pptx ballooning file opening ppt files

[realrose89]

Version: 2008
Operating System: Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard)
Processor: Intel

A forum newbie with quite a few older ppt files, I am in a Mac OS9 vs OS 10.5.4 predicament:

How to best handle older ppt 01 files in pptx 08?
(forum search turned up few similar issues)

Could not initially view charts on several slides in an older ppt file, so edited with an older laptop. After I emailed back and opened in pptx 08, a 1MB ppt file had ballooned to 16MB when opened in ppt08. This was only 25 slides!

Going forward:
1. Am I supposed to import older ppt slides into a new pptx file instead of simply opening the older file in the new version?
2. Or should I save ppt presentations first as pptx before I attempt to work on them?
3. Or is there some conversion program out there?

Thanks in advance to anyone who can respond...

 

[CyberTaz]

There isn't any "conversion" necessary, but the bulky size may very well be
due to saving back in the same older format file. The file has to "remember"
both aspects of its content. What happens to the file size of a resulting
file if you open one of the old files & Save As a .pptx?

Regards |:>)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac

 

[realrose89]

Bob -
Thanks so much for getting back.

I eventually saved the powerpoint file in pptx format, realized no one on a pc can read it, then pdf'd it before emailing. Entourage saved it, with the option to zip the pdf version, further condensing to a final zipped size of 10MB.

Yes, I disagree. There are conversions but these are inside the file for chart & graphs. An option appeared I had not seen earlier to "convert all" in the trial I ran today, a tad touchy about this so I convert 1 chart at a time...to insure nothing gets lost.

Here's a test I ran today:
40-slide ppt presentation, transferred from OS9.1 = 343kB, as viewed in Leopard, unopened.
Same 40-slide ppt presentation,opened in Leopard = 3.8MB,with several charts requiring conversion
Same 40-slide presentation, opened and saved in Leopard as a pptx file, with 2 charts converted = 3.3MB final size, unless I missed other charts.

This does not exactly explain what happened
last week, as the file size I first reported increased 16 times, instead of a large but more acceptable 10 times.

As an aside: with other Office 08 elements, I notice a delay with older files open before the messages start to arrive, as if it is confounded as I am, and eventually gets accustomed to reading "back issues". The longer I wait with the file open, the more important messages start to appear. I may need to check ram as this could be a portion of cause, or perhaps that pesky compatibility check may be at the bottom of this?

Whatever the case, with 40-50 older ppt presentations, apparently the first one I worked on went nuts, the second one seems a bit more in control.

With no roadmap out there for this file updating process, I am hoping I only need to use a few of these older files going forward.

Let me know if this answers what you were alluding to below:
That I should expect about a 10x increase in file size going from ppt to pptx, from OS v9.1 to 10.5.4? (or maybe the OS is not as important as the ppt to pptx?) Yikes - too many variables!

Thank you,

 

[John]

A little be of the reverse for me ...

I have a PPTX and I publish the slides into the Slide Library. The overall
presentation in PPTX format is 5MB (about 40 slides). ANY slide I publish to
the library ends up being about 1MB and in PPT format?

Potentially stupid questions here ... why are my slides not in 2007 "x"
format? Why did they just get huge?

 

[realrose89]

Hi John - What exactly do you mean by publishing to the slide library? The only "Slide library" I am aware of is in iPhoto, although I have not closely inspected all the latest pptx options.

You may need to use "save as" to save each slide again in the pptx format, depending on what you are doing.

Hmmm, difficult to imagine that ppt and pptx file size ballooning is the programmers' intention.
Hopefully someone with deep background will jump in to explain what is occurring.

 

[CyberTaz]

Based on your source header & the fact that you refer to the "2007 "x"
format" I have a feeling you're using a PC, not a Mac. if so I'm afraid
you've been steered to the wrong group. You'll find PC PPt here:

http://www.microsoft.com/office/community/en-us/FlyoutOverview.mspx

HTH |:>)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac

 

[Steve Rindsberg]

A little be of the reverse for me ...

I have a PPTX and I publish the slides into the Slide Library. The overall
presentation in PPTX format is 5MB (about 40 slides). ANY slide I publish to
the library ends up being about 1MB and in PPT format?

Potentially stupid questions here ... why are my slides not in 2007 "x"
format? Why did they just get huge?

As Bob says, this sounds more a question for the PPT Windows side and also for
SharePoint. But ...

Every presentation contains the master it's based on.

When publishing slides to the slide library, the presentation is "ripped" into
individual presentations, each containing a single slide. Each of those slides
contains the master the original presentation was based on.

So ... if the master had a 1mb image originally, that image would only be in the
original file once. After "ripping" it'd be repeated once for each slide in the
presentation.

It's possible that when the slides are re-inserted into a new presentation, the
images will not be duplicated, so the total size of the PPT won't balloon as
much as you might expect.

Why they're not in 2007 format? I don't know, except that they may be saved
down to the earlier version to maintain compatibility with earlier version users
that might want to use the slides.

================================================
Steve Rindsberg, PPT MVP
PPT FAQ: www.pptfaq.com
PPTools: www.pptools.com
================================================

 

[kieronm]

Did you ever get to the bottom of this? I have exactly the same problem. I
can open a 2mg ppt and after I've opened it on my Mac it balloons to
sometimes 20mb - crazy. Any help would be appreciated.

Kieron