Hmm. One of our salesmen called up today with an interesting problem. We’d published some PowerPoint presentations as slide shows (.pps files). If you open one of these, it should just launch PowerPoint into the presentation. However, he was opening them from our website and they were opening as a normal PowerPoint (.ppt) file. That is they were opening ready for editing, not in presentation mode. Weird.
I remembered having seen this before, but a bit of poking around showed that my fix was still in place. Curious. When I clicked on the link to the presentation I got the ‘Download or Open’ dialog thingy:
First off I noticed that the file extension was .pps - good. I tried opening the file - and it opened it as if it were a .ppt file. Weird. So then I tried the other option - I saved it to my local machine and opened it locally. This time it opened correctly - it opened as a slideshow.
Hmm. So, they’re the same file, but something different is happening when they open. I wondered if it was to do with the HTTP headers, but the same difference occurs when the file is being served with the application/vnd.ms-pps or just text/html (we run MCMS 2002 on a IIS webserver but publish as static content to an Apache server. They serve the file as different mime types, but have the same result - Open opens the file for editing and Save and open shows the slideshow).
Next up, I tried the same experiment using Firefox. If you choose to Open the file rather than save it, it opens the slideshow - correctly! And if you save it, well, it saves the .pps file which, again, opens correctly.
| text/html mime-type | application/vnd.ms-pps mimetype | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| “Open” | “Save” and open | “Open” | “Save” and open | |
| IE7 | WRONG | OK | WRONG | OK |
| Firefox | OK | OK | OK | OK |
So it looks like Internet Explorer will not open a .pps file as a slideshow irrespective of the mime type sent by the server and the .pps extension (and it’s file association in windows). However, if you save the file locally, it will. Weird.
The only thing that I can think is that this is some sort of security feature, but it’s a bit odd - after all, shouldn’t Firefox do this then?
Hi Andy,
I am having same problem, and searching for the solution from last two days, but no success. did you got the solution?
if yes please mail me at
mahi.waldia@helpageindia.org.
thank you
Best Wishes
Mahi
Nope, I didn’t manage to get that working.
But I pointed to our salesman that it was easy to get in and see his comments/notes, even if it did work properly. He turned pale, and then decided to remove his notes. After that was done, well, it doesn’t really matter if it opens like a .pps file or a .ppt file.
Still, a strange behaviour.
Thanks for the reply Andy.
later on if you get the solution please let me know.
Also if i will get some clue will let you know.
Regards,
Mahi
Have you looked at the options here:
http://www.pptfaq.com/FAQ00189.htm
Nope, I’d not seen that - good to know the settings for .PPTX files - but my problem with with ye olde .PPT files
I got the same problem - my .pps files open in edit mode when opened from a web page link. Please let me know what you find out.
Hi Andy/Deb,
Here is the solution:
I take a bit different root to solve this problem.
Requirement: to view .pps file in show mode in web page.
Solution: you need to save .pps file as .pptv extension and upload on website where you need to see in show mode. The icon may be not same as power point but your file will open in show mode in web page link.
For this You need to change one more option in webserver setting.
You will have to supply correct MIME Type in website properties.
right click on webserver name \ Proprities\MIME Type
Extension: .pptv
MIME Type: application/vnd.ms-powerpoint
The above process will open the file in show mode within Explore.
If you need to open powerpoint file in full screen. Then you need to change some registry setting.
enjoy…
Mahi
If you guys are still trying to figure this out, here’s what worked for me.
http://www.pptfaq.com/FAQ00189.htm
*Note* If you’re running office 2k7, you’ll need to do this to the PowerPoint.Show.12 key as well as the .8
Open the registry and browse to HKLM\Software\Classes\PowerPoint.Show.8
Rightclick this and choose New, DWORD Value
Name it BrowserFlags
Doubleclick it to open it for editing
Click Base: Hexadecimal
The value you assign here will depend on how you want your links to PPT files to behave when clicked:
To open the file as a read-only file in Normal (edit) view in PowerPoint, set Value data to a (lowercase letter A)
To open the file in SlideShow view in PowerPoint, set Value data to 8
To open the file in edit mode within the browser, set Value data to 1 (one).
Note that only limited editing is possible and that the behavior’s a bit unpredictable if the user launches a slide show from within this mode.
To open the file in SlideShow view within the browser, set Value data to 0 (zero)
Dear All,
After changing the registry.
Finally I fixed the problem and here are the steps:
1-Go to “C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\12\TEMPLATE\XML” or 60 folder in case wss2.0 version.
2-Open the file “DOCICON.XML” using text editor.
3-Locate the line that start with “<Mapping Key=”PowerPoint.Slide” Value=”ichtmppt.gif”……” and replaced with the following “”.
4-Locate the line that start with “<Mapping Key=”pps” Value=”icpps.gif”…..” and replaced with “”.
5-Save and close.
6-Open the file “htmltransinfo.xml” using text editor.
7-Locate the line that start with “<Mapping Extension=”pps”…..” and replaced with “”.
8-Finally restart IIS and pray to me loool.
Good luck All.
Ahmad Madkhana