Audio Does Not Play in PowerPoint 2004

[Redshift]

Version: 2004
Operating System: Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger)
Processor: intel

My wife created her first presentation with audio files last week. Everything worked fine. She knows PPT pretty well but had never needed to add audio before now. The audio files were small .wav files recorded by Audacity.

This weekend she tried to create another presentation and repeated the process. She uses the 'insert sound from file option'. The sound icon appears in the presentation but there is no way to play the file. Double clicking it doesn't work and neither does running the presentation. It runs but without sound.

At school she created a presentation in the same way and it worked on the PC. She brought the file home and it worked on a G4 running PowerPoint 11.2.4. She moved the same file to a MBP running PowerPoint 11.3.2 and the audio wouldn't play.

The problem seems to reside in the version of PowerPoint on the MBP. I have repaired permissions, tried replacing the PPT prefs file to no avail. The MBP has no problems playing back audio in any app except from within Powerpoint. In fact she can even add some (but not all) mp3 files and they do play ok (except that the icon that appears for those files is a QuickTime icon with it control bar etc).

So the problem seems to be with adding those .wavs via the 'insert sound from file' option.

The wavs are 16 bit pcm files and are in the range of 1MB each. The files must be embedded and the prefs have been set to allow for this.

Checking the file size of the saved .ppt file it's clear that the audio is in them. It just doesn't play.

The MBP was running OSX 10.4.10 and PowerPoint 11.3.2
The G4 was running OSX 10.4.11 and PowerPoint 11.2.4

I'd be grateful if someone could point me in the right direction on this.

 

[Jim Gordon MVP]

Version: 2004
Operating System: Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger)
Processor: intel

My wife created her first presentation with audio files last week. Everything worked fine. She knows PPT pretty well but had never needed to add audio before now. The audio files were small .wav files recorded by Audacity.

This weekend she tried to create another presentation and repeated the process. She uses the 'insert sound from file option'. The sound icon appears in the presentation but there is no way to play the file. Double clicking it doesn't work and neither does running the presentation. It runs but without sound.

At school she created a presentation in the same way and it worked on the PC. She brought the file home and it worked on a G4 running PowerPoint 11.2.4. She moved the same file to a MBP running PowerPoint 11.3.2 and the audio wouldn't play.

The problem seems to reside in the version of PowerPoint on the MBP. I have repaired permissions, tried replacing the PPT prefs file to no avail. The MBP has no problems playing back audio in any app except from within Powerpoint. In fact she can even add some (but not all) mp3 files and they do play ok (except that the icon that appears for those files is a QuickTime icon with it control bar etc).

So the problem seems to be with adding those .wavs via the 'insert sound from file' option.

The wavs are 16 bit pcm files and are in the range of 1MB each. The files must be embedded and the prefs have been set to allow for this.

Checking the file size of the saved .ppt file it's clear that the audio is in them. It just doesn't play.

The MBP was running OSX 10.4.10 and PowerPoint 11.3.2
The G4 was running OSX 10.4.11 and PowerPoint 11.2.4

I'd be grateful if someone could point me in the right direction on this.

Hi,

A thorough tutorial about wav files is here:
http://pptfaq.com/FAQ00155.htm

Wav files should not be compressed.

To ensure that the sound file is embedded go to PowerPoint's prefereces.
On the General tab there's a setting that determines whether sounds will
be linked or embedded based upon the file size. Make sure that the
setting is larger than the largest sound you want to embed in the
presentation. The setting applies to the document, not application, so
you have to adjust it for each presentation.

-Jim

 

[Redshift]

Thanks Jim but as I stated in the original post, PowerPoint has been configured to do as you say. The .wavs are uncompressed 16 bit pcm files.

The presentation plays fine on a G4 and a PC. Everything appears to be OK on the MBP except that the audio doesn't play. It's a complete mystery.

 

[Redshift]

Instead of having to uninstall and re-install the whole thing, would I just be able to copy over the PowerPoint app from the G4 and replace the version that is currently on the MBP?

I say this as the app was originally migrated from the G4 to the MBP when we bought it.

If there are no other suggestions for this issue do you think this quick and dirty option might work?

Thanks