powerpoint to word outlines collapsing

[revduke123]

Hi all,

I'm using Mac OS X, powerpint for mac 2004.

I'm trying to convert masses of ppt files to word. Encountered a
problem with first file!
The file contains several slides each of which has a title and one
text box.

To convert the files, I select all the slides in outline view, then
copy, then paste into a new Word doc.

problem: SOME of the slides copy correctly, some of them only the
title is copied across.
Manually collapsing / expanding the outline in outline view makes no
difference.
If I do "send to Word" (instead of using copy / paste, I get the same
behaviour, but there are further formatting issues which arise which I
don't want to deal with right now. First of all I want to understand
the outline / collapse behaviour.


I've found a bizarre fix by accident:
If, on the slides which only seem to paste the title, I select the
title in outline view, then indent it and un-indent it, and repeat the
whole procedure, the file is correctly pasted (or Send-ed) into Word.

Why is this happening? How can I convert files without this hassle?

As a follow-up question, is there a way to batch-process hundreds of
these files?

thanks very much to anyone who can help,

the dukester,

 

[CyberTaz]

I don't know that I have the answer, but the first question I would ask is:

Since the Outline depends on Style/Bullet levels, is it possible that the
"problem" Titles have been direct-formatted differently than the ones that
are "behaving'? I believe the transport to Word relies on the *formatting*
of the content rather than what type of Placeholder it's coming from.

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

 

[revduke123]

Hi Bob,

I don't know what "direct formatted" means. If your diagnosis is
correct, how do I fix it?
I've just tested 2 further things:

1) When I use the debug window to print out the levels, bullet
styles, indents, etc of every paragraph in the file, they all seem to
be the same: unbulleted, very vanilla style. There seems no
identifiable difference that I can find between the slides that work
and the ones that don't.

2) If I use the formatting palette to apply numbering or bullets, and
then un-apply them, the problem remains. It is only applying the
indent that makes a difference.

Does this make any difference to your thoughts?

THanks again,

the dukester.

 

[CyberTaz]

The formatting of content in a placeholder is determined by the specs for
that type of placeholder in the Slide Master & Title Master. I believe that
effectively establishes a Style (even though PPt doesn't support custom
styles, per se) that corresponds to Heading styles in Word & each slide's
title placeholder is then formatted the same way automatically.

However, you can still select any title while editing an individual slide &
directly change the formatting of that title *only* - other slide titles are
not effected. I'm thinking that if you do reformat a particular title it may
break the "link" to the Word Heading level style & cause the type of
situation you describe. I suspect the same re Bulleted List Placeholders -
inconsistent formatting from one slide to another could cause the 'deviants'
to not be recognized appropriately when exported.

I haven't experienced what you report & don't know this to be the case. It
simply seems like a possible cause for the problem.

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