MEPIS Community Forum

I've always been able to open MS pps files in OpenOffice but not recently.

I received a ppsx file the other day, and, as expected, it didn't open in OO. I sent him a note asking him to save it in the old pps format. He did this and sent it back. It opened with a fleeting glimpse of all the page thumbnails and then went to page one and just stayed there with no way to see more.

His company has just updated to Win7; the old Vista pps files always opened for me.

I've started to get the same thing from other businesses so finding a way to view them is getting urgent.

Does this mean I have a bug in OO or is this a new MS thing?

Does anyone know if LibreOffice can open them?

Thanks.

What version of OpenOffice are you using? I've been able to open docx and xlsx files in v3.2 quite reliably.

In the last 18 months, I've had no troubles opening any of the text, spreadsheet or slideshow files produced by MS office, and that goes for 2010 versions too, the troubles I have had are related to formatting stemming from font substitution and varying page formatting issues, as well as embedded graphics placement issues, but even those with the so called same app have much of the same issues anyway.

Regarding .ppt and pptx files, OOo has recently had a really bad issue opening them directly into the slideshow viewer instead of into edit or slide layout mode, which made them a real PITA, and this behaviour is not distro specific, Ubuntites reported the same. I switched to LibreOffice and it certainly does more than OOo, but at the expense of GUI refinement, and in the words of others on these forums, not as consistently reliably as OOo, but on the plus, it opens ppt and pptx files directly into slide layout mode, not read-only viewer mode as does OOo. Another issue is consistent UI anomalies persist with LibreOffice. Attached is a snapshot showing the open file dialogue after I shook it around a bit. You'll see the entire dialogue disappeared leaving traces of its movements behind. Most people do not shake the screen elements and may never see such a mess, but I know how to make it happen, so I thought I'd show you.

Mike P

have you saved it to your hard drive BEFORE opening? if not, save it to your disk first, then open it

When I opened Impress this morning (with which I never have the kind of problems you are describing), up popped a notice that OO.org 3.3 is available for download. That may help.

I've got v3.1.1 and it can open docx and xlsx, the older pps/ppt/ppsx/pptx etc. but not the latest ones.

I'll see if I can get the a later version of OO.



Yes, the first thing I tried.



I'll give LibreOffice a try, I just need to see those files!

And, Jerry3904, I'll definitely upgrade OO.

Thank you all for your help.

EDIT Some hours later.
I've installed LibreOffice and it loads the files with no trouble.