Question: Our teachers and students are having problems with PowerPoint files not saving properly or being corrupted. This happens on various laptops, on desktops, at school and at home. I think it is a software problem rather that a hardware problem. What can be done?
The IT Guy says:
Another IT Guy reader submitted the following website as one having good tips for avoiding file corruption problems and other difficulties with PowerPoint: http://www.rdpslides.com/pptfaq/FAQ00034.htm
The main suggestion is to always save PowerPoint to the hard drive rather than opening from and saving to a diskette or network folder. If students do not have access to save on the hard drive, however, this is not possible. The web site above includes numerous other tips for speeding up PowerPoint use on Windows computers. These include having a printer driver installed as a default, turning off Fast Save, cutting back on the number of undos, setting a default file saving location, turning off background printing, turning off automatic layout, and clearing out the Temp folder. More tips are available from Microsoft about optimizing PowerPoint for Macintosh on pre-OS X computers on http://support.microsoft.com:80/support/kb/articles/q297/2/38.asp. These include adjusting memory allocation, virtual memory, used fonts, and avoiding extension conflicts.
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