The PowerPoint FAQ

PowerPoint 2007 won't update links to files on network drives

Thu, 09 Apr 2009 16:29:22 EST

You link data from Excel or other files on a network drive to your PowerPoint 2007 presentation. The links work as expected but when you save the presentation and reopen it the links stop working. When you try to update the link, you see this error message: The linked file was unavailable and can’t be updated

20 Mem Overflow and 21 Print Overrun errors when printing to PCL printers

Fri, 10 Apr 2009 12:18:35 EST

Problem: You get a 20 Mem Overflow and 21 Print Overrun errors when printing If you print complex work to a printer that uses the PCL printer control language (most HP printers, many other laser printers), you may see one of these error messages, especially if your printer has limited memory. The printer manual, if there is one, probably says to reduce the complexity of your page or to add more memory. This page explains why this happens, what these error codes mean and what you can do to avoid them.

20 Mem Overflow and 21 Print Overrun errors when printing to PCL printers

Fri, 10 Apr 2009 12:19:34 EST

This presentation might contain Far East (or Asian) text and formats that PowerPoint can't display

Fri, 10 Apr 2009 14:14:09 EST

You open a PowerPoint file that uses an Asian language font on a non-Asian system and PowerPoint warns you that the file may contain Far East text or formats that PowerPoint can't display. It does this even when the text in the presentation seems to use only standard western language characters. If you try to substitute a different font so that this message goes away, PowerPoint won't let you. Annoying. This PowerPoint FAQ page suggests some solutions to the problem.

Certificate maker

Fri, 10 Apr 2009 16:03:40 EST

Here's a request that we hear frequently: "I want people who view my presentation to somehow fill in their name and other information, then I want the information they fill in to be used elsewhere in the presentation, perhaps on a certificate. Oh, and if they could then print the certificate, that'd be nice too." This PowerPoint FAQ page and the linked download provide a simple, flexible (and free) VBA solution to that problem.

The Art of the Presentation

Mon, 13 Apr 2009 10:20:02 EST

We've added a link to a review of a new training program, courtesy of PowerPoint MVP Shawn Toh.

The Art of the Presentation

Mon, 13 Apr 2009 10:22:00 EST

PowerPoint MVP Shawn Toh (tohlz) writes "I have recently reviewed a training package by Train Signal which to my surprise, covers a decent amount of useful presentation tips and avoiding Death By PowerPoint. The training package is very in-depth on both presentations and PowerPoint, which I think would be suitable for users who are looking for best of both worlds. There's a link to the full review on this PowerPoint FAQ page.

Is VBA the answer? Is it the RIGHT answer? Will it solve my presentation problem?

Fri, 17 Apr 2009 10:37:34 EST

Is VBA the answer to your presentation problems? Maybe so, but before you spend time writing code (or learning to), have a look a this page to learn what VBA can't do for you.

Fading sounds, changing volume of sounds in PowerPoint

Sat, 18 Apr 2009 19:38:30 EST

PowerPoint doesn't offer much control over the level of sounds included in your presentations. In fact, in most versions it offers no control at all. Visit this PPT FAQ page to learn other ways of controlling the volume in your presentation sounds.

PowerPoint won't break lines with commas in them

Sun, 26 Apr 2009 14:03:08 EST

Once in a while you may see a PowerPoint file with one or more text boxes that don't allow linebreaks where you'd expect them, and no amount of adjusting the wordwrap settings will force things to behave properly. This PowerPoint FAQ page explains why it happens and what you can do to fix it.

PowerPoint won't break lines with commas in them

Sun, 26 Apr 2009 14:17:23 EST

PowerPoint won't break lines with commas in them

Sun, 26 Apr 2009 14:19:23 EST

Office 2007 Service Packs

Tue, 28 Apr 2009 17:14:15 EST

On 28 April, 2009, Microsoft released Service Pack 2 for Microsoft Office 2007. This PPT FAQ page has links to the Office 2007 SP2 download page and more information.

Office 2007 Service Packs

Wed, 29 Apr 2009 10:48:39 EST

On 28 April, 2009 Microsoft released Service Pack 2 (SP2) for Office 2007. The service pack fixes many problems with PowerPoint in the original release of Office 2007, along with a few problems that weren't fixed or were introduced in SP1. This PPT FAQ page has links to the Office 2007 SP2 download page and more information.

An add-in suddenly stops working

Fri, 01 May 2009 11:16:36 EST

After applying Service Pack 3 (SP3) for Microsoft Office 2003, some add-ins and ActiveX controls may disappear or cease to function. This PowerPoint FAQ page has a brief explanation of this and a link to a more detailed Microsoft knowledgebase article.

An add-in suddenly stops working

Fri, 01 May 2009 11:17:17 EST

Buttons that launch macros stop working

Fri, 01 May 2009 11:27:49 EST

When you use PowerPoint 2007 to open a PPT file that includes action settings that trigger macros, you may find that the action settings do nothing. The macros don't "fire". This PowerPoint FAQ page explains what's going on and what to do to fix it.

Add "leader" lines to tabbed text

Tue, 12 May 2009 16:34:15 EST

PowerPoint doesn't create tabbed leader lines the way some word processing and desktop publishing programs do. This page suggests a few workarounds.

Create your own default presentation

Tue, 12 May 2009 23:21:15 EST

Normallly when you start PowerPoint, you can create a new blank presentation or you can choose one of the included templates to base your presentation on. But what if you always want to use the same included template? Or you want to create and use your own template? This page explains how. Thanks to PowerPoint MVP Echo Swinford for all her help with this one.

Create your own default presentation

Wed, 13 May 2009 10:07:38 EST

This presentation might contain Far East (or Asian) text and formats that PowerPoint can't display

Sat, 16 May 2009 14:10:06 EST

Rotate an image on every other slide

Wed, 20 May 2009 15:49:13 EST

A visitor to the PowerPoint Newsgroup</a> asked if it was possible to rotate every other page in a PowerPoint presentation 180 degrees so that when printed in book form, all of the images would be facing the same way. This PowerPoint FAQ page suggests a simple solution to the problem.

Rotate an image on every other slide

Wed, 20 May 2009 15:49:33 EST

Rotate an image on every other slide

Wed, 20 May 2009 15:56:10 EST

A visitor to the PowerPoint Newsgroup asked if it was possible to rotate every other page in a PowerPoint presentation 180 degrees so that when printed in book form, all of the images would be facing the same way. This PowerPoint FAQ page suggests a simple solution to the problem.

I want to create a book in PowerPoint

Mon, 25 May 2009 16:22:05 EST

You're thinking of creating a book. Great. You're thinking of creating it in PowerPoint. Maybe not so great. A lot depends on the type of book you plan to create, how you plan to print it and your tolerance for a certain amount of tedious work that other software might do for you automatically. This page at the PowerPoint FAQ site explains why you might be better off using a different program (and gives you some reasons why you might want to go ahead and do it in PowerPoint).

My 2007 presentation doesn't work as expected in the 2007 viewer

Tue, 26 May 2009 09:25:09 EST

When you view your PowerPoint 2007 presentations in the PowerPoint 2007 viewer, animations and hyperlinks may be lost. This explains why.

My 2007 presentation doesn't work as expected in the 2007 viewer

Tue, 26 May 2009 09:33:28 EST

When you view your PowerPoint 2007 presentations in the PowerPoint 2007 viewer, animations and hyperlinks may be lost. This explains why.

Package for CD breaks links, loses animations in my 2007 presentation file

Tue, 26 May 2009 09:35:16 EST

When you use Package for CD in 2007 you lose hyperlinks and/or animations. PowerPoint MVP Lucy Thomson explains why and what to do about it.

Creating Teacher / Student editions of presentations

Thu, 11 Jun 2009 13:36:08 EST

ometimes you need to create two different versions of a presentation, one for each of two different audiences. You might have information that you want some groups, teachers, for example, to see and other information that should appear only in the student edition of the presentation. If you need to do this, PowerPoint doesn't offer much help, short of maintaining two different versions of the same presentation. Isn't there a better solution? There is. And it's free. This page explains more.

Creating Teacher / Student editions of presentations

Thu, 11 Jun 2009 13:40:16 EST

Creating Teacher / Student editions of presentations

Thu, 11 Jun 2009 13:42:06 EST

Slide Into Word: A kinder, gentler Send To Word from PowerPoint MVP Bill Dilworth

Fri, 12 Jun 2009 10:42:39 EST

PowerPoint's Send To Word feature can be very handy at times, but it can also be slow and produce huge, unweildy Word documents. And it's missing a few features that Bill Dilworth thought it should have. That's why he wrote Slide Into Word, a kinder, gentler Send To Word feature. Read more about it here.

Keep the session alive (prevent screensaver, logout problems)

Mon, 22 Jun 2009 18:20:41 EST

Occasionally we get questions about how to keep the screensaver from kicking in, usually from people whose corporate IT people have locked down the computer to the point where they can't change the screen saver settings themselves. In other cases, the computer may log them out after a period of inactivity. How can you prevent this from happening in mid-presentation?

Keep the session alive (prevent screensaver, logout problems, mouse jiggler)

Mon, 22 Jun 2009 21:40:33 EST

Hide and Show Graphics

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 15:24:04 EST

You want to hide ... but NOT delete ... the graphics in your presentation. And you want to be able to unhide them later. This PowerPoint FAQ page explains how.

Changing the style of added PowerPoint 2007 tables

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 15:48:32 EST

When you add a new table to a slide in PowerPoint 2007, it takes on the default table style defined by the presentation's theme. Or template. Or something. But it may not be what you want. So how do you change the style? This PPTFAQ page explains how.

Creating accessible PowerPoint presentations / PowerPoint accessibility

Fri, 10 Jul 2009 11:20:25 EST

How can we create presentations that are accessibile to everyone? It's not as difficult as you might thing, once you know how. Luckily, we have PowerPoint MVP Glenna Shaw to teach us. See this PowerPoint FAQ page for links to her site, blog and tutorials.

Creating accessible PowerPoint presentations / PowerPoint accessibility

Fri, 10 Jul 2009 11:23:08 EST

Why are my PowerPoint files so big? What can I do about it?

Wed, 22 Jul 2009 11:25:01 EST

Why are my PowerPoint files so BIG? Updated to include a few new twists introduced by PowerPoint 2007

Remove password from a password-protected PowerPoint file

Thu, 23 Jul 2009 10:53:06 EST

How to remove password protection from a PowerPoint presentation (updated for Powerpoint 2003 and PowerPoint 2007)

How to create a spiral in PowerPoint

Mon, 10 Aug 2009 16:12:02 EST

How to draw a spiral in PowerPoint. Our best advice: do it in Corel Draw or Adobe Illustrator, then import it into PowerPoint. This PowerPoint FAQ page explains how (and provides an example spiral you can try out if you don't have Draw or Illustrator.

PowerPoint 2007 files don't download correctly from a Web Server, open as zip files

Wed, 26 Aug 2009 11:33:13 EST

Problem: Office 2007 files don't download correctly from a Web Server, open as zip files. This PowerPoint FAQ page has several solutions.

Check or change the Document Properties for your presentation

Wed, 02 Sep 2009 10:39:44 EST

PowerPoint maintains a large collection of information about each presentation you create. Together, this information is called "Document Properties". This PowerPoint FAQ page explains what properties are available and how to view or edit them.

Stacking a selection of shapes

Thu, 24 Sep 2009 10:15:42 EST

You'd like a quick way to "stack" the shapes you've selected. That is, to align them one above the other so they stack up like bricks or building blocks, one above the other with no space in between them. This little macro will do the job for you.

HTML "Round-tripping" to repair corruption

Mon, 28 Sep 2009 14:24:34 EST

Sometimes slides or even shapes on PowerPoint slides get corrupted in ways that aren't visible when you're editing the presentation or viewing a slide show, but when you print or export slides, it can cause problems. Odd as it may sound, saving the presentation to HTML then opening it back into PowerPoint can cure some of these problems. We call it "HTML round-tripping" and this PPT FAQ page explains how to do it.

PowerPoint 2007 makes pictures blurry, loses GIF animation

Tue, 29 Sep 2009 15:04:45 EST

PowerPoint 2007 automatically compresses images when you save a presentation (using a compression method that throws away data and can blur your pictures). It's very difficult to find the dialog box where you disable this nasty little trick. This PPT FAQ page explains how.

"You must accept the Office End User License Agreement" message when starting Office programs.

Mon, 19 Oct 2009 10:43:04 EST

When starting Office 2000-2007 programs, you may see a message like: "You must accept the Office End User License Agreement every time that you start an Office program" This message appears EVERY time you start an Office program, even though you accept teh End User License Agreement each time it asks you to. This PowerPoint FAQ article explains how to solve the problem.

"You must accept the Office End User License Agreement" message when starting Office programs.

Mon, 19 Oct 2009 10:44:56 EST

This presentation might contain Far East (or Asian) text and formats that PowerPoint can't display

Wed, 21 Oct 2009 14:14:22 EST

Pixel-accurate drawing in PowerPoint

Wed, 21 Oct 2009 16:03:43 EST

You plan to export a PowerPoint slide at a specific resolution (number of pixels) and want to be able to enter sizes and positions IN pixels as you create your drawing, but PowerPoint only accepts inches, points, cm, mm, etc as dimensions. This PowerPoint FAQ page explains how to draw in pixel dimensions.

Pixel-accurate drawing in PowerPoint

Wed, 21 Oct 2009 16:04:28 EST

Message: "PowerPoint couldn't load the add-in [add-in file name]" when starting Powerpoint 2007

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 10:21:50 EST

When you start PowerPoint 2007, you see a message "PowerPoint couldn't load the add-in [path to add-in file]" You click OK and PowerPoint behaves normally afterward. How do you make this message stop? This PowerPoint FAQ page explains how.

Message: "PowerPoint couldn't load the add-in [add-in file name]" when starting Powerpoint 2007

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 10:22:47 EST

Modifying AutoShape adjustments

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 10:53:22 EST

You want to modify the "yellow diamond" adjustments on an autoshape but it's impossible to do the job precisely because the adjustments don't snap to the grid or to guidelines. VBA to the rescue. The macros on this page let you view and change adjustments of a selected shape. Precisely!

Message: "You must accept the Office End User License Agreement" when starting an Office program

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 16:14:27 EST

Every time you start PowerPoint or one of the other Office programs, you see a message: You must accept the Office End User License Agreement You click "I accept" and the program starts normally, but the next time you start it, you see the same message. This PowerPoint FAQ page provides a solution to the problem.

Pixel-accurate drawing in PowerPoint; measuring in pixels

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 16:19:33 EST

PowerPoint 2010 support

Sun, 06 Dec 2009 17:33:15 EST

PowerPoint 2010 is still in beta, so there's not much support available for it. But if you need some help, we can suggest a few places to look for it.

Converting Scheme/Theme colors to non-Scheme colors

Wed, 20 Jan 2010 23:13:52 EST

Shapes filled with scheme or theme colors will change colors when copied to a presentation that uses a different theme, or when a different theme is applied to the presentation. Sometimes this is just what you want. But if the color that changes is, say, your logo ... bad idea. BAD BAD idea. The code on this page will convert theme/scheme filled shapes to RGB filled shapes; these won't change color. Ever.

Indents: zeroing them out, resetting them etc.

Thu, 21 Jan 2010 10:17:22 EST

Sometimes you need to apply a consistent set of indents to many text boxes, which can be very tedious to do one at a time. Or you may run into corrupted text boxes that have indent levels in all sorts of weird positions and you just want to reset them and start over. The macros on this page let you zero out all of the indents in the selected text box or set the indents to any values you like.

EPS graphics print poorly from PowerPoint 2007

Wed, 27 Jan 2010 13:45:37 EST

When you print slides that include inserted EPS graphics to a PostScript printer or to a printer driver that makes PDFs (Adobe Acrobat, Jaws PDF Creator, several of the free PDF programs based on GhostScript), the quality of the graphic is poor. Text may look distorted and can get converted into graphics rather than editable text; gradients become blocky, etc. In addition, links in the PowerPoint file aren't converted to equivalent links in the PDF when you use some PDF-assist add-ins. This page explains why this may happen and includes a link to a MS hotfix that solves the problem.

How do I use Presenter view without a projector or second monitor? (by Chirag Dalal)

Mon, 01 Feb 2010 21:12:43 EST

Your computer supports multiple monitors and you like to use PowerPoint's Presenter view for delivering presentations. How's that a problem? Well, it's not. But if you want to rehearse your presentation when you don't have a projector or second monitor handy, PowerPoint won't cooperate. Unless you have a second monitor plugged in, PowerPoint won't let you use Presenter view. But Chirag Dalal discovered a slick solution. Read about it here.

How do I use Presenter view without a projector or second monitor? (by Chirag Dalal)

Mon, 01 Feb 2010 21:35:57 EST

How much will Office 2010 cost? What about upgrades?

Wed, 10 Mar 2010 15:28:02 EST

Microsoft has announced a Technology Guarantee program that will entitle some new Office 2007 users to a free Office 2010 upgrade. Read this PowerPoint FAQ page to learn more about the program and Office 2010 pricing in general.

How much will Office 2010 cost? What about upgrades? Technology Guarantee program?

Wed, 10 Mar 2010 15:28:35 EST

Message: "PowerPoint has stopped working" at startup. PowerPoint won't start.

Fri, 19 Mar 2010 12:33:09 EST

When starting PowerPoint 2007, you see a message "Microsoft PowerPoint has stopped working". After you click OK, PowerPoint quits. When you try again, you get offers of Safe Mode starts and/or running Detect and Repair, but none of these help. This PPT FAQ page has a few other things you can try to solve the problem.

Adding or entering text during a show

Wed, 07 Apr 2010 14:30:57 EST

You want to add text to a slide DURING a slide show. There are several ways of going about this and we explain 'em all on this PPT FAQ page.

Print larger handouts

Fri, 09 Apr 2010 22:10:46 EST

When you print handouts of your presentation, PowerPoint makes the slide images too small to read but leaves lots of wasted white space around the individual images. Why can't it make the images fill the available space? And make them BIGGER? This PowerPoint FAQ page presents a very simple, FREE solution.

Print larger handouts

Fri, 09 Apr 2010 22:11:31 EST

Don't do this with PowerPoint. Seriously.

Fri, 09 Apr 2010 22:23:45 EST

There are things that PowerPoint lets you do ... but that you shouldn't do. This isn't about esthetics or presentation style, it's about PowerPoint features you shouldn't generally use.

Should I get 32- or 64-bit Office 2010?

Fri, 23 Apr 2010 11:21:29 EST

Upgrading to Office 2010 and wondering whether to choose the 32-bit of 64-bit version? This will help you decide.

Should I get 32- or 64-bit Office 2010?

Fri, 23 Apr 2010 11:22:17 EST

Upgrading to Office 2010 and wondering whether to choose the 32-bit of 64-bit version? This will help you decide.

Create a sample presentation from a theme

Tue, 27 Apr 2010 21:20:24 EST

You're creating a new theme for a client or just for yourself. You want to show an example of each type of layout in the theme but ... well ... that's a lot of work. This page presents a possible (partial) solution. It's far from perfect, but it'll give you a starting point. And it's FAST.

Extract images and sounds from PowerPoint

Thu, 29 Apr 2010 22:56:07 EST

You have a PowerPoint presentation that contains embedded sounds or images. You want to be able to convert these to standalone files so you can use them in another presentation, edit them or ... well, whatever. This page describes several methods for extracting these files from a PowerPoint presentation.

Extract images and sounds from PowerPoint

Thu, 29 Apr 2010 22:58:22 EST

Free PowerPoint Viewers, Viewer Capabilities

Fri, 07 May 2010 00:14:35 EST

Microsoft has released a new free PowerPoint viewer. This new one will play files from PPT 97 through 2010 in full fidelity. And MS has released it before 2010 hits the market. Kudos kudos.

The PowerPoint Newsgroup / Support Forums

Sat, 08 May 2010 11:35:40 EST

As of June 1, 2010, Microsoft will pull the plug on the PowerPoint Newsgroup, marking the end of an era that saw dozens of dedicated, helpful PowerPoint MVPs and other members of the online community enjoy freewheeling and useful discussions of PowerPoint technique, how-tos, philosophy and yes, occastional forays into food and other pleasant distractions. The newsgroup is to be supplanted (we hesitate to use the term "replaced") by a series of managed web-based forums. Time will tell whether these forums coalesce into the same sort of vibrant community we've enjoyed in the newsgroup since 1996. Here's hoping.

The PowerPoint Newsgroup / Support Forums

Sat, 08 May 2010 17:57:36 EST

The PowerPoint Support Forums

Wed, 16 Jun 2010 08:28:06 EST

As of June 1, 2010, Microsoft closed the PowerPoint Newsgroup, marking the end of an era that saw dozens of dedicated, helpful PowerPoint MVPs and other members of the online community enjoy freewheeling and useful discussions of PowerPoint technique, how-tos, philosophy and yes, occastional forays into food and other pleasant distractions. The newsgroup is to be supplanted (we hesitate to use the term "replaced") by a series of managed web-based forums. Time will tell whether these forums coalesce into the same sort of vibrant community we've enjoyed in the newsgroup since 1996. Here's hoping. This PowerPoint FAQ page shows you how to find the new web support forums (hint: http://answers.microsoft.com)

The PowerPoint Support Forums

Wed, 16 Jun 2010 08:30:07 EST

Guidelines for the PowerPoint Newsgroup

Wed, 16 Jun 2010 09:12:12 EST

We've updated this FAQ on Guidelines for the PowerPowerPoint Forum to reflect the fact that Microsoft closed the support newsgroups in June, 2010 and substituted new web-based forums in their place. These work a bit differently.

Renumber all shapes in a presentation

Tue, 22 Jun 2010 10:10:12 EST

1) PowerPoint acts weird and causes code to break if multiple shapes on a slide have the same name. 2) PowerPoint doesn't allow us to give two shapes on a slide the same name. 3) But PowerPoint itself CREATES multiple same-named shapes on a slide when a user duplicates shapes. Point 2 shows wit. Point 3 shows a total lack of wit. On average, then, PowerPoint is a half-wit. The code on this page will rename all shapes in a presentation UNIQUELY. No duplicate names.

Renumber all shapes in a presentation

Tue, 22 Jun 2010 10:11:23 EST

Office 2003 with SP3 won't open my files

Tue, 22 Jun 2010 10:36:02 EST

After applying Service Pack 3 (SP3) for Office 2003, you may find that PowerPoint and the other Office 2003 programs will no longer open files from older versions. This PowerPoint FAQ page includes a link to Microsoft web pages that explain the problem in more detail, and to REG (Registry Patch) files that enable you to re-enable the file types you need to do your work.

Photos

Tue, 22 Jun 2010 14:56:00 EST

There are dozens of companise that provide images on a royalty basis or for free. Search Google for "stock photo" to find plenty of them. We've listed a few here for starters.

Photos

Tue, 22 Jun 2010 14:58:25 EST

There are dozens of companise that provide images on a royalty basis or for free. Search Google for "stock photo" to find plenty of them. We've listed a few here for starters.

File cannot be found error message when opening a file

Thu, 24 Jun 2010 14:57:08 EST

You attempt to open a file in PowerPoint and get an error message indicating that PowerPoint cannot find the file. This may happen even when you've just browsed to the file and chosen it yourself. This PowerPoint FAQ page gives several workarounds for this problem.

Create your own default presentation

Thu, 24 Jun 2010 15:05:15 EST

RED X instead of graphics

Sun, 27 Jun 2010 22:52:51 EST

Yet another cause of the Dread Red-X discovered. PowerPoint 2007 will not display images when: 1) The images are linked, and 2) The link does not include a full path, and 3) The image file has spaces in its name.

Message: "This file has an older format that isn’t supported."

Tue, 06 Jul 2010 22:50:47 EST

You try to open a PowerPoint 4 or earlier file in PowerPoint 2000 or PowerPoint 2002 or PowerPoint 2003 and receive a message: This file has an older format that isn’t supported. This PowerPoint FAQ page explains the reason for this message and how to prevent the problem.

Macros that work in Normal/Slide view don't work in Slide Show view

Thu, 29 Jul 2010 09:50:14 EST

You have macros in your presentation. They seem to work as expected when you run them from normal view, but they don't work in Slide Show view. Why not? This PowerPoint FAQ page explains. And tells you how to fix it.

Import PDF content into PowerPoint

Fri, 30 Jul 2010 22:21:44 EST

Added a description of how to link directly to a specific page within a PDF from PowerPoint.

Create a fake screentip (text that appears when you mouse over a shape)

Wed, 04 Aug 2010 16:59:56 EST

You'd like to have some sort of helpful text appear when a user mouses over a shape in your presentation. Great idea but alas, PowerPoint has no direct way of doing this. You could get there using VBA, but what if the presentation cannot contain VBA (ie, if you're going to show it in the free Viewer or distribute it to users whose security settings may not permit VBA to run)? Thanks to PowerPoint MVP Bill Dilworth for the trick outlined on this page. It takes a bit more work to set up but requires no VBA at all. Enjoy.

Create a table of contents (TOC) slide with links

Wed, 18 Aug 2010 10:31:04 EST

Long, long ago in a galaxy far away, PowerPoint used to be able to create summary and Table of Contents slides for your presentation, automatically. Why did Microsoft remove this very useful feature? We tried to reach Bill and Steve to ask, but they're not returning our phone calls. This PowerPoint FAQ page describes several (free!) solutions that resurrect this useful feature in current versions of PowerPoint.

Create a table of contents (TOC) slide with links

Wed, 18 Aug 2010 10:34:29 EST

PowerPoint 2007 crashes when moving, resizing or using arrow key in charts

Wed, 18 Aug 2010 16:08:33 EST

PowerPoint 2007 crashes when you try to move charts after you've applied Service Pack 2 for Office 2007.

Microsoft Upload Center - what is it, why do I want it and what if I don't?

Thu, 19 Aug 2010 10:35:03 EST

You've installed Office 2010, you've tried out some of the apps and now you notice that there's this little orange circle thing in your task bar. You click it and it tells you it's the Microsoft Upload Center. The Upload Center is a tool that's included with Office 2010. When you open files from a server or upload files to a server it caches the files for you and monitors the transfer process. If it's interrupted for some reason, the Center can notify you and can even restart the process later, when network connectivity returns. This PowerPoint FAQ page has links to Microsoft Knowledgebase pages with great information about the Upload Center. And we tell you how the Upload Center got there in the first place and how to get rid of it if you don't want it.

Inserted images have an unwanted border

Thu, 26 Aug 2010 18:17:10 EST

You insert an image into PowerPoint and notice that it has a border along one or more of the edges of the image. You know that the border is not part of the image itself. The border may not appear until after the presentation has been saved and re-opened. Short version: the image has an embedded ICC profile (ie a color profile). This PPT FAQ page explains several ways to solve the problem.