Gotchas

Here are some Gotchas! that can happen when switching between PPT 2002, 2000 and 97. 

Okay, so I admit the stuff near the end doesn't really relate to switching versions, but they're still things that'll getcha.

Hide After Mouseclick

Animation Timings

Animation Features: 2002 vs 2000

MSO9.dll Error

Save As Black and White Image

Send To Word

Animated GIFs

Expand Slide

Tabs and Spacing

Printing B/W Pattern Fills

Transparency

Adding Animation vs Changing Animation

Sound Advice

Troubleshooting Video

Working With MS Graph

Text Shadows vs Shape Shadows

Hide After Mouse Click

a. Hides after animation in PPT2k, not on mouseclick as in PPT97

b. See MSKB 235622 for more info

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Animation Timings

a. Slower in PPT97 than PPT2k

b. Causes some "by letter" animations to come in seemingly all at once in 2002

c. See MSKB Q218570 for more info

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Animation Features: 2002 vs 2000

PPT MVP Geetesh Bajaj has a full list of new features, not just animations, that are available in PPT 2002/XP. 

And newsgroup regular and all-'round nice guy Glen Millar made this sample file of PPT 2002/XP transitions (169kb). It's a handy presentation to have around--you can see what transitions will look like if you apply them in 2002/XP but the presentation ends up shown in an earlier version. Note that Glen used PPT 2002/XP's multiple masters feature on this presentation...they "stick" in PPT 2000 as well. (Good info to know.)

Below I'll deal specifically with the animation features available in the two different versions.

NOTE: You can turn off the new animations and transitions in PPT 2002/XP, which will effectively put it back in "PPT 2000 mode." That way you won't be tempted to use non-backward-compatible animations. See Tools/Options/Edit, Disable New Features. 

You can download this sample file (157kb) or Ute Simon's sample file (620kb, labeled in both English and German) if you want to see how some of the animations act in both PPT 2002 and PPT 2000. (Ute's file looks much nicer than mine.) 

PPT 2000 doesn't have exit animations, so I've concentrated on the entrance animations in the table below. Note that I also haven't addressed timing at all.

Ute Simon has translated this table to German and included some additional information as well. It's available at http://www.ppt-user.de/artikel/newsletteraddons/tb-animationen.htm.

Or you can find Ute's translated table (and other files) in a subscribers-only part of the site,  http://www.ppt-user.de/artikel Click on "Newsletter Add-Ons - Tabelle der Animationen" to find it.

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MSO9.dll Error

a. Usually happens when printing, sometimes when copying/pasting; generally fixed by turning off background printing

b. AKA MS09.dll (that's a zero) and MSO9.dll (with an 'oh'). (Perhaps for this reason, seems next to impossible to find in the MSKB!)

c. See MSKB Q262858 for more info

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Save as Image (B/W)

a. When using Save As (Image), start in B/W view to export B/W images

b. You need to be in either "normal" or "edit" view, not in slide sorter view

c. Save As JPG, PNG, GIF, etc., will not export proper black and white images

d. Save As TIF, WMF will export good B/W images

NOTE: NONE of the image formats export good black and white renderings in PPT2002.  Apparently the fact that PPT2000 and 97 would export B/W images was actually a bug which was "fixed" in PPT2002. 

If this causes you as much difficulty as it does me, please email mswish@microsoft.com and tell them why it's important for you to have good B/W export capability in PPT. Maybe they'll fix it again in the next version.

In the interim, see if Shyam's Handout Wizard helps overcome this issue for you. 

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Send to Word

a. To send B/W thumbnails to Word, send from Normal or Edit View, not from Slide Sorter View

b. Send to from Slide Sorter View always results in color thumbnails in Word, even if you are in B/W mode

c. You cannot Send to Word and get B/W thumbnails of your slides if you're using PPT 2002 (aka PPT XP) or PPT 2003, no matter if you are in slide sorter view or not. 

This feature is broken in those versions. See above for information about using Shyam's Handout Wizard for a workaround and complaining to Microsoft about this issue.

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Animated GIF files

a. Insert/Picture From File

b. No Custom Animation settings necessary--the GIF will animate automatically

c. AniGIFs will not work with PPT97 or the PPT Viewer

d. In PPT 2000 will loop indefinitely

e. In PPT 2002 (aka XP), will loop according to GIF header settings

f. For workarounds see Why don't motion clips animate?

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Expand Slide

a. Not available in PPT2k

b. Works on one slide at a time in PPT97

c. See MSKB 240189 for sample code to expand slides

d. See Shyam's Toolbox for a new Expand Slide tool http://www.mvps.org/skp

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Tabs + Spaces

a. If you use both tabs and spaces together to align text in PPT97, it can result in misaligned text when opened in PPT2k

b. Use View/Ruler and move the tab carats to align text

c. Use your CTRL button for more control while moving the tab carats

d. Resist using the spacebar when aligning text!

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Printing B/W Pattern Fills

I usually have pretty good luck printing B/W fills in charts as long as the pattern background is white and the foreground is black. The other way around usually doesn't print well for whatever reason. 

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Transparency

In PPT 97 and 2000, we've seen issues with animated objects that had transparency applied; that was usually due to display settings at 256 colors, and setting them higher resolved it.

A number of users have reported problems with image transparency in PPT 2002/XP. Applying Office XP SP-2 also seems to cause problems with image transparency, even though it was actually supposed to fix the inability to set transparency in PPT 2002/XP.

Seems that often the issues are caused when the transparency wand was used to set transparent areas in images in previous versions of PPT. When those presentations are opened in PPT 2002/XP, the transparent areas are no longer transparent.

Using TAJ's methods for creating transparency instead of using the PPT transparency wand may help you work around this issue. Adam's information on creating alpha channels may also be helpful. Be sure to look at this version as well.

Will post more info as we figure this one out.

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Sound Advice

Inserted sound into your presentation, emailed it off to someone, and they can't hear the sound? Yeah, it's a common problem. Here's the scoop.

When you insert a sound into PPT (any version), it's almost always linked. Because the sound file is linked, not embedded, when you then email the presentation to someone or move it to another computer, you've left the sound behind.

There is one exception to this rule, and that's if you use a WAV file. WAVs can be embedded into PPT. 

However, there's a caveat to that rule: WAVs will only be embedded if they are smaller than the size you have specified in PPT's Tools/Options/General tab. Look for the option labeled, "Link sounds with file size greater than XXX kb." PPT defaults to 100kb here, which means that only WAV files smaller than 100kb will be embedded.

So, BEFORE you insert your WAV into PPT, go to Tools/Options/General and change that number in "link sounds greater than XXX kb" to 50000. That's 50MB. Any WAV you subsequently insert will be embedded as long as it's smaller than 50MB.

This setting is not "retroactive." If you have already inserted the WAV, you need to delete it, change that "link sounds greater than" number, then reinsert your WAV. That will force the WAV to embed.

If you are using a different type of sound file -- maybe an MP3 or a MIDI -- you cannot embed it into PPT. You will need to include the sound file along with the presentation file when you move the presentation.

If that is the case, you need to make sure that the link to your sound file remains intact. To do this, you can do one of the following:

a. Put the sound file in the same folder with your presentation BEFORE you insert it into your presentation. (Don't put the sound in a subfolder within the presentation's folder -- just put them both in the same folder.) Then simply send both the sound and the presentation, and instruct the recipient to place them in the same folder on their harddrive.

b. Use Pack and Go to resolve the links before sending your presentation and sound file elsewhere. For this technique, you do not have to include a PPT Viewer when prompted during the Pack and Go process if you're just doing it to resolve sound links.

Pack and Go with PPT 97, 2000, or 2002 (aka PPT XP) creates two files -- a Pres0.PPZ file and a PnGSetup.EXE file. After packing and going to resolve the links, you want to double-click the PnGSetup.EXE file to extract the presentation and the sound file. Specify a new folder (or at least a different folder than the one your presentation lives in) to unpack to. Then send that extracted PPT/PPS file and the sound file to the recipient.

Package for CD, a new feature in PPT 2003, works similarly. Go to File/Package for CD and choose to Copy to Folder. Package/copy to a folder on your harddrive which is different than the folder where your presentation really lives. After the Package/Copy to Folder process is complete, you will see the presentation file and the sound file in the folder you packaged/copied to. The sound links should be resolved, so you can send the presentation and sound file from that packaged folder.

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