Resolving Problems

Some problems you can solve yourself, by determining the cause of the problem and eliminating any contributing factors. Most problems you encounter in PowerPoint will probably be memory-related, even if you have a great deal of memory (RAM) on your computer. In addition, because PowerPoint is a graphical application and most of your slides contain several graphical elements (pictures, textures, and colors), printing and display can also be problem areas, if your printer doesn't have enough memory or your video card isn't powerful enough.

When you consider solving a problem yourself, be honest with yourself—do you feel confident changing your computer's configuration? Are you fluent with the Control Panel? If you begin tinkering in one dialog box or another, do you completely understand the nature and ramifications of all the changes and settings with which you're working? If the answers to these questions are not Yes on all counts, don't try to solve the problem on your own—call for help.

Display Problems

Most display problems, if they occur suddenly, are memory-related. Typical complaints include the following:

• Ghosts of previous slides or dialog boxes appear behind your current slide, or even on top of it.

• Text on your slides changes to a choppy, sans serif font.

• Graphics don't fully appear, appear grainy or choppy, or appear as though a pattern is placed on top of them.

• Ornate graphics or background elements take a long time to refresh as you move from slide to slide.

If any of these problems occur, save your work and exit PowerPoint. If you have other programs running, shut them down, too. You may even consider restarting your computer to empty your memory and start with a clean slate. Most of the time, however, simply restarting PowerPoint resolves the problem.

If the problem is chronic, you might consider upgrading your video card to one that has more memory and is therefore capable of displaying and handling more complex graphic and multimedia content.

Troubleshooting Drawn Objects

Problems with objects you draw on your PowerPoint slides usually occur as you try to draw the object or when you attempt to move, resize, or recolor it. Depending on the nature of the problem, your solutions will vary. Problems you may encounter:

• Curved lines or shapes look jagged First, make sure it's not your monitor's display. Print the slide to see if the object looks jagged on paper. If your slide is to be viewed onscreen only, try viewing the offending object in Slide Show view. If the enlarged image (full screen) still looks jagged, revert to Slide view, select the object and choose Draw, Edit Points. Increase your zoom, and begin adjusting the vertexes (you may have also heard them called nodes in illustration software programs). Drag them up, down, left, right, reducing any jagged edges on your curved lines and shapes. You can also delete vertexes to eliminate jagged edges or changes in a line's direction.

• Freeform shapes won't align properly If the Draw, Align or Distribute command doesn't produce the desired effect on your shapes, try moving them manually. Select one of the items and depress the Ctrl key. Tap your arrow keys (in the direction you wish to move), moving the selected shape in 1-pixel increments. When the desired location is achieved, move the other object in the same way. By using this nudgefeature, you know exactly how far you're moving an object.

Working with Graphics

Graphics—clip art and scanned photographs—can be significant elements in a PowerPoint presentation. Their complexity, however, can cause problems during your presentation's development stages. Be on the lookout for these common difficulties:

• You can't rotate or flip your image Only PowerPoint drawings can be rotated or flipped. This needn't prevent your applying these effects to your clip art from other sources, but you have to convert it to a PowerPoint object first. Select the object and choose Draw, Ungroup. A prompt warns you that you're about to turn the object into a PowerPoint object. After the object is ungrouped, you can regroup it (to keep from inadvertently disassembling it) and then rotate or flip it as you would any PowerPoint drawn shape.

• You can't select the object with your mouse If you're in Slide view, the object must be part of the slide master, and therefore only available for selection while you're in Slide Master view. Choose View, Master, Slide Master, and then select the object. When you're ready to go back to working with your non-master items, return to Slide or Normal view.

• You can't ungroup a graphic picture This is most likely because the picture is a bitmap. Use another program, such as Microsoft Photo Editor or Adobe Photoshop to edit the image, and then import it into your PowerPoint presentation.

Printing Problems

Printing problems are generally related to your printer and are usually transient—don't rush out and take your computer in for repairs just because a print job doesn't come out as expected! Some common printing problems include the following:

• The whole page doesn't print—about a third or half-way through the page, the image appears "chopped off."

• Text objects are missing.

• Nothing prints, or only a few pages of random characters and symbols print.

Not to oversimplify, but most of the problems you'll encounter when printing will probably be due to a "confused" printer, a printer with too much input from too many people (if you're on a network) or too much data to handle in your particular presentation. If the same presentation with the same content printed fine before on the same printer, this is further evidence that the current environment—other printer traffic—is the culprit.

If you're on a network, contact your company's network administrator or technicians. They may suggest printing the presentation at night or early in the morning before other workers come in and use the printer. If possible, direct your print job to another printer that is used by fewer people.

If you don't have the luxury of delaying your print job because of a tight deadline, you can always take the presentation on disk to a local printing and photocopying store. Many rent time on their computers, and you can print it out there.

To reduce the amount of information that your printer must handle for your presentation, try printing in black and white (use the Print dialog box setting).

If all quick-fix or workaround options fail or are inappropriate for your immediate needs, you can take a more direct approach and check your printer's settings. Each printer's settings are a little different, being based on the printer's specific capabilities, its connection to your printer and/or a network, and your system configuration. To access your printer's settings, choose Settings, Printers from the Start menu, and double-click the icon for the printer in question. The resulting dialog box will show you the current settings for your printer's connection to the computer, speed, resolution, and other options, again, depending on your printer. If you're working with someone else's computer (the computer on your desk at work, for example), it's a good idea to ask for assistance from a technical resource before making any changes.

Also not advisable if you're dealing with a computer at work (where you're probably not supposed to do your own repairs), you can try changing or updating the driver for your printer to solve printing problems. Check the manufacturer's Web site for the latest driver, and after downloading it, install it by double-clicking the Add Printer icon in the Printers window. When asked, direct the installation program to the folder where you have stored the driver, and a new printer icon will appear, based on that driver file. Attempt your print job again, and if the previous driver was the culprit, your print job should be successful.

Troubleshooting Problems with PowerPoint Features

PowerPoint is loaded with effective and normally efficient tools to enhance your presentations, and most of the time, these features work perfectly. When they don't, however, they can truly be more trouble than they're worth. Before starting your next presentation, familiarize yourself with these situations and their resolutions:

• AutoCorrect isn't correcting Make sure it's on. Choose Tools, AutoCorrect, and check to see that a check mark is next to Replace text as you type and any of the other AutoCorrect options that you wish to use.

• AutoCorrect is working when you don't want it to In your presentation for the law firm of Tidwell, Evans, and Havilland, you need to type TEH and not have it converted to THE. You don't want to remove the AutoCorrect entry from the list, and you don't want to turn off AutoCorrect altogether. What to do? As soon as AutoCorrect converts TEH to THE, choose Edit, Undo or press Ctrl+Z. Resume your typing after TEH and continue to work. You can also go back and select the word THE and retype it as TEH. As long as you don't press the Spacebar or Enter after the H, it won't be AutoCorrected.

• Your hyperlinks don't work The most common cause of this problem is that the target file or Web location is no longer valid or has been moved. It's a good idea to maintain your links by checking them periodically, especially an intranet or Web pages on the Internet. If the hyperlink fails, right-click it and choose Hyperlink, Edit Hyperlink from the shortcut menu, and in the Edit Hyperlink dialog box, click the Browse button to find your targeted link.

• An error message tells you that you don't have enough memory to create an Organization Chart This error occurs primarily in cases where the computer running PowerPoint has more than 200 fonts in the Fonts folder. Cut and Paste your excess fonts (be sure to leave your system fonts in the Fonts folder) to a spare folder (call it Fonts2 or something similar) and when you've reduced the number of fonts in the Fonts folder to 200 or less, retry creating your Organization chart.

• Drag and Drop editing doesn't work If you've ruled out that your mouse skills are the cause of the problem—not having text properly selected can often be the culprit—make sure that the drag-and-drop feature is turned on. Choose Tools, Options, and in the Edit tab, look for a check mark in the Drag-and-drop text editing option. If it's not checked, click the option box.

Slide Show Problems

If you're having a problem with your slide show, the problem is likely that the show is too slow or your animations don't work as expected. In the case of speed, your computer's memory may be the problem, or if you're using graphic files, if they were scanned at a high resolution (600 or 1200 dpi), this may slow down your show as well. To see if memory is the problem, close any other programs that aren't essential, and try restarting PowerPoint. If the show is still too slow and you are using graphic files in your presentation, consider res canning it at a lower resolution (if you have access to the original artwork), or opening the file in a program that allows you to edit and resave the image at a lower resolution.

If your animations aren't working as expected, try the obvious first—go back to the slides and make sure your settings are correct. If it turns out that they are, try deleting the offending object (a piece of clip art that doesn't fly in as desired or a title that doesn't appear at all during the show) and reinserting it. Then, reapply the animation effects. Years of using PowerPoint and helping hundreds of students create presentations has proven this method; although not technically elegant, it is the most effective and expeditious way to solve such problems.