Installing PP viewer - I am Mac illiterate

[PixelWarrior]

I have a client for whom I have prepared a Powerpoint presentation and he
wants to view it on his Mac - OS 8.1. He did not have PP installed on his
system.

I downloaded the PP98 viewer for Mac and gave it to him on CD. When he
clicked on the file, it asked to open with Claris Works, and he clicked on
Yes. This of course did nothing but open Claris Works.

I went to him, tried a few things, but I am Mac illiterate (though
reasonably PC literate) and I couldn't work out how to install the darn
thing! I know it hasn't installed despite my attempts, because when I remove
the CD and try again with the CD containing the presentation, nothing
happens.

so - just how do you install PPviewer on a Mac? There wasn't anything in the
readme files which indicated that there was any problem with installing it
on a Mac 8.1. How do you restore file associations, since Claris seems to
have taken this file type over? Or is there something else we are doing
wrong?

Occurred to me that maybe you need to physically copy the viewer from the CD
and place it on the hard drive somewhere before it will work - is this
right?

hope you can help.

 

[Steve Rindsberg, PPTMVP]

From the instrux on the Viewer download page:

==========================================
To install PowerPoint Viewer, please follow these instructions:

Download PPT98VW.HQX to your local hard drive.
Double click the file Microsoft PowerPoint View.sit on your local hard
drive.
===========================================
See the problem? Downloading an .HQX and clicking a .SIT? - huh?
Not gonna get there on a PC w/o extra software.

It *might* work to copy the HQX from the CD to the Mac's local HDD; when you
download the HQX to Mac, it becomes a .SEA (self extracting archive) file,
so it'll run when you doubleclick it.

You might try the link from the viewer download page to Aladdin - I think
they also have PC versions of their software that'll let you unpack certain
types of compressed Mac files on you Win box.


--

Steve Rindsberg PPT MVP
PPTLive ( http://www.pptlive.com ) Featured Speaker
PPTools: http://www.pptools.com
PPT FAQ: http://www.pptfaq.com

 

[PixelWarrior]

Thanks - But I had already unzipped the files before burning them to CD and
giving them to him, using Stuffit. The files are now without extension.
There are 3 files - the Read Me I mentioned before, the Viewer itself, an
Icon and a folder of Supporting Files. It is clicking on the Viewer itself
which does nothing.

 

[Mickey Stevens]

From the instructions, it sounds like you need to copy the PowerPoint Viewer
folder onto the Hard Drive. Then, when you've copied it, drag the
PowerPoint presentation directly onto the "Microsoft PowerPoint 98 Viewer"
icon on the Hard Drive.

 

[Steve Rindsberg, PPTMVP]

I think Mickey's on the right track - the viewer needs to be installed on
the Mac.
It may be enough to drag it and the supporting files to the HDD or they may
need to launch the viewer program.

FWIW: Running Mac stuff through the PC mill is generally a good way to make
things hard for everybody, PC and Mac users alike.

It might be simpler to point the Mac user at the MS site so they can
download the viewer themselves.


--

Steve Rindsberg PPT MVP
PPTLive ( http://www.pptlive.com ) Featured Speaker
PPTools: http://www.pptools.com
PPT FAQ: http://www.pptfaq.com