Can't open PP 3.0 presentations w/PP X

[pdq]

PP v. X is having trouble opening presentations I created in PP 3.0 for
Mac. When I click on such files, PP v. X launches, thinks for awhile, and
then pops up a dialog saying "(path and file name) already exists and
cannot be replaced"- this suggests to me that maybe it's trying to
open, convert, and then save the file back to disk but can't.

The file is not locked, nor is the disk on which it resides. Same thing
happens to other PP 3.0 files and copies of said files, and it doesn't
matter if I open the files from within PowerPoint or just double click on
the presentation. I can't seem to find any appropriate file converter on
microsoft.com.

Is this just a limitation of PP v. X, or is something wrong with my
install?

Thanks for any help.

 

[Mickey Stevens]

This is a limitation of PowerPoint X. It lacks the ability to open
PowerPoint 3 and PowerPoint 4 files. You could try using the PowerPoint
Viewer in Classic to run these files.
<http://www.rdpslides.com/pptfaq/FAQ00153.htm>

If you have a copy of Office 98, you could use that to save them in the
current format.

 

[pdq]

I was thinking my install must have been bad or something.

I dunno- is it too much to ask for a program to be able to open a file
made with a previous version of that program? I'm trying to think of an
example of a program with a similar limitation, but I can't seem to
come up with one.

Another reason to switch to Keynote, I guess.

 

[Steve Rindsberg]

I dunno- is it too much to ask for a program to be able to open a file

made with a previous version of that program?

No, but how many previous versions back do you want it to support?
PowerPoint 3 is from roughly ten years ago at this point.

I'm trying to think of an
example of a program with a similar limitation, but I can't seem to
come up with one.

Quite a few programs will open one, maybe two versions back but that's
it.

PowerPoint X will open files from at least the previous two versions,
and you can always keep one of the intermediate versions (98, 2001) on
your system to open earlier version files and save them in a format that
the current and near-future versions should be able to open.

Another reason to switch to Keynote, I guess.

Does it open PowerPoint 3 files?