Crashes and corrupted files in PowerPoint, Office 97

[anke]

For the last four years I have been creating PowerPoint presentations for the
graduation ceremonies at our school. The first year the presentation file
was 11,000KB in size and went without a hitch. The second year the file was
12,000KB and ran perfectly as well. However, last year it reached 37,000KB,
had difficulties in saving, and the files became corrupted. This year I've
been pressured by colleages to create something longer and, at 106,000KB,
containing over 200 pictures, it had difficulty saving and had to be renamed.
Then, after 3 hours of animating and setting slide transitions the programme
crashed in the middle of saving. The operating system is Windows XP. Why
are these difficulties surfacing? Is there a compatability issue with XP and
Office 97 or is there a maximum size for PowerPoint files?

 

[Austin Myers]

It's time to upgrade! If you are spending that kind of time to build a
presentation then do yourself a favor and upgrade to 2003. There is a
teacher/student version that ia available at a low enough cost a few hours
of your time more than pays for it. Automated "photo album" insertion and
"animation schemes" would cut that task to a matter of minutes.

Austin Myers
MS PowerPoint MVP Team

Solutions to Multimedia in PowerPoint www.pfcmedia.com

 

[Sonia]

In addition to Austin's comments, have you done normal periodic maintenance on
your system? Your hard drive is probably fragmented and should be defragged.
Your Temp folder may have lots of leftover garbage that is stealing available
space from you. You can delete everything in the folder. If Windows needs a
particular file, it will protect it and not allow it to be deleted.

How much memory does your system have?
--

Sonia Coleman
Microsoft PowerPoint MVP Team
Autorun Software, Templates and Tutorials
http://www.soniacoleman.com

 

[Echo S]

In addition to the suggestions and questions from Austin and Sonia, 100MB
(106,000kb) is very large, even for 200 pictures. Why?

See
Why are my PowerPoint files so big? What can I do about it?
http://www.rdpslides.com/pptfaq/FAQ00062.htm

And finally, as I'm sure you're aware, you should try to get in the habit of
saving more often than every three hours.

 

[anke]

This is very helpful information, given by Sonia and Austin, but some things
are out of my control. It is the school's network that seems to be at fault
and I am not the site administrator and thus do not have clearance to perform
the required maintenance. It would also be great to upgrade from Office 97
but the decision to purchase new software is done at the board level and
those "in the trenches" have little input. I shall inform our site
administrator of the maintenance issue and beg for new software. If I were
to purchase it myself I wouldn't have the authority or clearance to install
it on the school network. It was suggested by another party that I save the
file under a different name after completing each new slide and delete
redundant files as I went. Would this effectively solve the problem?
Thanks a bunch for your help!

 

[Echo S]

Renaming won't hurt, especially if you have turned on Allow Fast Saves. And
if you're having trouble with the file, then saving after each slide and
deleting redundant files periodically is not a bad idea.

However, I think that if you can get the file size down, you'll be in much
better shape all around. So have a read through that link I posted for you
earlier and see if there's anything you can do there. (Turning off Allow
Fast Saves, for instance, is easy and very effective.)

 

[anke]

Thank you for the words of wisdom, Echo S. I feel sufficiently chastised. I
knew better, of course, but tunnel vision got the better of me. I shall get
in the habit of saving after every page or so, instead of my usual half hour.
My current presentation is a group effort and the pictures provided to me
were scanned by a colleague. I did not check to see the size of each picture
but have a hunch that they are the source of the ballooning file. However,
to check each and every one of over 200 pictures would be very time
consuming. Our graduation is on next Wednesday evening and, with other
committments, there isn't the time to spend. I would much prefer to have
this colleague, who's twin sons are graduating, to do some editing and get it
down to the bare bones - say between 12Mb and 15MB. What size would you
recommend? I'll be checking out that link.

Many thanks.
--
Knowledge is a power to be shared by all, joyfully.

In addition to the suggestions and questions from Austin and Sonia, 100MB
(106,000kb) is very large, even for 200 pictures. Why?

See
Why are my PowerPoint files so big? What can I do about it?
http://www.rdpslides.com/pptfaq/FAQ00062.htm

And finally, as I'm sure you're aware, you should try to get in the habit of
saving more often than every three hours.

--
Echo [MS PPT MVP]
http://www.echosvoice.com

For the last four years I have been creating PowerPoint presentations for the
graduation ceremonies at our school. The first year the presentation file
was 11,000KB in size and went without a hitch. The second year the file was
12,000KB and ran perfectly as well. However, last year it reached 37,000KB,
had difficulties in saving, and the files became corrupted. This year I've
been pressured by colleages to create something longer and, at 106,000KB,
containing over 200 pictures, it had difficulty saving and had to be renamed.
Then, after 3 hours of animating and setting slide transitions the programme
crashed in the middle of saving. The operating system is Windows XP. Why
are these difficulties surfacing? Is there a compatability issue with XP and
Office 97 or is there a maximum size for PowerPoint files?

 

[Michael Koerner]

You also might want to look at Shyam's Sequential Save Add-In which backs up
with the click of a button. http://skp.mvps.org/seqsave.htm

--
<>Please post all follow-up questions/replies to the newsgroup<>
<><>Email unless specifically requested will not be opened<><>
<><><>Do Provide The Version Of PowerPoint You Are Using<><><>
<><><>Do Not Post Attachments In This Newsgroup<><><>
Michael Koerner [MS PPT MVP]


Thank you for the words of wisdom, Echo S. I feel sufficiently chastised. I
knew better, of course, but tunnel vision got the better of me. I shall get
in the habit of saving after every page or so, instead of my usual half hour.
My current presentation is a group effort and the pictures provided to me
were scanned by a colleague. I did not check to see the size of each picture
but have a hunch that they are the source of the ballooning file. However,
to check each and every one of over 200 pictures would be very time
consuming. Our graduation is on next Wednesday evening and, with other
committments, there isn't the time to spend. I would much prefer to have
this colleague, who's twin sons are graduating, to do some editing and get it
down to the bare bones - say between 12Mb and 15MB. What size would you
recommend? I'll be checking out that link.

Many thanks.
--
Knowledge is a power to be shared by all, joyfully.

In addition to the suggestions and questions from Austin and Sonia, 100MB
(106,000kb) is very large, even for 200 pictures. Why?

See
Why are my PowerPoint files so big? What can I do about it?
http://www.rdpslides.com/pptfaq/FAQ00062.htm

And finally, as I'm sure you're aware, you should try to get in the habit of
saving more often than every three hours.

--
Echo [MS PPT MVP]
http://www.echosvoice.com

For the last four years I have been creating PowerPoint presentations for the
graduation ceremonies at our school. The first year the presentation file
was 11,000KB in size and went without a hitch. The second year the file was
12,000KB and ran perfectly as well. However, last year it reached 37,000KB,
had difficulties in saving, and the files became corrupted. This year I've
been pressured by colleages to create something longer and, at 106,000KB,
containing over 200 pictures, it had difficulty saving and had to be renamed.
Then, after 3 hours of animating and setting slide transitions the programme
crashed in the middle of saving. The operating system is Windows XP. Why
are these difficulties surfacing? Is there a compatability issue with XP and
Office 97 or is there a maximum size for PowerPoint files?

 

[Sonia]

Well, that raises a question. Is PowerPoint installed on your system, or is it
installed on a network drive? Is your presentation saved always to your local
hard drive, or is it saved to a network drive?

 

[Echo S]

heh, when you put it like that, I sound like a royal wench! I really
wasn't intending to chastise you -- I figured you probably usually do save
more often than every three hours! But going by your original post, well...
Personally, I think every half hour or so is fine, but if the file's giving
you trouble, more often is probably not a bad idea.

And oh! Shyam's Sequential Save actually does work in PPT 97.
http://skp.mvps.org/seqsave.htm Maybe you can talk the IT guys into letting
you install this. Be sure to turn your macro security down to low before you
install the add-in, then you can put it back up higher after you install.
This add-in doesn't get you out of saving frequently, but when you do save,
you'll automatically get a backup copy.

At any rate, I suspect that the real problem here is indeed the file size. I
don't blame you for not wanting to have to go through every image
individually.

If you know someone who has a more recent version of PPT (2002 or 2003), you
can use PPT's own "compress pictures" option. (I think there's some info
about that feature in the link I posted. If there's not, then holler back.)
Or heck, maybe even see if you can take it to Kinko's (assuming they're
using 2002/2003) to shrink using that feature.

As for file size to expect, that's a harder one to answer. I'm thinking
maybe oh, 30 or 40 MB. I just did an experiment here -- created a photo
album in PPT 2003 with 20 images. It was about 8 MB. I ran the "compress
pictures" feature in PPT 2003, and the resulting file was 1.4MB. So maybe
your file could be anywhere from 10 MB to 50MB. Generally speaking, the
smaller the better, though.

--
Echo [MS PPT MVP]
http://www.echosvoice.com

Thank you for the words of wisdom, Echo S. I feel sufficiently chastised. I
knew better, of course, but tunnel vision got the better of me. I shall get
in the habit of saving after every page or so, instead of my usual half hour.
My current presentation is a group effort and the pictures provided to me
were scanned by a colleague. I did not check to see the size of each picture
but have a hunch that they are the source of the ballooning file. However,
to check each and every one of over 200 pictures would be very time
consuming. Our graduation is on next Wednesday evening and, with other
committments, there isn't the time to spend. I would much prefer to have
this colleague, who's twin sons are graduating, to do some editing and get it
down to the bare bones - say between 12Mb and 15MB. What size would you
recommend? I'll be checking out that link.

Many thanks.
--
Knowledge is a power to be shared by all, joyfully.

In addition to the suggestions and questions from Austin and Sonia, 100MB
(106,000kb) is very large, even for 200 pictures. Why?

See
Why are my PowerPoint files so big? What can I do about it?
http://www.rdpslides.com/pptfaq/FAQ00062.htm

And finally, as I'm sure you're aware, you should try to get in the habit of
saving more often than every three hours.

--
Echo [MS PPT MVP]
http://www.echosvoice.com

For the last four years I have been creating PowerPoint presentations

for
the

graduation ceremonies at our school. The first year the presentation file
was 11,000KB in size and went without a hitch. The second year the

file
was

12,000KB and ran perfectly as well. However, last year it reached 37,000KB,
had difficulties in saving, and the files became corrupted. This year I've
been pressured by colleages to create something longer and, at 106,000KB,
containing over 200 pictures, it had difficulty saving and had to be renamed.
Then, after 3 hours of animating and setting slide transitions the programme
crashed in the middle of saving. The operating system is Windows XP. Why
are these difficulties surfacing? Is there a compatability issue with

XP
and

Office 97 or is there a maximum size for PowerPoint files?

 

[anke]

Thanks, Sonia. We are instructed always to save on the network drive. But,
given the circumstances, I'm sure we could get clearance to save on a local
hardrive if this will solve the problem.

 

[anke]

Thanks, Michael.
I shall be sure to check out that procedure.
--
Knowledge is a power to be shared by all, joyfully.

You also might want to look at Shyam's Sequential Save Add-In which backs up
with the click of a button. http://skp.mvps.org/seqsave.htm

--
<>Please post all follow-up questions/replies to the newsgroup<>
<><>Email unless specifically requested will not be opened<><>
<><><>Do Provide The Version Of PowerPoint You Are Using<><><>
<><><>Do Not Post Attachments In This Newsgroup<><><>
Michael Koerner [MS PPT MVP]


Thank you for the words of wisdom, Echo S. I feel sufficiently chastised. I
knew better, of course, but tunnel vision got the better of me. I shall get
in the habit of saving after every page or so, instead of my usual half hour.
My current presentation is a group effort and the pictures provided to me
were scanned by a colleague. I did not check to see the size of each picture
but have a hunch that they are the source of the ballooning file. However,
to check each and every one of over 200 pictures would be very time
consuming. Our graduation is on next Wednesday evening and, with other
committments, there isn't the time to spend. I would much prefer to have
this colleague, who's twin sons are graduating, to do some editing and get it
down to the bare bones - say between 12Mb and 15MB. What size would you
recommend? I'll be checking out that link.

Many thanks.
--
Knowledge is a power to be shared by all, joyfully.

In addition to the suggestions and questions from Austin and Sonia, 100MB
(106,000kb) is very large, even for 200 pictures. Why?

See
Why are my PowerPoint files so big? What can I do about it?
http://www.rdpslides.com/pptfaq/FAQ00062.htm

And finally, as I'm sure you're aware, you should try to get in the habit of
saving more often than every three hours.

--
Echo [MS PPT MVP]
http://www.echosvoice.com

For the last four years I have been creating PowerPoint presentations for the
graduation ceremonies at our school. The first year the presentation file
was 11,000KB in size and went without a hitch. The second year the file was
12,000KB and ran perfectly as well. However, last year it reached 37,000KB,
had difficulties in saving, and the files became corrupted. This year I've
been pressured by colleages to create something longer and, at 106,000KB,
containing over 200 pictures, it had difficulty saving and had to be renamed.
Then, after 3 hours of animating and setting slide transitions the programme
crashed in the middle of saving. The operating system is Windows XP. Why
are these difficulties surfacing? Is there a compatability issue with XP and
Office 97 or is there a maximum size for PowerPoint files?

 

[anke]

No need to feel like a wench, royal or otherwise, Echo S. That's just my
sense of humour coming through. I'm just laughing at my own goof-up.
Thanks for the reassurance about the file size issue. I've been pressing
the point at school but was dismissed as alarmist.
--
Knowledge is a power to be shared by all, joyfully.

heh, when you put it like that, I sound like a royal wench! I really
wasn't intending to chastise you -- I figured you probably usually do save
more often than every three hours! But going by your original post, well...
Personally, I think every half hour or so is fine, but if the file's giving
you trouble, more often is probably not a bad idea.

And oh! Shyam's Sequential Save actually does work in PPT 97.
http://skp.mvps.org/seqsave.htm Maybe you can talk the IT guys into letting
you install this. Be sure to turn your macro security down to low before you
install the add-in, then you can put it back up higher after you install.
This add-in doesn't get you out of saving frequently, but when you do save,
you'll automatically get a backup copy.

At any rate, I suspect that the real problem here is indeed the file size. I
don't blame you for not wanting to have to go through every image
individually.

If you know someone who has a more recent version of PPT (2002 or 2003), you
can use PPT's own "compress pictures" option. (I think there's some info
about that feature in the link I posted. If there's not, then holler back.)
Or heck, maybe even see if you can take it to Kinko's (assuming they're
using 2002/2003) to shrink using that feature.

As for file size to expect, that's a harder one to answer. I'm thinking
maybe oh, 30 or 40 MB. I just did an experiment here -- created a photo
album in PPT 2003 with 20 images. It was about 8 MB. I ran the "compress
pictures" feature in PPT 2003, and the resulting file was 1.4MB. So maybe
your file could be anywhere from 10 MB to 50MB. Generally speaking, the
smaller the better, though.

--
Echo [MS PPT MVP]
http://www.echosvoice.com

Thank you for the words of wisdom, Echo S. I feel sufficiently chastised. I
knew better, of course, but tunnel vision got the better of me. I shall get
in the habit of saving after every page or so, instead of my usual half hour.
My current presentation is a group effort and the pictures provided to me
were scanned by a colleague. I did not check to see the size of each picture
but have a hunch that they are the source of the ballooning file. However,
to check each and every one of over 200 pictures would be very time
consuming. Our graduation is on next Wednesday evening and, with other
committments, there isn't the time to spend. I would much prefer to have
this colleague, who's twin sons are graduating, to do some editing and get it
down to the bare bones - say between 12Mb and 15MB. What size would you
recommend? I'll be checking out that link.

Many thanks.
--
Knowledge is a power to be shared by all, joyfully.

In addition to the suggestions and questions from Austin and Sonia, 100MB
(106,000kb) is very large, even for 200 pictures. Why?

See
Why are my PowerPoint files so big? What can I do about it?
http://www.rdpslides.com/pptfaq/FAQ00062.htm

And finally, as I'm sure you're aware, you should try to get in the habit of
saving more often than every three hours.

--
Echo [MS PPT MVP]
http://www.echosvoice.com


For the last four years I have been creating PowerPoint presentations for
the
graduation ceremonies at our school. The first year the presentation file
was 11,000KB in size and went without a hitch. The second year the file
was
12,000KB and ran perfectly as well. However, last year it reached
37,000KB,
had difficulties in saving, and the files became corrupted. This year
I've
been pressured by colleages to create something longer and, at 106,000KB,
containing over 200 pictures, it had difficulty saving and had to be
renamed.
Then, after 3 hours of animating and setting slide transitions the
programme
crashed in the middle of saving. The operating system is Windows XP. Why
are these difficulties surfacing? Is there a compatability issue with XP
and
Office 97 or is there a maximum size for PowerPoint files?

 

[anke]

Thanks, Steve.
I'll look into using those strategies.

 

[Cyndee]

Did you ever find out the maximum size for a presentation?

 

[Echo S]

There really isn't a hard and fast max size, Cyndee. The max is based on the
resources your system has available.

That said, I generally start getting a little nervous when files reach about
100MB.

Is there a reason you're asking? Are you having problems?