Inability to hear music in power point presentations sent in

[ktiff]

Periodically someone sends me a power point email attachment that contains pictures and music. When I open it in OO, I can see the pictures but never hear any music. Am running OO 2.3 on Vista on a fairly new AMD dual core 4600 computer. All drivers, software and Vista itself are updated. Does anyone have a solution for me?

[AndrewZ]

Could you please send me such a presentation to az1 @ temporaryforwarding . com ?

[ktiff]

Andrew,
Thanks for your interest in my problem: inability to hear music in power point presentations sent by email to me.

I tried twice to forward you an example but received message from Yahoo that my email could not be delivered. File size too big. Since it's not, I don't know why it won't send. I sent to az1@temporaryforwarding.com

Will try again tomorrow.

[AndrewZ]

If the file is not private, use a file hosting site such as sendmefile.com or mediafire.com . Then you can just send me a link to your file.

[ktiff]

Andrew, I've just sent you another .pps file from rogers.ca website, which is what I use for all email. Sent it as a forward to you and it wouldn't send. Sent it as a forward to a friend and it sent, so tried one more time sending as a forward to you. Third time lucky.

[AndrewZ]

I got the document. Hmm. I tested on

- OpenOffice.org 2.3.1RC1 on Linux
- Microsoft PowerPoint 2003 on Windows XP

Neither plays the audio. Actually, I checked where I expected the audio to be (e.g. in the slide transition), and neither shows any evidence that any audio actually exists*. I even tried saving the .PPT as a .ODP and unzipping the .ODP. I found all the pictures but no audio.

* As you see yourself, the slides indicate there should be sound. Strange.

You can try it yourself with the free-of-charge Microsoft PowerPoint 2003 Viewer

[ktiff]

Thank you, Andrew, for trying. I checked with various people who send me the powerpoint presentations with music to make sure music played for them. It did. All these people are on Windows XP. My problem may be that the audio file is in someway incompatible with my OS, which is Vista, even when I save the presentation in Microsoft Word format.

I think I won't download the Microsoft Power Point program since I already have the ability to at least look at the slides via OO 2.3. No sense in confusing Vista more than it already is. I can do without the music. Who knows, maybe with the next Vista or OO upgrade, I'll miraculously hear music. I had a problem with my Photoshop Elements 5 (with Vista upgrade) and runntime after many months of the two working just fine together, then didn't. A month later, VIsta upgrades came in and about the same time I downloaded the latest Adobe Reader. Don't know which upgrade did it but, surprise, Elements 5 sprang into action, no problem.

Incidentally, I spent a LONG time trying to upload first one .ppt file to sendmefile.com and then another at various times. I think the site wasn't working the four times I tried as it showed the file(s) uploading and then nothing happened.
The mediafile.com site was quite fast and did as expected. Have added it to Favourites.

[AndrewZ]

Hmm. I don't know why it didn't work on my Windows XP with PowerPoint 2003. Do you mind if I post in this message thread the link you sent me? Maybe someone else will find I have missed the obvious.

FWIW, OpenOffice.org generally does play certain audio files fine in presentation files, but there's a chance there is a problem in OpenOffice.org itself. I am not sure in this case.

[ktiff]

Sure, go ahead and post the thread.

[AndrewZ]

http://www.mediafire.com/?3i51jrdjsza

[Hagar Delest]

I even tried saving the .PPT as a .ODP and unzipping the .ODP. I found all the pictures but no audio.

I've had this kind of issue also and I noticed that the sound was actually put in my OOo user profile, under the /gallery folder
NB: I'll try to test the file at work under W2k.

[vernonlevy]

owloaded the Powerpoint presentationand had a look at the background images...why? they are huge at 1/2meg each and with around 34 slides, they account for the bulk of the file size for the presentation. There's simply no room for a sound file in there - the pictures squeezed it out

In all seriousness - I don't think that a sound file resides witin the posted presentation. Most of the 15megs of file is accounted fro by the background images.

[JPhred]

I have the same problem. After going thru all 256 entries in the beginner forum and most of the entries in the Impress forum, this is as close as I have found to my answer:

"FWIW, OpenOffice.org generally does play certain audio files fine in presentation files, but there's a chance there is a problem in OpenOffice.org itself. I am not sure in this case." - Hagar de l'Est

My box is a user-assembled x86 VIA chipset mobo, Athlon XP 1800+ CPU, 512Mb RAM, VT8233/A sound controller. Been around for a while, but still a good machine.
OS is OpenSuse 10.0, Kernel 2.6.13-15.18-default, all patches have been applied.
OOS is 2.3.1, installed from OpenOffice,org download instead of the native Novell version. I did that because the Novell version did not even show the audio playback option under Impress.

The PPS stuff I get is most usually from a realtive in California who loves presentations. I am sure he is running one of the Windows XP versions.

The PPS slides runfine under OOS on Linux, but the sound does not.
PPS runs fine in its entirety, including sound, under OOS v2.3.0 32-bit Windows port.

Copied several PPS files received from the same source and ran them on a Dell Inspiron B120 (rebranded Samsung) Notebook, and the sound works fine. OS is WinXP Home, Application is OOS 2.3.0 for Windoze. I am far too cheap to pay MS prices for their hokey software, so I don't own MS Office. Chipset on that machine is 'Genuine Intel'. CPU is a Celeron @1.4Ghz.

I am not precisely a newby, but certainly am not expert at anything that has to do with computers, yet that last would seem to belie the OOS hit-or-miss Impress playback in multimedia.

My thinking is that on the desktop box, the pointer in Impress does not point to the audio device on the machine, but am not enough of a software tinkerer to figure out where to find that pointer, or the config file, in the OOS install. Once I knew that, I would then have to determine how to change it, or how and where to link a player to Impress.
I freely admit to not knowing what audio player OOS uses, and to assuming it utilizes an installed app for that purpose. Yes, i do know about assumptions.

I hope I have included enough information for his to make sense, and I appreciate and thank you in advance for any assistance that you can provide.
Thanks
JPhred

[Hagar Delest]

The PPS slides runfine under OOS on Linux, but the sound does not.

Have you installed the Java Media Framework? It's needed under Linux to play media files (movies and sounds).

[JPhred]

Hagar:
If the Java Medium Framework is the same as the JRE, then yes - two versions: 1.4.2 and 1.5.0. the latter is selected in Impress.

If the JMF and the JRE are not the same, then I don;t know - I am not sure what that is.

I will researchit and advise.
Thanks for the speedy reply.
JPhred

[Hagar Delest]

If the JMF and the JRE are not the same, then I don;t know - I am not sure what that is.

Different products, see here: http://java.sun.com/products/java-media ... nload.html.

[JPhred]

as you stated, different products.
I am working onthe JMF install and setup.
Will report results when done.
JPhred

[JPhred]

No joy right here in beautiful dowtown Bugtussle -

I got the Java Media Framework; got it unpacked; ran the script; found the nstructions
and then...
it appears that this app is written for either a much older or much less (maybe more?) sophisticated Linux than SuSE 10 and later.
It had me putting environmental pointers in places that don't exist in this version.
Did the best I know how to find equivalents, but succeeded in messing up the slide viewing portion inthe process.
I don't need sound effects that bad.
Will do some more research and possibly attempt it again later, armed with more information.
For now, consider it solved and closed.
Realistic as I got the nformation I needed for this part.
Thank you very much for your excellent and timely assistance. Such service is fast becoming a rare commodity, I fear.
Cheers
JPhred

[Hagar Delest]

OK, too bad. So I don't tag this thread as solved. Have you tried to post your issue in a Suse forum? Perhaps you just need an older version of the JMF?

[JPhred]

Haven't posted to Linux Questions, but that is the next stop.
When I have the proper locations for LD_LIBRARY_PATH, and CLASSPATH I will probably try it again.
SuSE strongly cautions against the use of LD_LIBRARY_PATH, but gives no indication of what serves that purpose,
or where to post that information. I used /usr/library as being the largest repository of shared libraries, but it is not
the only possibility.
I never sorted out where to put the CLASSPATH entry.
Used one I found in another forum, but it did not work, and I suspect it is what jinxed the slides.
Thanks again for you help.
And it is solved inasmuch that it is not Sun/OOS that is causing the problem - it is my OS and my lack of nut and bolt expertise with it.
Cheers
JPhred

[Hagar Delest]

it is my OS and my lack of nut and bolt expertise with it.

Right, it's part of the learning curve. I've had some troubles also to make it work on my Ubuntu box. I can now hear some sound files but not all. I haven't investigated further yet but I should.

For the classpath, search the web, I remember having had the same issue.

[AndrewZ]

No joy right here in beautiful dowtown Bugtussle -

I got the Java Media Framework; got it unpacked; ran the script; found the nstructions
and then...

The JMF is a pain. Here is how I did it a while back on Fedora Core 5:
http://www.oooforum.org/forum/viewtopic.phtml?t=46150

The page also has some extra links