Impress: Problems with slides imported from Powerpoint

users
#1

I have a large body of slides originally created in Powerpoint. Recently I
was asked my a client to move them to LibreOffice. At this stage I'm having
a frustrating experience:

- Import done by opening pptx files in Impress 3.3.x
- When I opened the files I noticed the notes didn't come across
- When I tried to add the notes I couldn't edit the notes field
- When I run the presentation on a project I can see my original notes

Is this is a common problem. I'm at the point of just asking my client to
pay for MS office licenses because it will be cheaper than the time I'm
spending on this.

Please help restore my faith.
Mark Levison

#2

Hi :slight_smile:
There might be a faster route.  Can you use PowerPoint to "Save As ..." the older MS format, ppt?  The option is something like "MS PowerPoint (98/Xp/2000)".  There might be an option to save as odp (=OpenDocument Presentation) but that uses the older 1.0/1.1 format which strips out all the notes, apparently, so avoid it.

The older MS format, ppt, should open fine in Impress and hopefully you can then save in the newer odp format.  You can probably do that straight from a command-line without even opening the presentations so you could get through a LOT of presentations very fast at that point.

Sadly Impress does have a lot of problems.  Apparently devs are working at it but it's not there yet.  There are other OpenSource, or at least free (with a little f) programs, that are good for presentations.

Good luck and regards from
Tom :slight_smile:

#3

...

Is this is a common problem. I'm at the point of just asking my client to
pay for MS office licenses because it will be cheaper than the time I'm
spending on this.

Classic cost benefit analysis. In this case the business opportunity
is to either receive payment from your customer for you to perform the
conversion (either automated batch process or manually) or to
recommend that m$o licence is used to access legacy documents, whilst
using LO to create odf documents in future.

Assuming m$ licences are valid in perpetuity, it is surprising that
business do not make a strategic decision to use m$ for legacy
documents and LO for future odf documents. As an hypothetical analogy,
it is legal to use a computer with m$windoze98 in perpetuity,
regardless of whether m$ support it; so such a computer could be used
to access a legacy m$ document, whilst using another computer with
gnu/linux distribution installed to create LO odf documents.

#4

Hi :slight_smile:
Dual-booting or multi-booting is one good option. Another would be to use a
virtual machine. Win98 might even be fine in a virtual machine on fairly
low-spec physical machines. Mostly legacy stuff opens just fine in
LibreOffice.
Regards from
Tom :slight_smile:

#5

Win98 is lightweight and is fine for virtual machines, as far as you
make sure it has ACPI enabled.

Some virtual machines are not detected by the windows setup as
ACPI-compliant and this will make Win98 be CPU-intensive, because it
does not use the ACPI idle instructions and relies on busy waiting
instead.

According to http://support.microsoft.com/kb/186111 the setup parameter
is /P J

Also, please note there's a bug in Windows 98 NDIS that causes a
protection error in 2.2 Ghz or faster CPUs, see
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/312108

But I wonder if there are non-official fixes for the NDIS bug around
the Internet.

#6

"mug user" self -- interested in source of problem, and future utility of lo
doesn't work "properly" in OO 3.3 or Abi
student so interested in cheap, FUNCTIONAL, sw

attached is in common use at local hospital - MS corporate user

russell
new zealand

#7

Hi :slight_smile:
It's always a bit tricky trying to get used to a different forum or mailing
list. This list can't cope with attachments so it might be easier to use
the Nabble-forum's "More Options" to 'upload' the file. It's worth noting
that the list is accessible to the general public so be careful to avoid
uploading confidential documents.

Also when you want to start a new topic it's best to write a new email
rather than just using "reply to".

Sorry i can't help with the problem itself!
Good luck and regards from
Tom :slight_smile:

#8

"mug user" self -- interested in source of problem, and future utility of lo
doesn't work "properly" in OO 3.3 or Abi
student so interested in cheap, FUNCTIONAL, sw

attached is in common use at local hospital - MS corporate user

russell
new zealand

#9

Tom - thanks in the end Powerpoint export to ODP worked well in saving the
notes, however all the diagrams were messed up. Further problems:
- I would correct the diagram in one file and drag it to another. Both
instances of LibreOffice crashed.
- Bonus the file would be corrupted.

In the end copy and paste was the way to move images.

I'm still grumpy about LibreOffice and its current quality.

Cheers
Mark

#10

Hi :slight_smile:
Impress is fairly annoying although Base is much worse.  Writer and Calc are great tho :slight_smile:
People are actively working on Impress and it does mostly work very well but it's just got a few irritations that don't quite work perfectly.  People are working on it, apparently, so it will improve a lot :slight_smile:
Regards from
Tom :slight_smile: