Two PPTA files

Apr 12, 2013

Larissa Y.
By Larissa Y.

I have an enormous Articulate Presentation. I recorded the narration over the past four days.

I published the finished, narrated presentation today- and only half of the narration was there (missing only for the powerpoint slides, not the engage interactions or quizzes). I did some research and found the missing narration- it was under a file that read filename-old.ppta. Unfortunately- there was a whole new file that was created today with a ton of narration recorded onto it. Just the regular filename.ppta. So I can't delete that one and replace it with the old one without losing hours of narration time.

Any suggestions on how to combine the two files?

5 Replies
Peter Anderson
11 years ago04/12/13 at 1:37 pm (UTC)

Hey Larissa!

See if this helps:

In the event that an -old.ppta file is generated, you can easily reconnect it with your PowerPoint file, which will restore your missing audio resources.  Here’s how:

  1. Close PowerPoint.
  2. Rename or delete the new (empty) PPTA file to break its link with the PowerPoint file.
  3. Ensure that the PowerPoint file and the original PPTA file (i.e., the -old.ppta file) are located in the same folder.
  4. Remove “-old” from the PPTA file name, so that it has the same file name as the corresponding PowerPoint file.

As long as the PowerPoint file and the original PPTA file are located in the same folder and have the same file name, they will re-link, and your audio will be restored.

Christine Hendrickson
11 years ago04/12/13 at 1:45 pm (UTC)

Hi Larissa,

Hmm, that sounds strange. Did something happen with the original file? Any kind of crash, etc.? Were you working off of a network drive or any other external source (USB drive, etc.) by any chance? 

  • Work on your local drive (your C: drive). Working on a network drive or a USB drive can cause erratic behavior, including file corruption, loss of audio, and other unexpected behavior. 
  • You should also make sure the directory path to your project files and your published output is less than 260 characters (for example C:\Articulate).
  • Avoid using special characters, accents or symbols in your file names.

Additional information regarding "Naming Files, Paths, and Namespaces" in Windows operating systems can be found in the following Microsoft article.

If you'd like, we'd be happy to take a look at the files and see if we can get them working for you. 

Thanks!

Christine

Bob Mongiovi
11 years ago04/12/13 at 1:50 pm (UTC)

What I would do is copy your pptx and ppta-old file into a new folder, and then remove the '-old' from the ppta file.  Then, I'd open the copy of the pptx file.   Then, select the Articulate tab, then select 'Audio Editor'.  Once the editor opens, click on the articulate "A" button in the top left, then select Export, then to wav or mp3, your choice.  Save the audio to a folder somewhere,  Once that is done, close this temporary powerpoint file, open your original pptx, and reimport  the audio into your current powerpoint.  This way, you don't lose any animations you've done since losing the audio.

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