Mac Forum / Applications / PowerPoint / March 2008

Hi Jim,

The problem is that there really isn't any difference between a
PowerPoint file with a .ppt extension and a PowerPoint file with a .pps
extension except for the letters t and s at the end of the file name.

If you double-click a file with a .pps extension PowerPoint opens and
then immediately begins to play the presentation. But you can always
start PowerPoint first and use File > Open with a .pps file and then it
will open in PowerPoint's normal editing view. The password information
is saved in the .pps format.

Windows versions of PowerPoint have the option to password protect a
presentation from editing when the file opens to editing, but that
functionality was never put into the Macintosh version of PowerPoint.

When Mac PowerPoint tries to open any presentation, whether it's .ppt or
.pps if it sees a password protected document then it displays the
messages you were seeing. Mac PowerPoint does not have logic built in
that says "if it is a .pps ignore the password and present anyway"
because Mac PowerPoint will always let you edit either a ppt or pps file.

Yes, this behavior makes some Windows PowerPoint presentations file
incompatible with Mac PowerPoint. Yes, Microsoft knows about this. Yes,
this has been on the MVP wishlist forever. Yes, the MVPs will mention
this problem once again. Along with lots of other problems. Whether or
not this one will make the cut to be fixed in the next version of
PowerPoint, who knows?

Meanwhile, Matt and I are trying to give you various ways to try to deal
with the fact that password protected PowerPoint files won't play on
Macs. Matt says to go to the source of the presentation and ask that the
password protection be removed. Obviously that would work, but the idea
of password protection is, well, protection. So the author has to be
willing to trust you with his work and remove his protection, and you
have to take the initiative and the author has to do a little work.

My suggestion was to use a third party software that might work if you
know the password, but then again, you still have to ask the author to
surrender his protected content to you.

What's really needed here is a completely different file format that
plays PowerPoint presentations everywhere. Adobe has Flash, and lots of
people have advocated for PowerPoint support of Flash, but when I
investigated this I found Adobe really doesn't seem to want people using
Flash format unless they spend lots of $$$$ on their Flash software.
Playing is free. Creating is most definitely not in the Adobe Flash world.

On the Mac side, we have File > Save As Movie. There's no equivalent
feature on the Windows side.

There's a cross-platform solution that's really very good (but not free)
called Impatica. For details visit:
http://www.impatica.com/imp4ppt/

There's a new Microsoft technology called Silverlight, which is far
superior to Flash, and it's totally free. There's actually a Silverlight
installer on the Office 2008 install disc (not many people are aware of
it's existence). IMHO Microsoft should use this new technology as a
player for full fidelity PowerPoint presentations. But I'm going to have
a heck of a job convincing the Microsoft folks that this is a good idea
for both Mac and Windows PowerPoint. Find out more about Silverlight at:
http://www.microsoft.com/silverlight/

I wish I could come up with a better solution for you, but right now
about all I can do is explain the situation and offer suggestions about
how to deal with the situation.

-Jim