2.5. ACTIVATION, VERSIONS, AND CORRUPTION2.5.1. Transfer Your Settings to a New ComputerTHE ANNOYANCE: I'm getting a new computer next week, and I want to keep all my customizations. Is it possible to save them, or am I destined to hunt down individual toolbar files and such? THE FIX: In Office XP and 2003, you can use the Save My Settings Wizard to save your customizations. Go to Start All Programs Microsoft Office Microsoft Office Tools Save My Settings Wizard. Unfortunately, the Save My Settings Wizard is no longer available for Office 2000. If you just need your PowerPoint toolbar, you can try saving the *.pcb file and moving it to the appropriate location on the new computer. (This file is where PowerPoint stores all your customizations.) To locate your *.pcb file, right-click the Start button and select Search. Type *.PCB in the "file name" box, and remember to check both the "Search system folders" box and the "Search hidden files and folders" box. If you have multiple versions of PowerPoint installed, you may have multiple *.pcb files, too.
2.5.2. Office Tells Me to ReactivateTHE ANNOYANCE: I reformatted my hard drive and reinstalled Office a couple of weeks ago, and I keep getting a screen that says I have to activate. Why? I already activated when I installed Office the first time. THE FIX: Yeah, certain changes to your computer, and sometimes a reinstall, will prompt Office to request activation. If you let it go long enough, your Office applications will revert to reduced-functionality mode. You should be able to start the Office applications 50 times before you have to activate. Just follow the prompts to activate, or go to Help Activate Product. If youre unable to activate by Internet, choose the option to activate by telephone. The activation wizard will give you the appropriate telephone number to dial. Microsoft has this to say about your privacy and Office activation: "During activation, the product ID and a non-unique hardware identification are sent to Microsoft. The product ID is generated from the product key used to install the software and a generic code representing the version and language of Office being activated. The non-unique hardware identification represents the configuration of your PC at the time of activation. The hardware identification does not include any personally identifiable information about you, any information about other software or data that may reside on your PC, or any information about the specific make or model of your PC. The hardware identification identifies only the PC and is used solely for the purpose of activation. Office can detect and accept changes to your PC configuration. Minor upgrades will not require re-activation. If you completely overhaul your PC, you may be required to activate your product again." 2.5.3. Edit PPS FilesTHE ANNOYANCE: Someone sent me a PPS file and I want to edit it. Someone else told me that you can't edit a PPS file. Who's telling the truth? THE FIX: The only difference between a regular PowerPoint file (PPT) and a PowerPoint Show file (PPS) is the last letter, which tells Windows how to open the file. PPS files open in Slide Show view when double-clicked, and PPT files open in Normal (edit) view when double-clicked. PPS files can be edited. Simply open PowerPoint, go to File Open, navigate to the PPS file, and click Open. Voila! 2.5.4. Help Files Only Available OnlineTHE ANNOYANCE: Office 2003 really tires me. I hate having to be online to use the Help files. THE FIX: Actually, you don't have to be online to use the Help files. A scaled-down version of Help ships with Office and is available on your hard drive. The benefit of using online Help is that it's continually updated based on customer feedback. If you find that your Internet connection is too slow or otherwise interfering with your work, you can limit your searches in Help to just those files on your hard drive. In PowerPoint 2003, select Help Customer Feedback Options, choose the "Online Content category, and uncheck the "Show content and links from Microsoft Office Online" box (see Figure 2-20). 2.5.5. Understand the Background Printing SettingTHE ANNOYANCE: I get an mso9.dll error when I try to print. What do I do? THE FIX: Select Tools Options, click the Print tab, and uncheck the Background printing box. Contrary to popular belief, the Background printing setting does not help you print slide backgrounds. Rather, this setting prints your presentation as a background process so you can continue working in PowerPoint while you're printing. You might find it helpful if you're using a printer that relies on your computer's memory when it prints. Figure 2-20. The Online Content settings determine whether you search online content or not when using the Help files.2.5.6. Dealing with Different Versions of PowerPointTHE ANNOYANCE: I use PowerPoint 2002 at home, but my office uses PowerPoint 2000. Will this cause me problems? THE FIX: It shouldn't. The easiest solution is to disable the new features in PowerPoint 2002. Select Tools Options, click the Edit tab, and check the "New animation effects," "Multiple masters," and "Password protection boxes. That way you won't be tempted to use these new features that PowerPoint 2000 doesn't support. (Turning off "New animation effects" also turns off the new transitions, which include comb, fade smoothly, newsflash, push, various shapes, wedge, and wheel.) These features can be turned off in PowerPoint 2003 as well. If you're only moving between PowerPoint 2002 and 2003, you don't need to worry about turning these features off, as the new animation, multiple masters, and password protection features are the same in these two versions. If you already created a presentation using some of the new animations and transitions, and need to show the file to someone using PowerPoint 97 or 2000, you can download PowerPoint Viewer 2003 to show the presentation (http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=428D5727-43AB-4F24-90B7-A94784AF71A4&displaylang=en). 2.5.7. Password-Protect Your PresentationsTHE ANNOYANCE: I don't want anyone to change my presentation. How can I protect it? THE FIX: PowerPoint 2002 and 2003 offer password protection. To set or modify a password, select Tools Options and click the Security tab. You can also select File Save As, click the Tools button, and choose Security Options.
You can require a password to open the presentation, modify the presentation, or both. If you just want to prevent people from making changes to your file, enter a password in the "Password to modify" box (see Figure 2-21). Figure 2-21. You can apply passwords to files in PowerPoint 2002 and 2003 using the Security tab.If you protect a file with a password, the file can be opened only in PowerPoint 2002, 2003, or PowerPoint Viewer 2003. If you attempt to open a password-protected file in PowerPoint 97 or 2000, you will see the following error message: "PowerPoint can't open the type of file represented by <filename>." Other options for protecting a presentation include creating a self-extracting file using WinZip (http://www.winzip.com/), distributing a PDF of the file, and creating a series of images of the slides. Or, consider using Secure Pack (http://skp.mvps.org/securepack/index.htm) to protect your files. You can download a free, 20-day trial version, but the retail version will cost you $100. For more information on each of these software packages, visit the PowerPoint FAQ (http://www.rdpslides.com/pptfaq/FAQ00038.htm). 2.5.8. My Presentation Is CorruptTHE ANNOYANCE: A client emailed me her presentation, but I get an error message that says the presentation is corrupt. She worked on this thing for two weeks! Any way to recover the file? THE FIX: Before you determine that the file is indeed corrupt, find out if a password was added to it in PowerPoint 2002 or 2003. If the file does have a password and you're trying to open it in a previous version of PowerPoint, you will receive the following error: "PowerPoint can't open the type of file represented by <filename>." Ask the person who created the file to resave it without the password, or use PowerPoint Viewer 2003 if you simply want to view the presentation. If you're using PowerPoint 2003 and have problems opening files created in previous versions of PowerPoint, click Help Check for Updates and install the latest Service Pack (SP) or Service Release (SR) for Office 2003. If you received the file as an email attachment, it may have become corrupted as it traveled through cyberspace. Ask the sender to zip the file using Microsoft Windows XP's built-in zip function or a program such as WinZip, and then resend. You can also select Insert Slides From File, browse to the corrupt file, and click the Insert All button (see Figure 2-22). If Insert All fails to work, select and insert individual slides. Figure 2-22. If you have a corrupt presentation, you may be able to recover at least part of it using Insert Slides From File.If that doesn't work, try Impress, the presentations application found in the StarOffice (http://www.staroffice.com/) and OpenOffice (http://www.openoffice.org/) productivity suites. Because Impress does not include all of PowerPoint's functionality, or support certain elements in its import utilities, it may open files PowerPoint identifies as corrupt, allowing you to recover at least part of the presentation file. Still stuck? The following steps show you how to open the file in Word.
If you are able to recover the text in Word, you can move the text back into PowerPoint. First, spend some time with the styles in Word so that the text ends up where you want it in PowerPoint. All text formatted as Heading 1 will become slide Title text in PowerPoint. Heading 2 styles will become primary bulleted text. Heading 3 styles will become secondary bulleted text, and so on. When you finish formatting the text, select File Send To Microsoft Office PowerPoint. Word starts PowerPoint if its not already running, creates a new presentation, and enters the text on the slides. After you finish, return to the Open dialog box in Word and choose All Word Documents from the "Files of type" drop-down menu. Otherwise, you may see strange things happen when you subsequently open Word documents. If you use CorelDraw or Presentations (part of the WordPerfect Office Suite), you can try to import the PowerPoint slides as a last-ditch effort to recover a corrupted file. You could also try PowerPoint Recovery (http://officerecovery.com/powerpoint/), which lets you recover corrupted presentations, although I have not had any luck using this tool. You can download a free demo, but the full version will cost you $149.
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