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Mac Forum / Applications / PowerPoint / September 2005Sound file formats that work in both Mac & PC
Using Office 2004 on Mac OS 10.3.9 The file formats that MS says are acceptable either simply don't work or cross platform. On a recent project, I inserted an AIFF sound file. Fine for Macs, does not work for PC. PC user had to convert to MP3 to play. Then worked fine. Conversely, this evening, I tried to insert an MP3 Sound file into PPT. Wouldn't allow, had to convert it to bloated file size WAV to get it to take. Anyone have any insight to this?  SignatureTo reply by email, remove the word "space" see PC to Mac and Back http://www.rdpslides.com/pptfaq/FAQ00281.htm I'd go for mono WAV files Cheers TAJ Simmons microsoft powerpoint mvp awesome - powerpoint backgrounds, http://www.awesomebackgrounds.com free powerpoint templates, tutorials, hints, tips and more... > Using Office 2004 on Mac OS 10.3.9 > [quoted text clipped - 9 lines] > > Anyone have any insight to this? > see > > PC to Mac and Back > http://www.rdpslides.com/pptfaq/FAQ00281.htm > > I'd go for mono WAV files Good tips, but isn't it terrible how difficult MS makes it to cross platform? What they need to do is tell you upfront in the instructions that certain file formats (actually many of the formats they say you can use) will not cross platform Mac to PC. Sounds simple to me, why do you suppose they don't do this? SignatureTo reply by email, remove the word "space" My speculation is that the Mac platform is overall an afterthought for Microsoft, and Microsoft has a separate group that does Macintosh PowerPoint development. --David SignatureDavid M. Marcovitz Microsoft PowerPoint MVP Director of Graduate Programs in Educational Technology Loyola College in Maryland Author of _Powerful PowerPoint for Educators_ http://www.loyola.edu/education/PowerfulPowerPoint/ Kurt <labolide@spacegmail.com> wrote in news:labolide- 7457E1.11222015092005@news.giganews.com: >> see >> [quoted text clipped - 11 lines] > > Sounds simple to me, why do you suppose they don't do this? > My speculation is that the Mac platform is overall an afterthought for > Microsoft, and Microsoft has a separate group that does Macintosh > PowerPoint development. > --David But MS makes a big deal about touting their Mac group. In fact , big wire services articles were just distributed on this. It makes good money for them. I will speculate that MS has a bureaucracy that prevents interchange between groups, but the Mac group knows full well how the program interfaces with PCs, so this is no excuse. SignatureTo reply by email, remove the word "space" > I will speculate that MS has a bureaucracy that prevents interchange > between groups, but the Mac group knows full well how the program > interfaces with PCs, so this is no excuse. I think the problem is quite different. PowerPoint doesn't have the ability to play most media files built into it (on either platform). It uses the system-level media services provided by Windows or OS X. The system dog doesn't get wagged by the PPTail on either platform. PPT's developers don't dictate what they get to work with, they get a fait accompli handed to them. A fait worse than death when it crosses platforms. <g> ================================================ Steve Rindsberg, PPT MVP PPT FAQ: www.pptfaq.com PPTools: www.pptools.com ================================================ Hi Kurt, If only it were as simple as a bureaucratic bungle. The way PowerPoint handles audio and video files has not been updated much over the years. WAV and AVI are handled internally, but everything else is handed over to the operating system to play. The philosphy behind this is to take advantage of the richness of files available on Macintosh and Windows platforms respectively. On the Mac, anything that QuickTime has then PowerPoint inherits that capability "for free." Similarly on Windows, but QuickTime is not the supported application there. That worked pretty well when there was a great divide between the platforms. Now that divide is much less of an issue, and there are hundreds more formats and codecs to deal with. These days cross-platform compatibility is more advantageous the depth of support within each individual platform. On the Windows side, their OS is undergoing the same kind of gut wrenching changes that we recently went through on the Mac. It's my hope that between Vista and Tiger Microsoft will come to some new way of handling audio and video files so that all kinds of files from Flash to windows media files work as best they can on either platform. So whether it's QuickTime or Real Media player if an application on the platform exists and a codec exists then the media should play. That's a big request and a tall order to fill. There are licensing arrangements that have to be considered, and the horror of the US Digital Millenium Copyright Act and similar acts in other countries to contend with. I'm hoping that something better than what we have now can be worked out, but realistically the media world has become overly complicated and hard to work with. So I'm hoping for something better but not expecting everything to turn out really smooth across platforms. -Jim SignatureJim Gordon Mac MVP MVP FAQ <http://mvp.support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=fh;EN-US;mvpfaqs> >>My speculation is that the Mac platform is overall an afterthought for >>Microsoft, and Microsoft has a separate group that does Macintosh [quoted text clipped - 8 lines] > between groups, but the Mac group knows full well how the program > interfaces with PCs, so this is no excuse. > Hi Kurt, > [quoted text clipped - 33 lines] > > -Jim The easy solution, of course is simply to indicate in the instructions, which formats work and which don't at this point in time. A simple chart, that would take an MS employee about 30 minutes to do, would answer hundreds of hours of customer research and tech support questions. It could be easily updated as needed. We're talking a multi-billion dollar software company. There's simply no good excuse for not doing otherwise. Boy, I should be making the big bucks at Microsoft! > <http://mvp.support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=fh;EN-US;mvpfaqs> > [quoted text clipped - 10 lines] > > between groups, but the Mac group knows full well how the program > > interfaces with PCs, so this is no excuse. SignatureTo reply by email, remove the word "space" > The easy solution, of course is simply to indicate in the instructions, > which formats work and which don't at this point in time. And if there a way of stating that with any degree of certainty, MS might do it, but given the number of codecs and the way various media player software hijacks the system, there's simply no way to do that. Don't think for a minute that what you're asking for isn't on our minds too. Or that the PowerPoint program managers don't know it. ================================================ Steve Rindsberg, PPT MVP PPT FAQ: www.pptfaq.com PPTools: www.pptools.com ================================================ > > The easy solution, of course is simply to indicate in the instructions, > > which formats work and which don't at this point in time. [quoted text clipped - 11 lines] > PPTools: www.pptools.com > ================================================ Something is better than nothing. SignatureTo reply by email, remove the word "space" Oh and fwiw, sound and movies aren't just a cross-platform issue. PPT presentations with media cause plenty of problems between one Windows system and another, even when they have the same version of Windows and Office. ================================================ Steve Rindsberg, PPT MVP PPT FAQ: www.pptfaq.com PPTools: www.pptools.com ================================================ |
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