New Dual Monitor Problem

[Fran McConville]

I've discovered that it is possible to run in dual monitor mode without
selecting presenter view - in this case, the slide show appears on the second
monitor and the design view appears on my laptop. Now I can format my notes
and pane sizes, etc...

BUT the slide thumbnails in the left hand pane don't update - they appear as
blank boxes. If I click on them, they update, but then I lose the link to
the slide show and cannot advance it on the second monitor.

I originally thought this was a problem with PowerShow, which I've been
trying to get to work, but the conditions I'm describing occurs after I've
removed the PowerShow add-in. Any thoughts?

 

[Sonia]

The display of the thumbnails may be corrected by turning graphics hardware
acceleration off. Mine display just fine, so yours should too. The difference
is that I am running on a desktop.

How to set graphics hardware acceleration back
http://www.rdpslides.com/pptfaq/FAQ00129.htm

The thing that PowerShow allows is being able to edit while showing the
presentation. PowerPoint doesn't allow that natively. Once you click on the
edit screen, focus is taken away from the Slide Show. You have to click on the
Slide Show screen to then advance slides.

 

[Troy @ TLC Creative]

I believe the problems you are running into are more related to your computer
hardware (graphics card) than PowerPoint. I have used the ability to run an
extended desktop on many of my computers without a display problem (though
the loss of controlling the presentation is very frustrating). If your laptop
has a shared memory graphics chip, such as the Intel Extreme Graphics, then
turning off Hardware Acceleration is mandatory. If you have a small video ram
(16 megs or under) turning off Hardware Acceleration may also remedy the
problem.

If you would like further assistance, reply with the make and model of
laptop and what graphics card it has.

Best Regards,
Troy Chollar
TLC Creative Services, Inc.
troy at tlc creative dot com
www dot tlccreative dot com
======================================
A Microsoft PowerPoint MVP
======================================

 

[Fran McConville]

No luck, Sonya. Turning off graphics acceleration doesn't help. The
thumbnails still don't update. I've tried rebooting, etc... no good.

This is a quite new Dell 600M laptop. I don't know what graphics card it has.

-Fran

 

[Troy Chollar]

Did a quick search of Dell's website and the Inspirion 600M appears to have
at minimum an ATI 9000 graphics card with at least 32 megs of RAM. Unless
the presentation is over 100 megs and very animation intensive this graphics
card should handle everything just fine.

There are two things you can check:
1. That you have all updates for PowerPoint (especially Service Pack 1 if
running PPT 2003). Go to HELP >> CHECK FOR UPDATES >> follow instructions.
2. Check that you have the most recent video drivers installed for your
graphics card. Go to CONTROL PANEL >> DISPLAY >> SETTINGS tab >> ADVANCED
button >> ADAPTOR tab >> ADAPTOR TYPE tells you exactly what graphics card
is installed on your computer. Go to graphics card manufacturers website
(www.ati.com or www.nvidia.com) search for model listed, download lastest
driver and install.

Best Regards,
Troy Chollar
TLC Creative Services, Inc.
troy at tlc creative dot com
www dot tlccreative dot com
==================================
A Microsoft PowerPoint MVP
==================================

 

[Sonia]

Since it's a laptop, the standard ATI driver might not be what she wants. I
think she should first check the Dell site under Service and Support > Downloads
for the driver.

 

[Bill Dilworth]

Hi Fran,

I do this every week and can tell you a couple of things.

1) The Show gets the priority. The edit screen and thumbnails are updated
as cpu cycles allow, so will not always be shown.

2) Resume the inactive show. After clicking on the edit pane (or rather
anywhere off of the show screen), the show will go into 'Standby' mode. To
reactivate the slide show, you will need to have the Slide Show toolbar
visible. This toolbar is only available when the show is running and can be
accessed via the View => Toolbars => SlideShow click sequence on the edit
screen. If this toolbar is X'd to close, it will not re-appear the next
time the show is kicked into 'Standby'.

3) The two screens do not always remained in sync. I'm not exactly sure
what voo doo keeps them synced and do not know what breaks this, but often
after placing the show in standby, the sync is broken. You can use some VBA
to force this sync, but that opens a new can of worms.

--
Bill Dilworth
Microsoft PPT MVP Team
===============
Please spend a few minutes checking vestprog2@
out www.pptfaq.com This link will yahoo.
answer most of our questions, before com
you think to ask them.

Change org to com to defuse anti-spam,
ant-virus, anti-nuisance misdirection.
..
..

 

[Fran McConville]

Thanks for your help on this folks.

I've installed Office service pack 1, and the ATI driver from the Dell
website (that was another minor nightmare).

Still no luck with getting the thumbnails to update automatically. I need
to click in the laptop screen, then restart the slide show, so that's not so
good.

In the meantime, I've been playing with PowerShow, hoping that it might
prove useful, but as one reader recently put it, I may have just loaded
(sorry to be crude) 'one more piece of crap software on top of another'.

Finally, my laptop will not allow me to format the size of the font in my
notes pane even in design view - any thoughts?

 

[Fran McConville]

Excellent! Fantastic! Now I can use dual monitors, view my notes in large
font, and forget about presenter view!