Powerpoint 2008 bugs, bugs, and more bugs

[dclarke]

Version: 2008
Operating System: Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard)
Processor: Intel

On my Mac OS X (10.5), I have numerous problems with ppt. Any suggestions and/or confirmation that it's not just me would be greatly appreciated.

1. How does one resize an ellipse (or any other shape)? On my version, as soon as I try to resize it, it snaps vertically to a preset height. I can resize horizontally, not vertically. This is obviously a bug. My workaround is to group it with another item, say a short line, then resize the grouped object which does work. But one shouldn't have to do this!!

2. When drawing a shape with shapes->line connectors, then bottom middle, the snap to grid doesn't work. That is, I cannot get a line I am drawing to follow coarse grid. Drawing a line works with snap to grid, not a compound object. Ideas?

3. How does one turn off "snap points" on an ellipse when trying to draw a line nearby?

4. Having drawn an object with the pseudo-spline fitter (e.g., shapes->lines and connectors, first column third row), how do you edit points? When I try to edit points, it refuses to allow me to move a point incrementally.

5. How does one reduce space between paragraphs to zero?

6. It takes ppt *forever* to close a file. What on Earth is it doing with my 4 MByte file? On the PC, saving such a file is almost instantaneous.

Thanks to anyone with any answers!

Cheers, David.

 

[Jim Gordon MVP]

Version: 2008
Operating System: Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard)
Processor: Intel

On my Mac OS X (10.5), I have numerous problems with ppt. Any suggestions and/or confirmation that it's not just me would be greatly appreciated.

1. How does one resize an ellipse (or any other shape)? On my version, as soon as I try to resize it, it snaps vertically to a preset height. I can resize horizontally, not vertically. This is obviously a bug. My workaround is to group it with another item, say a short line, then resize the grouped object which does work. But one shouldn't have to do this!!

2. When drawing a shape with shapes->line connectors, then bottom middle, the snap to grid doesn't work. That is, I cannot get a line I am drawing to follow coarse grid. Drawing a line works with snap to grid, not a compound object. Ideas?

3. How does one turn off "snap points" on an ellipse when trying to draw a line nearby?

4. Having drawn an object with the pseudo-spline fitter (e.g., shapes->lines and connectors, first column third row), how do you edit points? When I try to edit points, it refuses to allow me to move a point incrementally.

5. How does one reduce space between paragraphs to zero?

6. It takes ppt *forever* to close a file. What on Earth is it doing with my 4 MByte file? On the PC, saving such a file is almost instantaneous.

Thanks to anyone with any answers!

Cheers, David.

Hi David,

I want to help out, but I'm having trouble figuring out what objects
we're working with.

1. There is no "ellipse" shape in the object palette. That makes me lack
the confidence to know how you created the shape. The names of the
shapes appear if you mouse over the shapes. The general procedure to
change a shape's size is to drag the "handles" that appear when you
select a shape by clicking on it. Additional options are available by
control-clicking or right-clicking on the shape and choosing Format
Shape in the pop-up mneu that results.

2. If the problem only happens with one particular shape, please tell us
the shape's name as it appears in the object palette.

3. The red dots go on and off automatically, but you can still position
the line anywhere. They're just there to guide you if you want to
connect the two objects together.

4. Srcibble, freeform, and curve are the shapes that let you edit points.

5. Select the text. Use Format>Paragraph>Spacing>Line Spacing>Exactly

6. It should be pretty snappy. Hopefully, you are using pptx format and
not ppt, as the ppt format has to go through a converter which takes a
bit longer. Try using File > Save As and give it a new name to see if
that speeds things up.

-Jim

 

[dclarke]

Thank you Jim for your reply. It sounds as if I can make myself clear enough, you're the guy to get the answers! So let me try again.

I want to help out, but I'm having trouble figuring out what objects
we're working with.

1. There is no "ellipse" shape in the object palette. That makes me lack
the confidence to know how you created the shape. The names of the
shapes appear if you mouse over the shapes. The general procedure to
change a shape's size is to drag the "handles" that appear when you
select a shape by clicking on it. Additional options are available by
control-clicking or right-clicking on the shape and choosing Format
Shape in the pop-up mneu that results.

To get the ellipse (oval), left-click on shapes in the top menu bar, then drag your mouse down to "basic shapes" (third option down), then the top-left icon which looks like a circle is actually an ellipse drawer. The hover-over word is "oval". Left-click on that, and your mouse becomes an ellipse drawer. Shift mouse, and it forces a circle. Once that shape is drawn and you wish to resize, normally one clicks on a "handle" as you call it, and drags it to the desired size. This works OK in the horizontal direction, but in the vertical direction the ellipse snaps to a preset and undesired height---about 2 cm on my screen---and you can't budge it from there. That's a bug. BTW, this is true for any shape; I happen to first find it when trying to resize an oval.

2. If the problem only happens with one particular shape, please tell us
the shape's name as it appears in the object palette.

3. The red dots go on and off automatically, but you can still position
the line anywhere. They're just there to guide you if you want to
connect the two objects together.

On ppt 2008 for the mac, you cannot position the line anywhere, and this is the frustration. The ends of the lines automatically snap to the locations of the red dots when you are within a few mm of the dot, and I cannot see where to turn this snap-to-dots feature off. It's a great feature when you want it; it sucks when you don't and it forces you! Turning on and off the snap-to-grid under view -> guides seems to have no effect.

4. Srcibble, freeform, and curve are the shapes that let you edit points.

Yes, this I know. So try to edit the points! If we have the same version, you will see that you cannot budge a point until you move it by a few mm. After that threshold, you can move the point anywhere, except within a few mm of the original location. Even more infuriating, it seems to remember every location where your point was---even when the point has ben deleted. Thus, you can't even move a point grossly, then try to move it back "close" to where it was, 'cause it remembers where it was as well as where it is and won't let you move the point close to either of these locations. Absolutely maddening, and clearly another bug (was not in the 2003 version for the PC).

5. Select the text. Use Format>Paragraph>Spacing>Line Spacing>Exactly

Actually, this is not what is needed, though you did lead me to a place where I hadn't seen. The "exactly" part does nothing to eliminate the space between paragraphs, but the "spacing before paragraphs" set to 0 pt does. So thanks.

I would suggest it is a poor design choice to have the toolbox items not have the same range of functionality as the pull-down items. The toolbox has an icon to reduce the spacing between paragraphs, but it stops you at 12 pt and won't let you go lower, even though "paragraph" from the pull-down "format" will let you go to 0 pt.

Another poor design decision, in my view, is the fact there are *two* format menu buttons which do very different things. The format button at the very top of the ppt window (with a paintbrush? What has a paint brush got to do with formatting?) does something which I haven't figured out (not the least bit

 

[Steve Rindsberg]

Yes, this I know. So try to edit the points! If we have the same version, you will see that
you cannot budge a point until you move it by a few mm. After that threshold, you can move the
point anywhere, except within a few mm of the original location.

The points want to snap to themselves, even though snap-to is turned off.
An odd feature at best. But the "gravity" seems to be measured in pixels rather than mm. The
further in you zoom before moving a point, the more control you have when moving the point a
short distance.

 

[Jim Gordon MVP]

Thank you Jim for your reply. It sounds as if I can make myself clear enough, you're the guy to get the answers! So let me try again.


To get the ellipse (oval), left-click on shapes in the top menu bar, then drag your mouse down to "basic shapes" (third option down), then the top-left icon which looks like a circle is actually an ellipse drawer. The hover-over word is "oval". Left-click on that, and your mouse becomes an ellipse drawer. Shift mouse, and it forces a circle. Once that shape is drawn and you wish to resize, normally one clicks on a "handle" as you call it, and drags it to the desired size. This works OK in the horizontal direction, but in the vertical direction the ellipse snaps to a preset and undesired height---about 2 cm on my screen---and you can't budge it from there. That's a bug. BTW, this is true for any shape; I happen to first find it when trying to resize an oval.


On ppt 2008 for the mac, you cannot position the line anywhere, and this is the frustration. The ends of the lines automatically snap to the locations of the red dots when you are within a few mm of the dot, and I cannot see where to turn this snap-to-dots feature off. It's a great feature when you want it; it sucks when you don't and it forces you! Turning on and off the snap-to-grid under view -> guides seems to have no effect.


Yes, this I know. So try to edit the points! If we have the same version, you will see that you cannot budge a point until you move it by a few mm. After that threshold, you can move the point anywhere, except within a few mm of the original location. Even more infuriating, it seems to remember every location where your point was---even when the point has ben deleted. Thus, you can't even move a point grossly, then try to move it back "close" to where it was, 'cause it remembers where it was as well as where it is and won't let you move the point close to either of these locations. Absolutely maddening, and clearly another bug (was not in the 2003 version for the PC).


Actually, this is not what is needed, though you did lead me to a place where I hadn't seen. The "exactly" part does nothing to eliminate the space between paragraphs, but the "spacing before paragraphs" set to 0 pt does. So thanks.

I would suggest it is a poor design choice to have the toolbox items not have the same range of functionality as the pull-down items. The toolbox has an icon to reduce the spacing between paragraphs, but it stops you at 12 pt and won't let you go lower, even though "paragraph" from the pull-down "format" will let you go to 0 pt.

Another poor design decision, in my view, is the fact there are *two* format menu buttons which do very different things. The format button at the very top of the ppt window (with a paintbrush? What has a paint brush got to do with formatting?) does something which I haven't figured out (not the least bit

Wow! So many interesting and great questions! Thank you for the details.
I'll do my best to sort this out.

1. About the ovals. When I drag an oval shape it lets me choose any
height and width combination I want. If I hold the Shift key down why
dragging out the shape I get a "regular" shape (all sides are equal).
That's a long way to say your problem is not reproducing on my Intel
based iMac. There could be a problem with a bad preference plist file on
your computer, or maybe it's hardware related.

2. I tried several different shapes and could not reproduce the problem
you're having.

3. When fine-tuning drawing objects I set the zoom to 400%. Holding the
option key down when dragging turns off the red dots.

4. The granularity of the placement of points in 2008 is an order of
magnitude less precise and not at all smooth comapred with 2004 and
earlier versions of Powerpoint. This is due to improvements made to the
drawing engine. How this is an improvement is beyond me. Use the Help >
Send Feedback to Microsoft feature to let them know that the "improved"
drawing engine is grossly inferior to the unimproved one in this regard.
I wonder if they thought no one would notice. My wild guess is that on
PCs making the new engine as good as the old one would slow PowerPoint
down too much, so Macs can't have it either.

5. The little paintbrush is "Format painter." Select something, click
the button, and formatting attributes are copied. Click on something
else, and whatever you click on gets the formatting that was on the
previous object. It's been there, well forever almost. I suspect lots of
people would beat them over the head if they change this one.

-Jim

 

[CyberTaz]

Just a couple of thoughts re;

1. How does one resize an ellipse (or any other shape)?

Make sure that View> Guides> Snap to Shape is NOT checked especially if
there are other shapes in the neighborhood,

Turn off the feakin' Dynamic Guides while you're there[1],

For more infinite increments & to bypass the Snap feature hold the Command
key while resizing.

[1] They really aren't a bad feature but you have to understand what they're
all about & how they work in order to take advantage of them rather than
having them drive you nutz

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

 

[dclarke]

Thanks again Jim for your input.

1. About the ovals. When I drag an oval shape it lets me choose any
height and width combination I want. If I hold the Shift key down why
dragging out the shape I get a "regular" shape (all sides are equal).
That's a long way to say your problem is not reproducing on my Intel
based iMac. There could be a problem with a bad preference plist file on
your computer, or maybe it's hardware related.

It's clear we don't have the same ppt 2008 for the intel Mac, and this may be part of the problem. There may have been a (grossly) premature release of the software, and I seem to have been stuck with that. There is *nothing* I can do to make the vertical resizer work. Nothing. Option, command, control keys all do nothing, all the "snap to" features are (apparently) turned off, and whether the dynamic and static guides are on or off makes no difference. This is a bug, and it's been made even worse by the fact that microsoft has, apparently, at least two versions of the same-named software out there. Why does this not surprise me?

3. When fine-tuning drawing objects I set the zoom to 400%.

Yes, others have suggested this, but this is no solution. One shouldn't have to do this! There is no reason I can fathom for ppt to have "zones of avoidance" around each location where a point is or was. If this isn't a bug, it is, in my view, an extremely bad design decision.

Holding the
option key down when dragging turns off the red dots.

Not for me it doesn't. Like the vertical resizer, there ain't nuttin' I can do to turn those damned red dots off.

4. The granularity of the placement of points in 2008 is an order of
magnitude less precise and not at all smooth comapred with 2004 and
earlier versions of Powerpoint. This is due to improvements made to the
drawing engine. How this is an improvement is beyond me. Use the Help >
Send Feedback to Microsoft feature to let them know that the "improved"
drawing engine is grossly inferior to the unimproved one in this regard.

If this wouldn't be shouting into the aether, then I don't know what would be!

My solution now seems to be to heed advice I've received from at least two university IT directors: put 2004 on my mac, avoid completely 2008, and hope to heck they figure out these problems for 2012...

Cheers and thanks again;

David.

 

[dclarke]

Hi Bob:

Thanks for your input.

You seem to have the same version as Jim does. Somehow I've been saddled with a different version of ppt 2008 for the mac (intel, leopard)...

Make sure that View> Guides> Snap to Shape is NOT checked especially if
there are other shapes in the neighborhood,

Both snap to grid and snap to shape are off. No difference.

Turn off the feakin' Dynamic Guides while you're there[1],

Dynamic guides are off and so is the static guide. No difference.

For more infinite increments & to bypass the Snap feature hold the Command
key while resizing.

Doesn't do a thing for me.

[1] They really aren't a bad feature but you have to understand what they're
all about & how they work in order to take advantage of them rather than
having them drive you nutz

Alas, they have already driven me nuts, and I'm abandoning ship. I'm having my IT department install 2004.

Cheers, David.

David Clarke
professor, astronomy and physics
Saint Mary's University
Halifax, NS Canada.

 

[CyberTaz]

Hi David -

There is only one release of Office 2008, which is version 12.x, but as with
any software from any developer there have been several updates - some of
which are *critical*. I've seen nothing in this thread which indicates
exactly what update level your installation may be but that may be the root
of the problem. I also see nothing about your update level of OS X, os
perhaps it would be a god idea t start with the basics

OS X Leopard should be at 10.5.6 - Even if that's what you currently have I
would suggest hitting the Apple Downloads site & retrieving the 10.5.6 Combo
Update. There could be OS issues involved & the Combos are far more robust
than the updates received via Software Update.

Office 2008 needs to be at version 12.1.5, which you can verify via the
[Program Name] Menu> About [Program Name]. If it doesn't identify your level
as 12.1.5 use the Help menu to run Check For Updates.

Additionally, run Disk Utility - Repair Disk Permissions [even if no updates
were necessary] & restart the Mac.

If you continue to have a problem try running PPt from a different User
Account to see if the same issues occur there.

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

Hi Bob:

Thanks for your input.

You seem to have the same version as Jim does. Somehow I've been saddled with
a different version of ppt 2008 for the mac (intel, leopard)...

Make sure that View> Guides> Snap to Shape is NOT checked especially if
there are other shapes in the neighborhood,

Both snap to grid and snap to shape are off. No difference.

Turn off the feakin' Dynamic Guides while you're there[1],

Dynamic guides are off and so is the static guide. No difference.

For more infinite increments & to bypass the Snap feature hold the Command
key while resizing.

Doesn't do a thing for me.

[1] They really aren't a bad feature but you have to understand what they're
all about & how they work in order to take advantage of them rather than
having them drive you nutz

Alas, they have already driven me nuts, and I'm abandoning ship. I'm having my
IT department install 2004.

Cheers, David.

David Clarke
professor, astronomy and physics
Saint Mary's University
Halifax, NS Canada.