Hans,
Unfortantely, correcting my terminology with regard to "instances" did
nothing to help me solve the problem of obtaining seperate windows for
seperate PowerPoint documents. So I'll drop the use of the word "instance"
and will use the following definitions for MDI and SDI:
Single Document Interface (SDI): each document occupies its own window
Multiple Document Interface (MDI): each document is a separate windows
within the parent application
Given those definitions, does PowerPoint support a SDI mode?
Most of the MS Office suite applications support MDI and in fact this is the
way they all used to work out of the box. However, customers found the MDI
interface cumbersome, especially with Word. Starting with Word 2000,
Microsoft began introducing a "bastardized" version of SDI for some of its
Office applications. Now, by default in Word, every time you open a new
document, the document receives its own window (i.e., SDI mode). Other
Office Applications still open seperate documents in windows within the
application (i.e., MDI mode). However, with Excel, Publisher, Access,
Visio, and FrontPage you can force them to open seperate documents in
separate windows (i.e., a bastardized SDI mode). I have found no way to
open seperate PowerPoint documents in separate windows. PowerPoint
documents ALWAYS appear as windows within the PowerPoint application. Is
there a way to display separate PowerPoint documents in separate windows?
Microsoft has a really bad habit of referring to its options to enable
multiple window buttons in the taskbar as switching between MDI and SDI.
They are the only ones who use this definition and it is not what I mean. I
really don't care whether each document gets its own button. I care that
each document gets its own window. Interestingly, and rather confusingly,
toggling this choice (Options | View | Window in Taskbar) in Word does
switch it between MDI and SDI. However, it is the only Office application
that works this way. If you want Excel, Publisher, Access, Visio, or
FrontPage to have separate windows for each document, you have to take other
steps. Is there a way to switch PowerPoint from MDI to SDI mode such that
separate PowerPoint documents each have their own separate windows?
Microsoft's documentation indicates the command-line switch "/c" can be used
for opening new instances (oh, I used the "i" word) of PowerPoint, which
would theoretically give a separate window for each instance of PowerPoint,
thus giving each PowerPoint document its own window and effectively
providing an SDI mode. However, the "/c" command-line switch doesn't appear
to be working that way on my computer - it just opens PowerPoint in online
collaboration mode (e.g., with NetMeeting). Is there a way to start
separate instances of PowerPoint such that each PowerPoint document had its
own window?
Summary: I can get separate windows on my desktop for seperate documents in
any MS Office application with the exception of PowerPoint. Is there a way
to make PowerPoint work like the rest of the MS Office applications when it
comes to handling document windows?
