powerpoint 2007 does not save changes

Question

Hi

I have a user on Office 2007 and windows 7.  When using powerpoint and making any kind of change - ie text changes, formatting changes etc the changes are not saved after hitting the save button.  Only works if save as and create a new document each time.  The PC is connected to a network and issue seems to persist whether saving to network or to local desktop.

Have run office diagnostics and no issues raised, have run a repair and have uninstalled and reinstalled and nothing seems to make a difference.

Issue only seems to be particular to powerpoint and not other office applications

Any suggestions would be gratefully received.

Thanks

Caterina

Answer 1

We have experienced this problem and there is a known issue that you should check for.

If a user has the preview pane turned on in Outlook, Windows Explorer, or in (My) Computer the PowerPoint file is held open by a hidden version of PowerPoint. No changes will be saved to the presentation while the preview pane is enabled. You will not get an error message from PowerPoint and it will look like the file was opened and closed properly, however it was never actually opened for edit by "real" PowerPoint and all changes the user has made will be lost.

To fix this: Hide or disable the user's preview pane in these three programs and then the user should be able to make and save changes to the PowerPoint presentation once again. This does not seem to affect Word and Excel files when the preview pane is turned on in the tests that we have done. I have read that this is a problem both in Windows 7 (which we use) and in Vista when using PowerPoint 2007.

Note that some users may also get a "file locked" message or a message that the PowerPoint file can only be opened read-only.  Again, turn of the preview panes and this should make the PowerPoint file usable again. The user should probably reboot their computer because I've noticed that some file-lock errors don't go away until there is a clean shutdown/restart sequence.

Andy

Answer 2

Do you see any error messages when you change and save a previously opened presentation?

Answer 3

But how to close the Ppt Preview Pane? 

I believe you are correct, but I see nowhere an option to close the ppt which is previewing. 

When I try to close that file it won't close, repeatedly, despite restarting computer etc also...

Answer 4

No error messages, just seems to be saving as normal.  No hint that it isnt saving or that anything is amiss.

Answer 5

All I can think of offhand is that somehow the user is opening the document from a different location than saving it to.

Suggestion:  have the user start PowerPoint, choose File | Open and browse to the file rather than doubleclicking a PPT presentation icon or using the Recent files to open it.

Make some small change, press Ctrl+S to save the file, quit PPT.

Then start PPT again, open the file the same way as before (browsing to it) and check to see if the change is still in the file.

And/Or:  have the user open the file as they ordinarily would, then choose File | Save As.  Note where PPT wants to save the file by default.  Is this the same location as the user expects the file to be saved to?