2003 soundclips wont play on the 2000 PPoint

[Doug Mitchell]

My 13 year old son and his friend put together a small PPoint presentation
for school. They made use of the 2003 version at home on an XP machine.
However upon playing it at school on an XP machine with the 2000 version of
PPoint, newer sound clips will not play . He then tried to save the file
at home as a 97-2003 & 95 file format. This caused the file to become huge
and still was unable to play the sound files. As the school only has the
2000 edition is there an easy adjustment or workaround which will allow
their 2003 file to play as intended?

Thanks for your experience

 

[Eric Kenning]

This is an interesting question, as media files should paly in any version
of PowerPoint as long as the computer is running the latest Microsoft
Version of DirectX. The latest version of DirectX is available for free
download from the DirectX Home User Web page at
http://www.microsoft.com/directx/.

I would suspect that it is a problem related to the above and not PowerPoint
2000. However, having said that I am going to try running a show produced in
2002/3 in PP 2000.

I would suspect that it is a problem related to the above and not PowerPoint
2000. However, having said that I am going to try running a show produced in
2002/3 in PP 2000.
EricK
www.powerpointhowto.com

 

[Doug Mitchell]

Thanks Eric for the reply. I would appreciate it if you could test out your
theory. In any event I will print out your reply to my son's teacher.

 

[Sonia]

There are other reasons why the sound may not have played. First, did they
take the sound files to school along with the presentation? Most sound
files are linked and not a part of the presentation file. Only WAV files
can be embedded. If the files are linked, they must be transported along
with the presentation.

Second, multimedia in PowerPoint is a fairly complex subject and there might
be factors out of your son's control that are causing the sounds not to
play. See the information at
http://www.soniacoleman.com/Tutorials/PowerPoint/multimedia.htm

 

[Doug Mitchell]

There are other reasons why the sound may not have played. First, did they
take the sound files to school along with the presentation?

Sonia I have no experience with Power Point.

As far as I know they saved the Power Point file to a USB key and then
brought it to school and were unsuccessful in doing the presentation on the
Power Point 2000 version.

Most sound
files are linked and not a part of the presentation file. Only WAV files
can be embedded. If the files are linked, they must be transported along
with the presentation.

So if this is the case what can be done to fix this problem? Again I know
nothing of how Power Point works but when one saves the particular file
don't the wav files get saved appropriately as well?

Thanks again.

Doug

 

[Sonia]

WAV files will be embedded if their size doesn't exceed the limit that you
set in Tools > Options > General. If the sound files they used are WAV's,
then it is likely that they didn't get embedded because nearly all systems
will play WAV's. Have them check that size limit parameter. When
PowerPoint is installed the parameter is set very low. Have them set it to
50000 (50 MB) and all WAV's less than 50 MB will be embedded.

 

[Doug Mitchell]

Hello Sonia,

So you don't think my sons problem is related to 2003 PP being played with
the 2000 version? And so if the size parameter is the problem (I see on the
desktop it was set to 100 kb) will the solution be as simple as changing
this parameter and *then* resaving this 2003 PP file? And then bring the
file to school and go ahead and play it with the 2000 version. Sonia, I cant
test this out this morning as the 2003 file in question is on his friend's
memory key rather than on our harddrive . But now as I think about it this
file itself is quite small...less than 1 meg....and plays fine on our home
XP 2003 PPoint machine...so does it make sense that now increasing the "link
sounds file size..." and then resaving will do the trick? And doing this
will necessarily increase the size of the new file right?

I am just trying to put together a plan of action to show the teacher so
that hopefully my son and his friend wont have to start from scratch doing
the PPoint presentation again with the school's 2000 version.

Thanks again for your feedback

 

[Sonia]

Yes to all your questions. Those steps should do the trick because it
certainly does sound like the WAV's were not embedded.

 

[Doug Mitchell]

Thanks for the prompt replies Sonia.

I'll let you know what transpires.

Doug

 

[Doug Mitchell]

Okay I mispoke about my son's PPoint problem. All his sound files are in
fact *midi* files (he found that the midi files were song like and the wav
ones were just sound effects). I did my best to read up on getting non wave
files to go along with the presentation to another machine. Here is what he
did:

He went back and figured out which sound files (all midi) that he used in
each slide...I think 8 different midis. He reaccessed them by "insert" and
then "sounds clip organizer" at that point the vast library of sound files
appear on the right side of the screen. Once he was able to track down which
midi he had used in each slide he would right click and copy the midi to a
folder which would also contain the PPoint presentation itself.
It took forever to figure out which sound files he had used in his
presentation but once it was done he had the PPfile and all eight separate
midi files in a simple folder on a flashcard. He took it to school and still
no sound!

Again the school is XP but uses 2000 PPoint. The machine at home is XP and
2003 PPoint. Is there something obvious we are missing?

 

[Sonia]

The problem is that after putting copies of the files into the folder with
the presentation, he should have re-inserted them (delete first and then
re-insert). By doing it the other way around, re-inserting first, the link
is not pointing to the current folder. It's pointing to the clip organizer.
He's close, very close. Just have him re-insert the midis from their
current location in the presentation folder.

 

[Doug Mitchell]

Thanks Steve and Sonia. We do very much appreciate your continued followup.
He has "re-elected" and "reinserted" and will try it at school today.

 

[Doug Mitchell]

Thanks Steve and Sonia. We do very much appreciate your continued followup.
He has "re-deleted" and "reinserted" and will try it at school today.

 

[Doug Mitchell]

Dear Steve and Sonia,

The music played at school! Thanks for your assistance. Both he and I
learned alot from this incident.

Can we ask something else?

One thing he did notice was that as the slide show advances, the last few
slides (I think there are 11 in total) slow down i.e. the animation gets
slower and often stops. He made the file on a new fast machine with lots of
meg. Any ideas?

 

[Sonia]

Presentations play differently on different physical machines. See
http://www.soniacoleman.com/Tutorials/PowerPoint/synchronizing.htm