large PPT file (5M) and Intel Mac

[sjohnson717]

I have an INtel Powerbook with 1G of RAM. I saved a 2007 Powerpoint
file in 2003 format from my PC, moved it to the Mac and Powerpoint
crashes when the file is open. The Powerpoint opens fine on Office
2003 on the PC but crashes when opened on the Mac. On the PC I was
able to creak the 200 slide prez into 2 100-slide presentations and
both are fine on the Mac.

I am current on all software on both machines. My fonts appear to be
uncorrupted on the Mac.

I'm assuming that this is a memory managemetn problem. Any ideas?

Steve

 

[Jim Gordon MVP]

Hi Steve,

It sure sounds like it could be a memory management issue.

Is the presentation on a flash (jump) drive or a nearly full volume? Perhaps
the hard drive doesn't have enough room.

Does the same presentation crash any other Macs?

-Jim Gordon
Mac MVP

I have an INtel Powerbook with 1G of RAM. I saved a 2007 Powerpoint
file in 2003 format from my PC, moved it to the Mac and Powerpoint
crashes when the file is open. The Powerpoint opens fine on Office
2003 on the PC but crashes when opened on the Mac. On the PC I was
able to creak the 200 slide prez into 2 100-slide presentations and
both are fine on the Mac.

I am current on all software on both machines. My fonts appear to be
uncorrupted on the Mac.

I'm assuming that this is a memory managemetn problem. Any ideas?

Steve

--
Jim Gordon
Mac MVP

MVPs are not Microsoft Employees
MVP info

 

[Steve Rindsberg]

I have an INtel Powerbook with 1G of RAM. I saved a 2007 Powerpoint
file in 2003 format from my PC, moved it to the Mac and Powerpoint
crashes when the file is open. The Powerpoint opens fine on Office
2003 on the PC but crashes when opened on the Mac. On the PC I was
able to creak the 200 slide prez into 2 100-slide presentations and
both are fine on the Mac.

I am current on all software on both machines. My fonts appear to be
uncorrupted on the Mac.

I'm assuming that this is a memory managemetn problem. Any ideas?

It may be that, but sometimes the act of saving a file to a new name cleans out
some of the accumulated rubbish that PPT so loves to hoard.

In breaking the file into two on the PC, you must've saved each to a new name,
but you may not've done so on the full version.

So two things to try:

1) On the PC, read this and follow the suggestions there:

Do this before using PowerPoint seriously
http://www.pptfaq.com/FAQ00034.htm

then open the file, choose File, Save As and save to a new name. See if that
behaves better on the Mac.

2) On the Mac, open the first of the 100-slide files, then use Insert, Slides
From File to bring in the slides from the other 100-slide file. See if that
works ok.

If neither helps, then it may be a memory problem.


================================================
Steve Rindsberg, PPT MVP
PPT FAQ: www.pptfaq.com
PPTools: www.pptools.com
================================================

 

[Tom]

Hi Steve,

It sure sounds like it could be a memory management issue.

Is the presentation on a flash (jump) drive or a nearly full volume? Perhaps
the hard drive doesn't have enough room.

Does the same presentation crash any other Macs?

-Jim Gordon
Mac MVP






--
Jim Gordon
Mac MVP

MVPs are not Microsoft Employees
MVP infohttp://mvp.support.microsoft.com/

Steve, I am having very similiar problems with Powerpoint on an intel
based Mac. I spent an hour on the phone with Microsoft technical
support. We did not resolve the problems with the crashes and the
speed of the program. One area we did review - you may want to try.
Start up your Mac in safe mode ( hold down shift key during start up).
Reopen powerpoint and run the program - does it help?? If it does, go
back and start up nomal, go to system preferences, accounts, start up
items. There were a number of start up items relating to Microsoft
office. Another for i-Tunes help. I removed all the items. It did
improve the performace.
I still believe there is a significant difference with running
Powerpoint on a PC and a Mac - especially for larger complex files.
The Tech person at Microsoft - who is the Mac expert can't explain it.

Tom

 

[Jim Gordon MVP]

Hi Tom,

Office 2004 is not Intel native, so it uses Rosetta for everything. That's a
substantial amount of processing power being diverted just to get things to
run.

Office 2008 will be a dual binary so it will be Intel native. I would expect
that most things will run faster when that happens.

-Jim Gordon
Mac MVP

Steve, I am having very similiar problems with Powerpoint on an intel
based Mac. I spent an hour on the phone with Microsoft technical
support. We did not resolve the problems with the crashes and the
speed of the program. One area we did review - you may want to try.
Start up your Mac in safe mode ( hold down shift key during start up).
Reopen powerpoint and run the program - does it help?? If it does, go
back and start up nomal, go to system preferences, accounts, start up
items. There were a number of start up items relating to Microsoft
office. Another for i-Tunes help. I removed all the items. It did
improve the performace.
I still believe there is a significant difference with running
Powerpoint on a PC and a Mac - especially for larger complex files.
The Tech person at Microsoft - who is the Mac expert can't explain it.

Tom

--
Jim Gordon
Mac MVP

MVPs are not Microsoft Employees
MVP info

 

[sjohnson717]

Problem persists on another Intel Mac and on a Powerpoint Mac. Both
have plenty of RAM and disk.
It's my own fault really. I upgraded to Office 07 and bloated the file
when I saved in 03 format. It was 2.5M before and 4.9M after. So I'm
sure I'm just hitting the limits of what poor old Office 2004 can
handle. Breaking into two parts is only annoying.

Thanks to all for your help.

Steve

 

[Jim Gordon MVP]

Hi,

The file size should not be an issue. I'd look for something else.

-Jim Gordon
Mac MVP

Problem persists on another Intel Mac and on a Powerpoint Mac. Both
have plenty of RAM and disk.
It's my own fault really. I upgraded to Office 07 and bloated the file
when I saved in 03 format. It was 2.5M before and 4.9M after. So I'm
sure I'm just hitting the limits of what poor old Office 2004 can
handle. Breaking into two parts is only annoying.

Thanks to all for your help.

Steve

--
Jim Gordon
Mac MVP

MVPs are not Microsoft Employees
MVP info

 

[genericaudioperson]

Hello Jim,

Could you elaborate a bit on "Office 2008"...

Will it be available as an update to Office 2004 Student and Teacher
edition users?

Will it solve the slow PowerPoint problem?

Hopefully, they will *not* copy the layout of the PC version of
office. Specfically, the PC version wastes a ton of space at the top
of the screen with these giant wizard menu rectangle things that you
can't get rid of. Especially on a notebook computer where vertical
screen space is already limited, it really takes away valuable screen
real estate.

The mini-slide viewer on the left is a good idea, however.

 

[CyberTaz]

Since the last posting in this thread is over a month old I'll jump in just
out of curiosity

Upgrade: Historically there is no reduced price upgrade from S&T to S&T -
that's why the price is so low... If you still qualify you repurchase at a
price which is comparable to - if not lower than - the typical upgrade price
non-S&T users pay. If you don't qualify to repurchase at S&T rates there is
usually an option to upgrade to the other packages at the "regular" upgrade
price. IOW, you pay the same to upgrade from S&T X to Standard 2004 that you
would if you were upgrading from Standard X to Standard 2004. How it will
come down for 2008 has not been announced.

Speed: Nobody knows because nobody has seen it. Logic dictates that if
you're on an Intel Mac *any* program will run faster if it's running
natively (Universal Binary) than if it has to run through an emulator
(Rosetta). One of the few points released about 2008 is that it will be UB.

GUI: If you mean the Office 2007 Ribbon I wouldn't be surprised to see
something similar in Office 2008. It won't be the *same* because OS X works
differently than Windows, but the pre-release demos at Macworld suggest that
the "conventional" appearance & functionality will not be retained - at
least not as a default. How customizable/optional? - Wait & See is the only
honest answer available.

Regards |:>)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac