How come PowerPoint changes the size of a file simply by opening .

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How come PowerPoint changes the size of a file simply by opening and closing
it, without making a change or a save? I am synchronizing files and if a file
has been opened it appears different from the original by virtue of this
change in attribute, even though the PowerPoint presentation was NOT changed.
Is there a way to prevent this from happening?
 
The actual size of the file is completely irrelevant. The issues is the fact
that it changes by 2-4 kb. Synchronizaiton software detects this difference.
Which discussion group do you think would know an answer to this. Thank you.
 
The actual size of the file is completely irrelevant. The issues is the fact
that it changes by 2-4 kb. Synchronizaiton software detects this difference.
Which discussion group do you think would know an answer to this. Thank you.
Click to expand...

Just the same, one of the suggestions there might be quite relevant. Turn off Fast
Saves and see if that helps. I'm not seeing PPT files growing with each save here.

If the synchronization software triggers from dates rather than file size, you may
be out of luck.
 
Please excuse my ignorance, however, I cannot locate that article. Could you
please provide a bit more information? Thanks.
 
What I didn't udnerstand is this, "In article
<[email protected]>"
Also, I have fast save OFF. Typcially, a file changes in size by 2 -3 kb,
regardless of the size of the original, whether it be 50MB or 120kb. It does
not change the date of the file in Explorer. I have seen this happen on
dozens of computers with varyying combinations of Windows and Office.
 
Oh, that "in article" stuff is just a URL reference to your previous reply.
Now, if you look just below here, you'll see:

I didn't generate that, Outlook Express did it because OE is my newsreader.
Steve uses a different newsreader and it generates the same information in a
slightly different format. You're accessing this newsgroup from the Microsoft
web interface, which is one of about 398 other methods available for seeing this
newsgroup. So just ignore anything that says "Mark R", "Sonia" wrote:, etc.
 
Please excuse my ignorance, however, I cannot locate that article. Could you
please provide a bit more information? Thanks.
Click to expand...

It's quoted below in the link Glenna suggested

Short version: in PowerPoint, choose Tools, Options, go to the Save tab and remove the
check next to Allow Fast Saves.

Give that a shot. If it doesn't help, post back with the version of PPT and OS you use.
 
Thank you. I did overlook a bit in that document. It is difficult to say if
that is what is causing the issue or not. If it is, then it is not a
practical matter for me to search for and delete unused elements. THerefore,
the answer will be in my synchronization criteria. Again, thanks to all.
 
Thank you. I did overlook a bit in that document. It is difficult to say if
that is what is causing the issue or not. If it is, then it is not a
practical matter for me to search for and delete unused elements.
Click to expand...

It's not in the least difficult to see if that's the problem; nobody's suggested that you
search for and delete anything.

Simply use the instructions I typed below to turn Fast Saves off. If the problem goes away,
then that was the problem and now it's solved.

If that's not the answer, we'll need more specifics, as I mentioned earlier. Also, check
whether you're working inside a document management system of some sort. Some of them have
been known to force minor changes and saves, which might cause what you're seeing.



THerefore,
 
Mark,
After you turned off fast saves, did you re-save the file using Save As? If
not, try doing so. If you don't, the file size won't change back. (And by
the way, this doesn't just happen in PPT. You might check your version of
Word and Excel if those documents are growing also.)

--
Kathryn Jacobs, Microsoft MVP PowerPoint and OneNote
Author of Kathy Jacobs on PowerPoint - Available now from Holy Macro! Books
Get PowerPoint answers at http://www.powerpointanswers.com
I believe life is meant to be lived. But:
if we live without making a difference, it makes no difference that we lived
 
Thank you for your message. My default is to have fast save off. What is
happeing is that these PPT files are being viewed only, and sometimes at
different computers. This goes on for a whole day. During the day I will
update a certain number of PPT's with changes, but the problem is I end up
having to update 100's of MB worth of files having to overwrite files that
were NOT changed. The time and resources wasted "updateing" these unchanged
files is what I am attempting to avoid. It would take too much effort and
distraction to have to do something to each file when it is opened. I
suspected it was an issue across the entire Office Suite, so again, that
means there might be an adjustment to be made somewhere in the shared
componnents. I am skilled in PowerPoint, but not in Office.
 
The best solution: Have everyone go into each of the Office applications and
turn off Fast Saves. It doesn't do much that is positive, and does cause
things like the problems you are having.

Another option: If others are only "viewing" the presentations, why not
encourage them to use the Viewer to do that or to save the files as PPS
(PowerPoint shows) to make it less likely that they will even be opened in
the edit interface.

One last thought: If your company is large enough to have an IT department,
you might see if someone there can push out a change to all Office
installations on the network to turn off Fast Saves.

--
Kathryn Jacobs, Microsoft MVP PowerPoint and OneNote
Author of Kathy Jacobs on PowerPoint - Available now from Holy Macro! Books
Get PowerPoint answers at http://www.powerpointanswers.com
I believe life is meant to be lived. But:
if we live without making a difference, it makes no difference that we lived
 
It would take too much effort and
distraction to have to do something to each file when it is opened.
Click to expand...

Fast Saves is an application-level setting, not something that must be done on
each file. Set it once, forget it.
 
I am mostly using XP and 2003. Across the board video clips are included
about 15% of the time, and seem to make no difference.
My company developed an application that organizes, manages, sequences, and
displays PowerPoints for conferences. People NEED to preview presenations in
work mode in case they want to make a change in advance of their session.
Often they do not make changes, but the file is changed anyways. Are there
any global settings in Office somewhere that might affect things like
autosave? As I have said, I have it turned off on my computers. Thanks.
 
Mark,
Just to clarify - Autosave is NOT what we are saying to turn off. We have
all suggested you turn off Fast Saves. Entierly different piece of the
products. Don't turn off AUTOSAVE. Do turn off FAST SAVES.

--
Kathryn Jacobs, Microsoft MVP PowerPoint and OneNote
Author of Kathy Jacobs on PowerPoint - Available now from Holy Macro! Books
Get PowerPoint answers at http://www.powerpointanswers.com
I believe life is meant to be lived. But:
if we live without making a difference, it makes no difference that we lived
 
Sorry for not being accurate in my answer. My default is to have Fast Saves
off as well.
 
My company developed an application that organizes, manages, sequences,Does your application make use of Visual Basic to assemble the slides from
many powerpoint files?

TAJ
 
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