Windows 8, Presenter 13 and Multiple PowerPoints

Nov 29, 2013

Helen Tyson
By Helen Tyson

Hi

I've noticed some unexpected behaviour today when using Presenter 13 in conjunction with PowerPoint 2013 and Windows 8.

I had a 2 PowerPoint presentations open, one of which was a Presenter project and one wasn't. When I tried to add either an Engage interaction or Quizmaker quiz I received the error message

"Unable to open project file"

I tried performing a Save As on the Presenter file to force it to recreate the .ppta with a different name but it still gave me the error.  It only let me continue if I closed the second PowerPoint.

Is this a bug? Surely you should be able to work with two PPTs open...

Any feedback would be gratefully received as we deliver the first UK-based Certified Studio 13 Open Enrolment course next week and from a trainer perspective it is going to awkward to not be able to have both the trainer and student PPTs open at the same time

Cheers

Helen

3 Replies
Helen Tyson
over 10 years ago12/01/13 at 2:23 pm (UTC)

I know you couldn't publish from '09 with two PPTs open for this reason, but this isn't during the Publish process. It's during general working.

Also, others with different system setups (Windows 7 & PPT2010, Windows 7 & PPT2013 or Windows 8 & PPT2010) can happily have two PPTs open and add Engage or Quizmaker elements in Presenter 13, but the two of us with the specific combo of Windows 8 PPT2013 & Presenter 13 can't. Is there any knowledge/feedback from Articulate about this?  

H

Christine Hendrickson
over 10 years ago12/02/13 at 8:17 am (UTC)

Hi Helen and Phil!

I'm running Windows 8, as well. However, I don't have access to Office 2013. I am using 2010 at the moment.

I've tried just about every combination for adding new and existing files while having multiple instances of PowerPoint open, but I'm not seeing the same thing.

I've had a colleague with Office 2013 try this out as well and they're reporting that they aren't running into any trouble with multiple files.

If you have a moment, could you let me know if this happens with a project that you're sharing with your colleague, or if this happens with a new file, please? Also, try opening a blank PPT for the second instance, if possible and using new Engage and/or Quizmaker files. I'm curious about what may be causing this and hopefully that will help narrow it down. 

Thanks!

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