.

--
Troy
TLC Creative Services, Inc.
A MS PowerPoint MVP
www.tlccreative.com
www.ThePowerPointBlog.com

Environment: XP SP3, Office 2007 SP1, NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GTX graphics

I'm having difficulty getting a certain set of animation to render
properly
in PPT 2007.

You can go here (http://www.mediafire.com/?mww3qdkwhmm) to get a single
slide that contains some not-very-complicated animation. I've stripped
away
lots of fluff, and got it down to a pretty simple case. I believe this
slide
had its genesis as a .pptx, but when I got it, it was a .ppt.

It behaves well on 2003, and on one of the 2007 systems I've got. But
on
another Office 2007 PC I use, it does not, for me - shapes 2 and 3 all
show
up at the same time and only after I click the mouse or hit the space
bar;
and (depending on how many shapes are involved, delay settings, etc.)
the
user may have to click the mouse an extra time to get the slide to
advance.


Here's a link to short video [.swf] that displays what I'm talking
about:
http://screencast.com/t/Wazqkq0H6 (In FireFox, I have to zoom out a
few
notches in order to be able to see the entire screen. YMMV.)

Steve Rindsberg has suggested that I might jiggle the graphics
accelerator
settings to slow things down, but it continues to fail on any of the
settings
available to me. I've also modified the screen resolution, and that
had
no
effect on the rendering of the animation.

It appears to be something on this particular PC that's interfering
with
the
correct rendering - anybody have any idea as to what that might be? Or
other
things I might try to pin down the source of the problem?

Thanks.

 

[Dave Jenkins]

Thanks, Enric.

However, that didn't help. Any other suggestions?

--
Dave Jenkins
K5KX

Dave,

Round-trip "Animation_Problem.ppt" and check it again...

HTML "Round-tripping" to repair corruption
http://www.pptfaq.com/FAQ00526.htm

(Round-trip it on 2003)

Very cordialmente

Enric

[snip]

 

[Enric Mañas]

Dave ,

However, that didn't help.

I disagree... your bloated 361 Kb presentation must weight now 80,5 Kb

;-)

and some problems that you are not noticing have disappeared

Any other suggestions?

1. Don't keep using "2007createdpresentations" on 2003 (you'll live longer
and happier ;-) )

2. Trust Steve Rindsberg and Troy Chollar

3. Pin the problem creating a *NEW* presentation on 2003 with 3 *new*
rectangles &/or text boxes and using the same animations and run it on PPT
2007. Do you get the same results?

then...

4. (It won't hurt) Run the Diagnostics on Office 2007

5. (What is it?) Uninstall WIS Pubs Tools and check again

6. Start 2007 while holding Ctrl key

Very cordialmente

Enric
--
Enric Mañas [PowerPoint MVP]

Thanks, Enric.

However, that didn't help. Any other suggestions?

--
Dave Jenkins
K5KX

Dave,

Round-trip "Animation_Problem.ppt" and check it again...

HTML "Round-tripping" to repair corruption
http://www.pptfaq.com/FAQ00526.htm

(Round-trip it on 2003)

Very cordialmente

Enric

[snip]

 

[Dave Jenkins]

Well, that's certainly a lot to chew on. Let's take 'em one by one.

First: Don't really understand your comment at all about file sizes - can
you elaborate? You're saying that some of the things I've tried will result
in a reduced file size? And that I may have removed some other problems that
I have heretofore not noticed? Is that it? And if so, what might some of
those problems be?
1. I am running on PPT 2007, not 2003. The file in which I first noticed
this problem was a .ppt file - that file was created (or at least touched) by
a 2007 system before I received it as a .ppt file.
2. I trust Steve implicitly and am in frequent communication with him on
this and other issues. I don't know Troy outside of this forum, but under
any circumstances I never meant to imply any distrust of what he has to say -
that's something you perhaps improperly inferred, I think.
3. I have not tried that, but will. Going the other direction, however, I
find that a presentation containing the animation in question renders just
fine on a 2003 system and on another 2007 system (as I said earlier) - the
problem seems to be associated with a single 2007 system.

Aha! You may be on to something, but I'm not quite sure what. I created a
test slide in 2007 with the animation in question, and it runs just fine on
the PC where I was having the problems. I saved it as both a .pptx and as a
..ppt - both behaved quite nicely. I created a similar slide in 2003 and
saved it as both .pptx and .ppt. I then opened it in the 2007 system in
question, and again - both rendered correctly.

So it appears that this problem is associated with the specific file I
received, in conjunction with the specific 2007 system that I'm running. As
far as I can tell, all the 2007 systems are at the same update level, (but
they do have different graphics cards.)

Do you suppose it could be a Compatibility Pack incompatibility between my
system (where I'm reading the file as a .ppt) and the system where it was, at
some point, converted from .pptx to .ppt? I'm inclined to think not, because
the animation in question a) plays correctly from within the IDE, and b) the
timeline display shows it timed correctly (displaying each shape After
Previous, as specified in the animation step)
4. The diagnostics reported that they had corrected one setup problem (but
they don't report which one). No other problems were found. Problem
persists after the diagnostics were run.
5. I have run all my tests both with and without the Tools add-in (as well
some others) installed - makes no visible difference.
6. What does that do? I've never used that before ... Are you saying
double-click the .exe filename with Ctrl held down?


Dave Jenkins
K5KX

Dave ,

However, that didn't help.

I disagree... your bloated 361 Kb presentation must weight now 80,5 Kb

;-)

and some problems that you are not noticing have disappeared

Any other suggestions?

1. Don't keep using "2007createdpresentations" on 2003 (you'll live longer
and happier ;-) )

2. Trust Steve Rindsberg and Troy Chollar

3. Pin the problem creating a *NEW* presentation on 2003 with 3 *new*
rectangles &/or text boxes and using the same animations and run it on PPT
2007. Do you get the same results?

then...

4. (It won't hurt) Run the Diagnostics on Office 2007

5. (What is it?) Uninstall WIS Pubs Tools and check again

6. Start 2007 while holding Ctrl key

Very cordialmente

Enric
--
Enric Mañas [PowerPoint MVP]

Thanks, Enric.

However, that didn't help. Any other suggestions?

--
Dave Jenkins
K5KX

Dave,

Round-trip "Animation_Problem.ppt" and check it again...

HTML "Round-tripping" to repair corruption
http://www.pptfaq.com/FAQ00526.htm

(Round-trip it on 2003)

Very cordialmente

Enric

[snip]

 

[Enric Mañas [PowerPoint MVP]]

Dave,

Sorry, unwanted delay, seems as if there are problems and posts are not
replicated through OE and I’ve had to look specifically for yours on the web
interface…

First: Don't really understand your comment at all about file sizes - can you elaborate?

Sure, if you had Round-tripped (using 2003) you would have noticed that your
ppt would have decreased to 84.0 Kb. It would have been “cleanedâ€.

You're saying that some of the things I've tried will result in a reduced file size?

No… you told that you had deleted some things. That will never “clean†a ppt
that has been going from 2003 to 2007 to 2003 to 2007 to 2003…

And that I may have removed some other problems that I have heretofore not noticed? Is that it? And if so, what might some of those problems be?

As far as you don’t round-trip it on 2003 you are not removing problems.

IMHO the *least* of your problems is “Animation_Problem.ppt†not animating
properly…

;-) <-- *That* means me trying to be sympathetic, and I’m sure that my
English must improve…

Animation_Problem.ppt

Was created on 8th May 2008 but printed on 14th June 2007. (It is funny, but
*that* is not a problem for the animations...).
Uses, has in it, Arial Unicode MS (isn't this one the same "template" you
had problems some time ago?) (*That* is not, probably, a problem for the
animations...).
Has 19 “Tags†(Do you need them?) (*That* is not, also probably, a problem
for the animations...).

Open Selection Pane on 2007 > select TextBox 77 > copy it > paste it > you
have now “2†TextBox 77... repeat the pasting... how many TextBox 77 do you
get?

(You'll get *the same results* when copy-pasting the other Text Boxes or
Rectangles)

(And you'll see, also, Rectangle 86)

If you open it on 2003, and go to 1-SAP-corporate2008 (the Title Master will
have *2* “Rectangle 3†(one for the orange rectangle and one for “Click to
edit Master text stylesâ€). In 2003 you can use the “Layer Manager†on RnR
StarterSet or
http://microsoft-powerpoint-tips.blogspot.com/2007/07/select-multiple-objects.html


Why? Because you are using a ppt that has gone to and from, at least, 2003
and 2007. *I* (that means that this is *my* opinion) tell you… If you are
going to use a ppt use 2003, if you are going to use a pptx use 2007 (and
you'll live longer and happier ;-) )
http://www.indezine.com/products/powerpoint/ppversionhell.html

*I* would start from scratch creating a brand new presentation… *not*
copying the items on *that* presentation...

1. I am running on PPT 2007, not 2003. The file in which I first noticed this problem was a .ppt file - that file was created (or at least touched) by a 2007 system before I received it as a .ppt file.

That was my fault, I assumed that you had both, 2003 & 2007, installed.

2. I trust Steve implicitly and am in frequent communication with him on this and other issues. I don't know Troy outside of this forum, but under any circumstances I never meant to imply any distrust of what he has to say - that's something you perhaps improperly inferred, I think.

No… just trying to be sympathetic, again, if using a non-corrupted
presentation, it is *good advice* (“Steve Rindsberg has suggested that I
might jiggle the graphics accelerator settings to slow things down,†or
“Second, have you toggle on/off PPTs Hardware Acceleration?â€) to check all
these settings for “an animation problemâ€â€¦ But you don’t have *only* an
animation problem… you have *a problematic presentation with many problems*…
(but those are *problems* that can be “seen†*only* having the presentation,
Thanks for uploading it!) and if you keep using that presentation as it is
now… (just as a test for “animation problems†or as a Master for making more
presentations) you’ll keep having problems.

3. I have not tried that, but will. Going the other direction, however, I find that a presentation containing the animation in question renders just fine on a 2003 system and on another 2007 system (as I said earlier) - the problem seems to be associated with a single 2007 system.

IMO… The problem is *in the presentation*…

Aha! You may be on to something, but I'm not quite sure what. I created a test slide in 2007 with the animation in question, and it runs just fine on the PC where I was having the problems. I saved it as both a .pptx and as a .ppt - both behaved quite nicely. I created a similar slide in 2003 and saved it as both .pptx and .ppt. I then opened it in the 2007 system in question, and again - both rendered correctly.

Isn’t that a demonstration that the problem is in *that other* presentation
and *not* on any presentation created from scratch?…

“Don’t edit files through a cycle of version pairs. This could be something
like this: you created the presentation in PowerPoint 2003, then made changes
in 2007 using the compatibility mode, and saved again – and kept alternating
between versions.â€

http://www.indezine.com/products/powerpoint/ppversionhell.html#conclusion

So it appears that this problem is associated with the specific file I received, in conjunction with the specific 2007 system that I'm running. As far as I can tell, all the 2007 systems are at the same update level, (but they do have different graphics cards.)

Something might be different… I do not know *what*.

Do you suppose it could be a Compatibility Pack incompatibility between my system (where I'm reading the file as a .ppt) and the system where it was, at some point, converted from .pptx to .ppt? I'm inclined to think not, because the animation in question a) plays correctly from within the IDE, and b) the timeline display shows it timed correctly (displaying each shape After Previous, as specified in the animation step)

No… I’m *sure* that… Do I need to say what I’m sure?

;-)

4. The diagnostics reported that they had corrected one setup problem (but they don't report which one).

*Unfortunately* it does never report which one…

No other problems were found. Problem persists after the diagnostics were run.

I wrote… (after the “thenâ€) 4. (It won't hurt) Run the Diagnostics on Office
2007

It doesn’t hurt and if there is something wrong “Diagnostics†will take care
of it. But if the problem is *in* the presentation... then... Diagnostics
won’t help too much.

5. I have run all my tests both with and without the Tools add-in (as well
some others) installed - makes no visible difference.

I had to ask…

6. What does that do? I've never used that before ... Are you saying
double-click the .exe filename with Ctrl held down?

Yes… or the shortcut to the exe, or a presentation… double-click the pptx
(or the ppt) you’ll be asked if you want to start PowerPoint in “safe modeâ€â€¦

How to start Office in Safe Mode
http://www.pptfaq.com/FAQ00452.htm

Very cordialmente

Enric

 

[Dave Jenkins]

Wow - again a lot to chew on!

Dave,
[snip]

Animation_Problem.ppt

Was created on 8th May 2008 but printed on 14th June 2007. (It is funny, but
*that* is not a problem for the animations...).
Uses, has in it, Arial Unicode MS (isn't this one the same "template" you
had problems some time ago?) (*That* is not, probably, a problem for the
animations...).

As I said, I can tell by looking at the innards of the file that it was
edited at some point by a 2007 system. Beyond that, it's hard to tell the
*complete* history of this thing. Suffice to say, these files just show up
and we have to go to work on them.

Has 19 “Tags†(Do you need them?) (*That* is not, also probably, a problem
for the animations...).

Oh, yes - all those tags are used extensively. I'm in the business of
editing PowerPoint files submitted by speakers for conferences that we put
on. We receive literally thousands of these files annually. The Tools that
you mentioned earlier are a set of company-specific things that help us
automate (to some extent) the editing process. They range from provision for
regular expression search/replace to locating and testing URLs to removing
invisible shapes to finding any shape that extends outside a slide to ...

[snip]

Why? Because you are using a ppt that has gone to and from, at least, 2003
and 2007. *I* (that means that this is *my* opinion) tell you… If you are
going to use a ppt use 2003, if you are going to use a pptx use 2007 (and
you'll live longer and happier ;-) )
http://www.indezine.com/products/powerpoint/ppversionhell.html

Oh, I do agree with you. Trust me. ( ) However, the client company for
which we do this work is, at this time, unwilling to undertake a dual-version
production strategy. Nor can they dictate to their speakers a development
version. There are cost, political, and a host of other overtones to the
entire issue.

*I* would start from scratch creating a brand new presentation… *not*
copying the items on *that* presentation...

Unfortunately, that's not possible - we have no real control over the
development processes used by the third parties that provide us these files.

That was my fault, I assumed that you had both, 2003 & 2007, installed.

Just to make sure: For the pruposes of this discussion assume that I have
three PCs: one of which is PPT 2003 (only) and 2 of which are PPT 2007 (only).

IMO… The problem is *in the presentation*…

Well, I would certainly agree with that, but I think the symptoms of the
problem are triggered only be the specific combination of the problem
(whatever it is) and the particular combination of hardware and software on
just one of my PPT 2007 PCs, since using the same problem file on the *other*
PPT 2007 PC doesn't exhibit the symptoms we've been discussing.

I'd like to find out then, what is on the "error" 2007 PC that's interacting
with whatever is in the problem file to result in the symptoms that we see.
If I knew that, then I could perhaps concoct some sort of workaround that
would aloow us to circumvent the problem.

“Don’t edit files through a cycle of version pairs. This could be something
like this: you created the presentation in PowerPoint 2003, then made changes
in 2007 using the compatibility mode, and saved again – and kept alternating
between versions.â€

Again: Very good advice, but I don't know how to adopt that in this
particular situation.

*Unfortunately* it does never report which one…

Yeah. Glumly.

6. What does that do? I've never used that before ... Are you saying
double-click the .exe filename with Ctrl held down?

Yes… or the shortcut to the exe, or a presentation… double-click the pptx
(or the ppt) you’ll be asked if you want to start PowerPoint in “safe modeâ€â€¦

How to start Office in Safe Mode
http://www.pptfaq.com/FAQ00452.htm

Thanks for that tip.

And thanks for your other insights, too.

 

[Enric Mañas [PowerPoint MVP]]

Wow - again a lot to chew on!

;-)

I’m very pleased…

[snip]

Beyond that, it's hard to tell the *complete* history of this thing. Suffice to say, these files just show up and we have to go to work on them.
tags are used extensively. I'm in the business ...

Thanks for your explanations… I make them only by hundreds…

;-)

[snip]

Oh, I do agree with you. Trust me. ( ) However, the client
unwilling to undertake a dual-version production strategy
Nor can they dictate to their speakers a development version.
There are cost, political, and a host of other overtones to the entire issue.
Unfortunately, that's not possible
we have no real control over the development processes used by the third parties that provide us these files.

I’m sorry for you…

;-)


[snip]

I have three PCs: one of which is PPT 2003 (only) and 2 of which are PPT 2007 (only).
I'd like to find out then, what is on the "error" 2007 PC that's interacting with whatever is in the problem file to result in the symptoms that we see. If I knew that, then I could perhaps concoct some sort of workaround that would aloow us to circumvent the problem.

OK. You have the software, the ppt and the hardware…

Then do the round-trip on 2003.
The ppt must weight, once round-tripped, 80.5 Kb
(look also for “A tool to "round-trip" a presentation to HTML and back; this
can help solve problems with corrupted PowerPoint files. While
round-tripping, it can also remove references to East Asian fonts.†in
http://www.pptools.com/starterset/index.html and use it) (make a version
without Arial Unicode MS http://www.pptools.com/starterset/FAQ00033.htm
)

Does the round-tripped ppt exhibit the problem in the 2007 where it does?

You’ll have now one/or two “bad ppt†with less bytes to check where the
problem is…

You can… (for example)

Delete masters one by one > Check
Delete elements one by one > Check
Apply another template > Check
Delete animations > Check
Apply again the animations > Check

It is up to you…

;-)

Thanks for that tip.
And thanks for your other insights, too.

…a *real* pleasure…

Very cordialmente

Enric
--
Enric Mañas [MS MVP Office - PowerPoint]

Wow - again a lot to chew on!

Dave,
[snip]

Animation_Problem.ppt

Was created on 8th May 2008 but printed on 14th June 2007. (It is funny, but
*that* is not a problem for the animations...).
Uses, has in it, Arial Unicode MS (isn't this one the same "template" you
had problems some time ago?) (*That* is not, probably, a problem for the
animations...).

As I said, I can tell by looking at the innards of the file that it was
edited at some point by a 2007 system. Beyond that, it's hard to tell the
*complete* history of this thing. Suffice to say, these files just show up
and we have to go to work on them.

Has 19 “Tags†(Do you need them?) (*That* is not, also probably, a problem
for the animations...).

Oh, yes - all those tags are used extensively. I'm in the business of
editing PowerPoint files submitted by speakers for conferences that we put
on. We receive literally thousands of these files annually. The Tools that
you mentioned earlier are a set of company-specific things that help us
automate (to some extent) the editing process. They range from provision for
regular expression search/replace to locating and testing URLs to removing
invisible shapes to finding any shape that extends outside a slide to ...

[snip]

Why? Because you are using a ppt that has gone to and from, at least, 2003
and 2007. *I* (that means that this is *my* opinion) tell you… If you are
going to use a ppt use 2003, if you are going to use a pptx use 2007 (and
you'll live longer and happier ;-) )
http://www.indezine.com/products/powerpoint/ppversionhell.html

Oh, I do agree with you. Trust me. ( ) However, the client company for
which we do this work is, at this time, unwilling to undertake a dual-version
production strategy. Nor can they dictate to their speakers a development
version. There are cost, political, and a host of other overtones to the
entire issue.

*I* would start from scratch creating a brand new presentation… *not*
copying the items on *that* presentation...

Unfortunately, that's not possible - we have no real control over the
development processes used by the third parties that provide us these files.

That was my fault, I assumed that you had both, 2003 & 2007, installed.

Just to make sure: For the pruposes of this discussion assume that I have
three PCs: one of which is PPT 2003 (only) and 2 of which are PPT 2007 (only).

IMO… The problem is *in the presentation*…

Well, I would certainly agree with that, but I think the symptoms of the
problem are triggered only be the specific combination of the problem
(whatever it is) and the particular combination of hardware and software on
just one of my PPT 2007 PCs, since using the same problem file on the *other*
PPT 2007 PC doesn't exhibit the symptoms we've been discussing.

I'd like to find out then, what is on the "error" 2007 PC that's interacting
with whatever is in the problem file to result in the symptoms that we see.
If I knew that, then I could perhaps concoct some sort of workaround that
would aloow us to circumvent the problem.

“Don’t edit files through a cycle of version pairs. This could be something
like this: you created the presentation in PowerPoint 2003, then made changes
in 2007 using the compatibility mode, and saved again – and kept alternating
between versions.â€

Again: Very good advice, but I don't know how to adopt that in this
particular situation.

*Unfortunately* it does never report which one…

Yeah. Glumly.

6. What does that do? I've never used that before ... Are you saying
double-click the .exe filename with Ctrl held down?

Yes… or the shortcut to the exe, or a presentation… double-click the pptx
(or the ppt) you’ll be asked if you want to start PowerPoint in “safe modeâ€â€¦

How to start Office in Safe Mode
http://www.pptfaq.com/FAQ00452.htm

Thanks for that tip.

And thanks for your other insights, too.

 

[Enric Mañas [PowerPoint MVP]]

Steve,

the shortcut to the exe, or a presentation… double-click the pptx (or the ppt) you’ll be asked if you want to start PowerPoint in “safe modeâ€â€¦

Is... "double-click the pptx (or the ppt)" while holding Ctrl... *worth* to
be added?

How to start Office in Safe Mode
http://www.pptfaq.com/FAQ00452.htm

;-)

 

[Dave Jenkins]

Here are some things I've tried:

1. Round-tripped file on the "bad" 2007 system - no difference in outcome
2. Round-tripped the "bad" file in 2003, and then tested in 2007 - no
difference in outcome
3. Removed 11 (yes - 11!) masters from the "bad" file in 2007 - no difference
4. Tested using a few of the other masters - no difference
5. Removed the second of the three shapes - no difference
6. Changed the animation type of the second shape. The resulting animation
was different, but still anomalous. For instance, when I changed it to Wipe
from the Left, I still had to do a second mouse click to start the second
shape (even though it was specified to start "after previous"), When I
clicked, what I got was a vertical line representing the left edge of the
text box, and when I clicked again, the rest of the box appeared all at once
(no wipe effect). Other animation types produced equally bizarre results.

I am going to continue to experiment, but I had a brainstorm: I already
know that a file created from scratch in 2007 will work just fine. So I will
create one that looks just like the "bad" one, and I will then do a file
compare on the zillions of files created in the .pptx's to see where the
difference lies (there *has* to be a difference - right?) and maybe that will
provide some sort of clue.

 

[Dave Jenkins]

I'll give that a try. Learn something new every day in this business, don't
we ...

 

[Dave Jenkins]

Well, I believe I've isolated the triggering factor.

Early on in this thread, someone mentioned unloading/removing a Tools add-in
that I've written. Which I did (it didn't make any difference). I also said
that I had unloaded/removed some others. Which I did (they didn't make any
difference either).

But I did *not* remove or unload Shyam's Capture Show add-in. (Don't know
why -- I just didn't.) Today, I unloaded it, and the animation problem went
away. I don't have that add-in installed on my other systems, so that's
apparently why I had no problems on those.

I've run a number of tests, and it appears to be that add-in only that
causes these results I've been reporting. That is, I've been unable to find
any interaction between it and any of the other add-in I use. Note that in
none of this activity I have never actually *Begun* a capture using Capture
Show - the add-in has just been loaded all this time.

Now that I know how to circumvent this issue, the problem has lost all
aspects of being a show-stopper. I want to thank you all for the good advice
and helpful tips - I learned a lot.

Having said all this, I have to ask: Do any of you who used my test file and
reported no problems with it also have the Capture Show add-in
installed/loaded?

And finally: If you think there are more diagnostic activities I should
undertake to more thoroughly define the problem, please do let me know.

--
Dave Jenkins
K5KX

Environment: XP SP3, Office 2007 SP1, NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GTX graphics

I'm having difficulty getting a certain set of animation to render properly
in PPT 2007.

You can go here (http://www.mediafire.com/?mww3qdkwhmm) to get a single
slide that contains some not-very-complicated animation. I’ve stripped away
lots of fluff, and got it down to a pretty simple case. I believe this slide
had its genesis as a .pptx, but when I got it, it was a .ppt.

It behaves well on 2003, and on one of the 2007 systems I’ve got. But on
another Office 2007 PC I use, it does not, for me – shapes 2 and 3 all show
up at the same time and only after I click the mouse or hit the space bar;
and (depending on how many shapes are involved, delay settings, etc.) the
user may have to click the mouse an extra time to get the slide to advance.


Here’s a link to short video [.swf] that displays what I’m talking about:
http://screencast.com/t/Wazqkq0H6 (In FireFox, I have to zoom out a few
notches in order to be able to see the entire screen. YMMV.)

Steve Rindsberg has suggested that I might jiggle the graphics accelerator
settings to slow things down, but it continues to fail on any of the settings
available to me. I've also modified the screen resolution, and that had no
effect on the rendering of the animation.

It appears to be something on this particular PC that’s interfering with the
correct rendering – anybody have any idea as to what that might be? Or other
things I might try to pin down the source of the problem?

Thanks.

 

[Enric Mañas]

Dave,

Having said all this, I have to ask: Do any of you who used my test file
and reported no problems with it also have the Capture Show add-in
installed/loaded?

Installed Capture Show. Capture Show does not work on any 2007 I've tested.

*IF* I click on Capture Show > Automatic in "As slides..." and in Begin
*AND* I wait until the "Popup toolbar" appears
*THEN* I...

see the top of the second box appear

and/or

if changed it to Wipe from the Left, I still had to do a second mouse
click to start the second shape (even though it was specified to start
"after previous"), When I clicked, what I got was a vertical line
representing the left edge of the text box,

and a small bit of the upper and lower lines of the TextBox...

but always *if* using "Capture Show", *never* if using F5 or clicking on any
of the Slide Show icons

And finally: If you think there are more diagnostic activities I should
undertake to more thoroughly define the problem, please do let me know.

Which problem?

;-)

Quoting Dr. House... "Cancer plays the field. Metastasis is just a fancy
word for 'screws around.'"

PowerPoint 2003: draw a rectangle, red fill, black line, no shadow -->
Double click the rectangle, click on "Default for new objects"... Draw a
"new object"...

Is the "new object" black lined and has no shadow?

What is worrying the patient? The pimple at his nose? or entering the C
Ward?

;-)

(DO NOT pass it back and forth between versions)

Very cordialmente

Enric

 

[Enric Mañas]

Thanks!

;-)

To you!