Help: Presentations open in same window

[Joern Wettern]

Suddenly when opening multiple PowerPoint 2003
presentations at the same time, they all open in the same
window. Before they opened in separate windows. The OS is
Windows XP. I have toggled the "Windows in Taskbar"
setting, but this only changes whether the taskbar shows
a single PowerPoint window or multiple ones. It does not
change how the window itself behaves. The last thing I
did before this change occurred was maximize and
restoring the windows for two open presentations while
viewing them on a dual-monitor system.

Any help would be appreciated.

-- J.

 

[Echo S]

Were you maybe using Window/Arrange All (or Cascade) on the PPT menubar?

 

[Joern Wettern]

Hi, Echo!

that was one of the many things that I tried to undo
things after the change happened, but I don't believe
that I used it before. In any case, would that point
towards a solution?

For the time being I'm opening a second instance of
PowerPoint using a different user account by means of
RunAs, but I don't consider this a permanent solution.

-- J.

-----Original Message-----
Were you maybe using Window/Arrange All (or Cascade) on the PPT menubar?

--
Echo [MS PPT MVP]
http://www.echosvoice.com

Suddenly when opening multiple PowerPoint 2003
presentations at the same time, they all open in the same
window. Before they opened in separate windows. The OS is
Windows XP. I have toggled the "Windows in Taskbar"
setting, but this only changes whether the taskbar shows
a single PowerPoint window or multiple ones. It does not
change how the window itself behaves. The last thing I
did before this change occurred was maximize and
restoring the windows for two open presentations while
viewing them on a dual-monitor system.

Any help would be appreciated.

-- J.

.

 

[Rod Fleischer]

Suddenly when opening multiple PowerPoint 2003
presentations at the same time, they all open in the same
window. Before they opened in separate windows. The OS is
Windows XP. I have toggled the "Windows in Taskbar"
setting, but this only changes whether the taskbar shows
a single PowerPoint window or multiple ones. It does not
change how the window itself behaves. The last thing I
did before this change occurred was maximize and
restoring the windows for two open presentations while
viewing them on a dual-monitor system.

Any help would be appreciated.

-- J.

I'm suddenly having this exact same problem. Did you (or anyone else)
ever find a solution?

Thanks.

-Rod

 

[Sonia]

Go to the Window menu in PowerPoint. Do you have Arrange All selected? Click
on it to de-select it and test. Does that fix it?
--

Sonia Coleman
Microsoft PowerPoint MVP Team
Autorun Software, Templates and Tutorials
http://www.soniacoleman.com

 

[Rod Fleischer]

It doesn't seem to be a select-able option. Clicking on it splits the
window into showing two documents. Clicking it again doesn't do
anything. (It doesn't acquire a check box like some other options when
I look at the menu again.)

Like the original poster, this seems to be an issue relating to the
dual monitors. (I won't have access to my other monitor until I'm back
at work on monday, however.)

Any suggestions?

Thanks.

-Rod

 

[Glen Millar]

Hi,

One thing to also try is, even if you only have one monitor...

Go to the settings, while PowerPoint is open, and enable dual monitors. Then
disable. I have found sometimes that I have had applications off the screen
that this will fix. Presuming that si the problem.

--
Regards,

Glen Millar
Microsoft PPT MVP
www.powerpointworkbench.com

Australia

 

[Rod Fleischer]

No, this didn't make any difference either. Powerpoint still insists
on using one frame for multiple documents, and last week it was serving
up multiple frames just fine. Obviously some setting changed somewhere
(maybe in the registry?) but I haven't a clue what or why.

It's really annoying though. I've even tried the "Detect and Repair"
feature of Office 2003 and that made no difference either.

-r

 

[Sonia]

If you go to Windows > New Window and then open the second presentation and then
go to Windows > Arrange All, does it give you what you want? I think, at this
point, I'm unclear on how you want it to appear.
--

Sonia Coleman
Microsoft PowerPoint MVP Team
Autorun Software, Templates and Tutorials
http://www.soniacoleman.com

 

[Rod Fleischer]

No, that doesn't work either.

What I want is to have two (or more) powerpoint presentations open,
each in its own standalone window. (Before someone says that
powerpoint can't do that, before last Thursday it did.) When I said
'frame' before, I really should have said 'standalone application
window'. As in, not two frames sharing a window, but two standalone
windows.

If I have Document1 and Document2 open, going to Windows,New Window &
Windows,Arrange All gives me Document1:1, Document1:2, and Document2,
all in the same window.

What on earth do I have to do to make powerpoint go back to using
standalone windows for each presentation? *tears out hair*

(I do appeciate all the help though.)

-r

 

[Sonia]

I really didn't understand what you wanted, and maybe I still don't. Go to
Tools > Options > View and under the Show heading check "Windows in Taskbar".
Now when you open a second presentation file you'll see two instances of
PowerPoint in the taskbar and you can view one or the other. However, since
PowerPoint is a single instance application you can only view one of the windows
at a time. For some reason I thought you wanted to see both at the same time.

 

[Rod Fleischer]

I do want to see both at the same time, and I want one on each monitor,
since I'm trying to work on one and refer to another at the same time.
I can't understand the rationale for making Powerpoint a single
instance app, that seems extraordinarily limiting to me.

It WAS behaving this way up until last week, and I don't know what's
changed. But I definitely had multiple instances of Powerpoint viewing
separate documents in separate windows, and on different monitors.

-r

 

[Glen Millar]

Hi,

OK. I have managed it manually. That is:

1. I dragged PowerPoint across two screens.
2. I then opened both files.
3. I then tiled both, and manually dragged them to where I wanted them in
the same instance of PowerPoint across two screens. make sense?

--

Regards,

Glen Millar
Microsoft PPT MVP
www.powerpointworkbench.com
Australia

Please, tell us your:
PowerPoint version,
If you are using vba, or
Anything else relevant!

 

[Rod Fleischer]

I give up, I'll just deal with it.

But now I'm very disappointed with Powerpoint. I was really starting
to like it too, but this single instance limitation seems to be yet
another MS design flaw. If they didn't have this stupidity, it'd
actually be a very good application.

*idly wonders if the Powerpoint equivalent in openoffice has this
idiocy...*

Thanks for the help, Glen and Sonia.

-r

 

[Guest]

I have the same issue. Iused to have this issue with Word and Excel and
somehow I found a solution through Help but I can't find it again. It had to
do with configuring the icon controls so that each cleck opens a different
instance.