Mac Office 2008 and powerpoint vs Office Powerpoint (PC) compatability issues

[ax220]

Hey,

I'm sure most people suffer from this but here goes.

So I make a presentation on Mac Office powerpoint, everything is fine. I open it up at university on the PC, all is fine. I maybe change some text on a slide and save it again. Open the same file again on my Mac, and it won't open some silly error comes up saying trouble accessing file from mac HD.

Then luckily I have keynote, so I just open it in that and use that.

Point is why does this happen?? Whilst keynote is better, sometimes I have to edit things on a PC at work or uni and then it becomes a giant mess on my mac.

Is there a quick fix, or will I have to throw Mac Office into my growing pile of Microsoft related garbage.

All comments and similar venting most welcome

 

[brop52]

Isn't there a compatibility check on the Windows side?

 

[ax220]

would appear not.

i think it's a simple bug in Mac Office 2008 which no update as far as I can tell has fixed.

 

[brop52]

Maybe avoid saving in the new 07/08 document versions? I still save documents for the previous Office versions too.

 

[dylanbrown]

I have Office 2008 for Mac and usually save in the.docx extension. The school I go to uses Office 2007, and all documents and files seem to open fine from Mac to PC and vice versa.

This might sound pretty obvious, but there have been a few updates to Office 2008, just make sure you've got them installed.

Also, In the past I have had a few issues (Not your issue - but some very annoying ones) and a fresh install usually sorts it out.

Sorry I couldn't be of more help!

 

[nadyne]

So I make a presentation on Mac Office powerpoint, everything is fine. I open it up at university on the PC, all is fine. I maybe change some text on a slide and save it again. Open the same file again on my Mac, and it won't open some silly error comes up saying trouble accessing file from mac HD.

To help you out, I'm going to need some more details.

1. What version of PowerPoint are you using on your Mac? (Go to the PowerPoint menu, and select "About PowerPoint".)

1a. If PowerPoint doesn't show either 11.5.4 (if you're using PowerPoint 2004) or 12.1.7 (if you're using PowerPoint 2008), download the latest updates. Go to the Help menu and select "Check for Updates".

2. What version of PowerPoint are you using on Windows?

3. What file type are you using for your PowerPoint presentation? The most likely file types are .ppt and .pptx.

4. Can you post a screenshot of the exact error message that you see?

5. Does this happen on every PowerPoint presentation that you've opened on the PCs at school, or just on some of them?

One option for getting help with this is to call tech support. With your legal purchase of Office 2004 or Office 2008 (regardless of which edition), you get two free calls/emails to tech support. They're going to need the same information that I asked for here, so make sure that you can answer those questions before calling/emailing them.

Regards,
Nadyne.