How do I recover a corrupt PowerPoint presentation?

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Category: Presentation Help & Techniques
Forum Name: PowerPoint Help
Forum Discription: Help with using PowerPoint and general PowerPoint techniques
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Topic: How do I recover a corrupt PowerPoint presentation?

Posted By: diffsoft
Subject: How do I recover a corrupt PowerPoint presentation?
Date Posted: 07 May 2011 at 12:48

Hi,

I'm wondering if you can help....I have a PowerPoint presentation that I need to run through and update the content, but it seems that the ppt file is corrupt.

I get the following error message when I try to open the presentation.

PowerPoint cannot open the type of file represented by .ppt

Is there anything I can do? I would hate to have to remake the entire presentation from scratch.

Replies:

Posted By: admin
Date Posted: 07 May 2011 at 12:51

Hi diffsoft,

it may not necessarily be that your presentation is corrupt.

PowerPoint can display this messge if your ppt file was password protected in PowerPoint 2002 or PowerPoint 2003 under Windows XP but attempting to open it in an earlier version of PowerPoint.

PowerPoint then displays this error as earlier versions can't open password protected files.

Can you tell us what version of Microsoft Office PowerPoint you are running on your machine?

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Admin, 123PPT
http://www.123ppt.com - http://www.123ppt.com

Posted By: diffsoft
Date Posted: 07 May 2011 at 12:52

admin,

I am running PowerPoint on Windows XP but the file won't open so it can't be that it is an earlier version of PowerPoint problem.

It can't be that the file was made in XP and trying to open it in an earlier version of PowerPoint returns this error and won't open the ppf file as I am trying to open the ppt file in the same version of PowerPoint which I made it in so. What do we do?

Posted By: diffsoft
Date Posted: 07 May 2011 at 12:54

Sorry admin,

I also forgot to mention that the ppt file is not password protected.

I never password protect my powerpoint presentations.

Posted By: admin
Date Posted: 07 May 2011 at 12:58

Ok diffsoft,

thank you for the information, I'm still not certain of which version of PowerPoint you are running, but this error message is quite consistent with PowerPoint 2003 and earlier versions, so we can move one step closer to eliminating the problem.

Before we begin with recovery techniques it's important that you make a backup of the presentation (your ppt file).

Keeping your backup copy safe, try the following:

If you are using PowerPoint 2003 (XP), choose About Microsoft PowerPoint from the option in the main menu.

The About Micorsoft PowerPoint screen should inform you that you have Microsoft Office Service Pack 1 installed ( its shown as SP1). If it doesn't download the Service Pack from the Microsoft Updates web site.

After you have installed the Service Pack (or if you already have the service pack installed), Check the Microsoft Updates site for Office updates. There are several updates/ hotfixes published, and you should install them all to bring your version of PowerPoint up to date.

Now open a new blank presentation in PowerPoint.

Select Slides from File from the Insert main menu option, and try to insert your corrupt presentation into the new blank presentation.

If you are unable to insert the whole presentation, try inserting one slide at a time.

I think we should try this approach first.

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Admin, 123PPT
http://www.123ppt.com - http://www.123ppt.com

Posted By: diffsoft
Date Posted: 07 May 2011 at 12:59

Hi admin,

I have Office Service Pack 1 installed but I'm not able to copy over slides from the corrupted PowerPoint file to a new blank presentation.

I have all the recommended hotfixes installed. Any ideas?

Posted By: admin
Date Posted: 07 May 2011 at 13:02

Ok diffsoft,

it's no problem, we'll try step 2.

Before you were unable to open your ppt file, did you have a computer crash?

It's possible that open files can become corrupted during a computer crash. So for example if you were working on your presentation when your computer crashed then the file saved may be damaged and corrupt.

Fortunately, Windows often saves "working copies" or temporary versions of your files whilst you have them open and/ or working on them.

Files that are open during a system crash remain in the TEMP folder and are not removed as the application was not closed correctly (was instead intrerrupted by the system crash), and so they remain unaltered and undeleted in the TEMP directory.

There are several things that you can try here.

Firstly, and most simply, navigate to your Windows TEMP directory and see if the file exists. If it does, try renaming the TMP file extension to PPT, and see if you can open it from within PowerPoint using Open from the main menu option File.

If the file does not open in PowerPoint directly, then try the aforementioned Slides From File option from the Insert main menu option and simply browse to the TEMP directory where you have renamed the TMP file to PPT.

If this doesn't work, let me know. We still have several steps left to try and recover your presentation.

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Admin, 123PPT
http://www.123ppt.com - http://www.123ppt.com

Posted By: diffsoft
Date Posted: 07 May 2011 at 13:04

Sorry admin, there's no TMP file of the presentation. I haven't had any crashes lately.

Posted By: admin
Date Posted: 07 May 2011 at 13:06

Ok diffsoft, then we'll try something different.

In the past we have been able to recover damaged and seemingly corrupt PowerPoint PPT files using Sun's Star Office program. http://www.openoffice.org - http://www.openoffice.org

The application is free and is in a way a direct competitor to Microsoft Office.

It appears that Star Office is more "receptive" to damaged files.

I would recommend downloading and installing Open Office.

During the installation you will note that the application wishes to take over the opening of all your Office document. Ie. when you double click a Word or PowerPoint document or open one directly from a mail attachment, that Open Office should open all these files by default. I would recommend saying No to this, as our purpose is simply to use the application to "repair" your ppt file so that you can begin working with it again.

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Admin, 123PPT
http://www.123ppt.com - http://www.123ppt.com

Posted By: diffsoft
Date Posted: 07 May 2011 at 13:17

That got it admin!

Yes the ppt file opened in open office and I resaved the file and can work with it again in PowerPoint.

Thanks admin. Really great forum you guys have here. Expert help. Expert assistance. I'll recommend everyone I know who works with PowerPoint and presentations to drop by. Your site is better than Microsoft's when it comes to PowerPoint products and support.

Many thanks you're a star!