PPT File altered upon file open

[Bastien Continsouzas]

I have noticed that opening a PPT file with PowerPoint (2003 SP3)
causes the file to be immediately altered.

I checked with one of my Powerpoint file (PPT) and just opening it
without saving caused the file to be altered in the following way:
- 2560 bytes of data were added at the end of the file
- an hexadecimal diff tool showed that the file had been altered in a
number of locations

I am using a Version Control System (subversion) and it is really
annoying to have files marked as "changed" even if I only looked at
them.

Is there a way to change this behavior of PowerPoint ?

Thanks,

Bastien Continsouzas

 

[Bastien Continsouzas]

You might try opening the files with the PPT Viewer instead of PPT itself

Yes, that worked fine, thanks

For the sake of knowledge, I tried to track down the changes made to
the files and what was causing them:

- A simple presentation created from scratch is not altered when
opened so this is probably not a timestamp update (last time
viewed...)
- I renamed the previous presentation and it was not altered so this
is probably not due to the name of the file being stored in it
- I moved the previous presentation and it was not altered so this is
probably not due to the path of the file being stored in it
- I added the date and time in the footer and set it to automaticaly
update and it was not altered

I tracked the changes using and Hex diff tool one one of my existing
presentations.
I found that this time, data was removed from the file instead of
being added.

I found that the data removed (at least the textual one) only appeared
in the properties and was written in two locations before opening the
file and only in one location after that (hence the removed data).

I still find this behaviour annoying but at least I have a workaround.