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Question

Powerpoint 2003 error: "Powerpoint was unable to display som

Jun 7, 2015 5:34AM PDT

I have a user that opened an existing Powerpoint 2003 file and received the following error:

"Powerpoint was unable to display some of the text, images, or objects on the slides in the file, "xxxx.ppt", because they have become corrupted. Affected slides have been replaced by blank slides in the presentation and it is not possible to recover the lost information. To ensure that the file can be opened in previous versions of Powerpoint, use the Save As command (File menu) and save the file with eother the same or a new name."

There are 25 slides in the Powerpoint presentation but the only 1 that was affected was the first slide that has an image on it. All of the other slides are fine. I can open the file fine and so can other users, so it appears that the issue is only affecting this one user. My entire company is using Windows XP SP3 with Office 2003 SP3. The user in question has all of the current MS patches. The other intestesting part of this issue is that when she tries to open a different Powerpoint slide show that uses the same image slide, she gets the same error. Everyone else in the company can open the slides without a problem. I tried to save the file with a different name, but when she opened it, she got the same error.

Any help would be much appreciated! Thank you.

Discussion is locked

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Answer
Re: Powerpoint
Jun 7, 2015 6:11AM PDT

An interesting thing to try;
On one of other PC's where this works fine: save the image and see if it can be opened on that PC from, say, Paint. However, if that works, it doesn't really say anything, as (1) It seems a picture is alsways saved as Image1.png and (2) Powerpoint might use a different way of reading it than Paint.

If the error occurs for just one user account on just one PC, the things the helpdesk can try before re-installing the image:
1. Another user account on this PC.
2. Repair Powerpoint (I don't think it will make a difference, but it's worth a try).

Kees

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Answer
Powerpoint 2003 error:"Powerpoint was unable to display some
Jun 10, 2015 8:48AM PDT

I think I would try uninstalling MS Office and Powerpoint again, then go in and clear all temp files, office folders, and registry keys that would be related to office and powerpoint. Reinstall and try again. This sounds like a pretty tough one. Best of luck.