PowerPoint Hanging Up

[Denny Crane]

I have been using Microsoft Office 2004 for several years now without major incidents. Normally, the updates and conversion installations work fine to enable me to access Windows documents sent to me by others in Word or Excel, so I have felt no need to update to the latest Mac version of Office which appears to be 2008.

Recently I received a couple of PowerPoint files that will not load. I just get the spinning beachball, even when I wait ten or fifteen minutes. I have not accessed PowerPoint for at least a year before this, since I usually do not need it.

Today, I reinstalled PowerPoint from my installation disk, doing a custom install of just that application. I still get the beachball, however.

Any thoughts? Should I try re installing the entire Office suite of programs? Thanks.

Norm Solberg

[Robert Seltman]

Recently I received a couple of PowerPoint files that will not load. I just get the spinning beachball, even when I wait ten or fifteen minutes. I have not accessed PowerPoint for at least a year before this, since I usually do not need it.

I believe, in the meantime, you can use your Mac software.
This is from Apple:
In addition to Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint files, iWork lets you open documents from many sources. Numbers opens CSV, tab-delimited, vCard, and Open Financial Exchange files. Pages opens RTF and plain text documents. If you want to share your documents, spreadsheets, and presentations with anyone on a Mac or PC, just save them using standard file formats. All iWork applications can export to PDF. Numbers can also export to CSV. Pages can save a file as plain text. And Keynote lets you save your presentation as a QuickTime movie, HTML file, or image file. You can even send a Keynote presentation directly to YouTube.

[yiwai]

Not sure, but this may work.
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20100304163416AADTbqy

Or perhaps, the latest version of either OpenOffice or LibreOffice can open PowerPoint files.
If it can, save the file as somewhat older version so that PowerPoint 2004 can handle.

I may be wrong.

Y

[Denny Crane]

Not sure, but this may work.
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20100304163416AADTbqy

. . . .
Y

Thanks. After reinstalling PowerPoint, Word then showed the same problems; i.e., endless hanging.

I reinstalled the entire Office 2004 package and Word now works again, so the next step is to try PowerPoint.

Norm

[Col]

Microsoft Office 2011 for Mac is pricey at 17,000 yen for the student and family version (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, but doesn't doesn't include Outlook=Entourage), and it will run only on OS 10.5.8 or higher and an Intel processor Mac, but it is a worthwhile move for the speed, stability and interface improvements. Office 2004 and 2008 are really, really slow and none too stable on my computers (Mac Pro, PowerMac G5, iMac (Intel) and MacBook Pro). I haven't used Office 2008 for a while except on the G5s, but when I bought Office 2011 last fall, it felt like it opened (and opened files) 10x faster. Apparently 2004 and 2008 are full of old code. The interface of 2011 is also closer to that of MS Office for Windows 2007 which I have to use on university computers.
Which reminds me - I need to buy the Japanese version for my wife and daughters.

[Denny Crane]

Is the English version available here?

Amazon.com says it cannot be shipped to my address.

Norm

[Col]

I couldn't find the English version at www.amazon.co.jp  but it is at the Apple Online Store  http://store.apple.com/jp/product/H2437J/A?fnode=MTY1NDA0OA&mco=MTk1NTEwNTI

[Denny Crane]

I couldn't find the English version at www.amazon.co.jp  but it is at the Apple Online Store  http://store.apple.com/jp/product/H2437J/A?fnode=MTY1NDA0OA&mco=MTk1NTEwNTI

Thanks for that. Amazon.com is FAR cheaper, almost 50%, so I ordered it for delivery to a relative.

Norm

[ronr]

Think that will do it for you Norm. As a post script:

1) I got English version of Office '11 Stu/Family (as Colin said, everything except the worthless Outlaw mail program) for a bit less than the price Colin mentioned at Yodobashi several months ago--cheaper and more easily obtainable than an upgrade from my Office '08.

2) Recently, had to extensively work over a clients .PPT file that was 230 slides and chock full of graphics. Saving (including the 'converting' process under '11) took ages. Finally saved it as .PPTX file and it saved in a snap, as it should. At the end, saved as .PPT and, by careful checking, didn't lose a thing.

Live and learn...