can't open ppt 95 files in office 2007

[Charlie R]

I just installed ppt office 2007. I have hundreds of old ppt presentations
that I reference from time to time. They are either ppt 2003 or ppt 95
version files. It would appear that office 2007 cannot open the 95 version
files. Now what do I do? I no longer have the original ppt software on my
computer as I did not choose that option during the installation of office
2007. I guess I jsut assumed that brand new product would be backward
integrated. I'm a bit ticked about this but for now I'm looking for a
solution.

Any ideas? Anybody?

 

[Ellen Finkelstein]

Dear Charlie,

From what I understand (I've never tried it), you can't open your 95
PowerPoint files in 2007. (You won't have that problem with 2003 files.) I
suggest that you find someone with 2003 to open the 95 files and save them
all to 2003.

Steve Rindsberg has a VBA routine that batch saves files at
http://www.pptfaq.com/FAQ00740.htm.

Ellen

 

[Bill Dilworth]

Hey Charlie,

You are correct, PowerPoint supports back 3 versions (2000, 2002, & 2003).
Unfortunately 95 is 4 versions back.

Here are your choices, as I see them.
1) Make a clean break and loose the old presentations. This sucks, but
is a choice.
2) Find a computer that has 2003 on it. Open your 95 files and save in
2003 format. This will be very meat-ware intensive and tedious.
3) Find a computer with 2003 on it and batch process all your 95 files
into 2003 files using some VBA scripting. This is also time consuming, but
the user doesn't have to be present while it is churning. Computers thrive
on tedious tasks and you might be able to charm one of the VBA gurus here
into writing you some code to do this.
4) Uninstall 2007, re-install 2003, then re-install 2007 (but with the
'keep 2003' option). 2003 Office can be bought fairly cheaply (since you
said you no longer have it), but make sure you use a reputable dealer or
site; there are a lot of fraudulent web-sites out there.
5) Install the 2003 Viewer program to view the 95 presentations (without
being able to edit them). This is a free option, but will not allow you to
get at the content, just view it.
6) Install Open Office to view the 95 presentations. I do not know if
they continue to support back to 95 file formats. You will have to read
their program notes to see if they can meet you needs.


--
Bill Dilworth
A proud member of the Microsoft PPT MVP Team
Users helping fellow users.
http://billdilworth.mvps.org
-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_
vestprog2@ Please read the PowerPoint FAQ pages.
yahoo. They answer most of our questions.
com www.pptfaq.com
..

 

[Bill Dilworth]

Yes

 

[chas]

Hi Bill:

thanks for the response. I have found my orig office 2003 discs. Can I
install ppt 2003 wihtout uninstalling ppt 2007 first? in other words can I
have two active versions of ppt on the same machine or do I need to have 2007
reinstalled with "leave old version" selected.

I'd try the macro approach cited below however my ppt 95 files are all over
the place.

Thanks to all for the help.

As a suggestion to the MS people watching this space it might be useful to
suggest to a user why they might want to "leave old version". I would have
left it had I known I couldn't view all ppt presentations in my possession
with the "new improved" version.

Charlie

 

[chas]

when you say "get it patched" how do I go about getting my old ppt version
patched?

and with respect to the macro thing: first the files in question are not
easy to identify. they seem to have the same extension as ppt files that can
be opened with office 2003 and 2007. I only realized i had a problem when
I tried to reference an old presentation I gave 12 years ago. took me a
while to figure out what the problem was in the first place since some files
opened and others didn't.

the second problem is that there are probably 30 to 50 folders and
subfolders involved.

Add the two problems together and I'm liking the "install old ppt program"
solution more and more.

the macro does sound cool though.

 

[chas]

Steve:

have I been calling you Bill all this time? how embarassing.

anyway. thanks for the help. I'll give this a try in a few days and let
you know how it turns out