How can I view and edit PowerPoint presentations that don't render correctly?

Question

I have Microsoft PowerPoint projects that I can view correctly on Android, OS X and Windows, but on Linux with LibreOffice Impress, they are not rendered correctly. Instead, the letters and objects are outside the screen.

I need PowerPoint for my job. Is there a fix for that or an alternative app for PowerPoint compatibility without bugs?

Impress is not Powerpoint. Nobody guaranteed that PP files will be opened correctly. If you need PP use a OS that supports PP and use PP. — Pilot6, Jan 20 '17 at 09:02
And what you call "bugs" really is not. If you initially create a file in Impress, it will be opened correctly. Microsoft does not disclose the PP file format and it is impossible to fully support it. — Pilot6, Jan 20 '17 at 09:07
Try WPS office, it supports the pptx file format much better than Libre Office. — Tim, Jan 20 '17 at 15:30
This was never too broad, and even has a simple fix that has been posted as an answer. I've edited this so that it's immediately clear what is being asked, and I recommend we reopen it. — Eliah Kagan, Jan 21 '17 at 02:38
omg all this trouble to install wine + office and it failed because wine support only the old office. In the end, WPS office worked !!!! — Pavlos Theodorou, Jan 23 '17 at 05:32
@Tim add your answer too. It's the most correct of them all. WPS office has full compatibility with latest office 365 — Pavlos Theodorou, Jan 23 '17 at 05:36
@Pilot6 OP is clearly coming from Windows and would like a smooth transition. He is asking for a fix or an alternative app. "Impress is not PowerPoint" is neither a fix nor an alternative app. — robertspierre, Dec 20 '20 at 05:14

score 18 · Answer 1 · answered Jan 20 '17 at 09:14

18

Actually, it may be font issues. Because of Microsoft's fonts are not included in the Linux OS, system substitute with specific fonts.

But these font may not be in same grid size or font attributes.

Try to install Microsoft fonts with following commands in your terminal.

wget http://httpredir.debian.org/debian/pool/contrib/m/msttcorefonts/ttf-mscorefonts-installer_3.6_all.deb
sudo dpkg -i ttf-mscorefonts-installer_3.6_all.deb

Check your documents again. And you should also check fonts such as Arial, Calibri, etc. in font list.

answered Jan 20 '17 at 09:14

San Lin Naing

466

1

yup it was a font issue indeed. thank you , that fixed it. Although now im thinking maybe ill go with karel suggestion to use wine and ms office – Pavlos Theodorou Jan 20 '17 at 09:59
Good to hear that. – San Lin Naing Jan 20 '17 at 11:21

karel · Answer 2 · 2021-09-27T00:43:54.433

18

If you have a licensed copy of PowerPoint, you can install it in Ubuntu using Wine from the default Ubuntu repositories. Wine is a compatibility layer for running Windows applications on Linux. You will also need to install Installer for Microsoft TrueType core fonts (ttf-mscorefonts-installer).

If you don't have a licensed copy of PowerPoint, you can download the free PowerPoint Viewer from the official Microsoft Download Center and use it for viewing PowerPoint presentations or you can upload an incompatible PowerPoint presentation to Google Drive, open it with Google Slides and select File -> Download -> ODP Document (.odp) to convert it to a format that is compatible with Impress and download it to your computer.

edited Sep 27 '21 at 00:43

answered Jan 20 '17 at 09:41

karel

114,770

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Well, San Lin was right it was the fonts and now its fixed. Although im thinking to go with wine and ms office since Impress isn't too good – Pavlos Theodorou Jan 20 '17 at 10:00
2

keral , WPS office has full compatibility with the latest office 365. wine only support the old powerpoint. So either we use a virtual machine + office 365 , either WPS office ! – Pavlos Theodorou Jan 23 '17 at 05:33

score 7 · Answer 3 · answered Jan 20 '17 at 10:01

Most of the times, this issue pops up due to the standard fonts that come with Windows and are not available in Linux due to license or other issues. As a workaround, I usually create a .fonts folder in the home directory (if it doesn't exist) and then copy them there from a Windows fonts library.

Then manually rebuild the font cache:

fc-cache -f -v

However, this is a workaround and I will not recommend this for the obvious license issues.

score 5 · Answer 4 · answered Jan 20 '17 at 20:33

5

You can use any browser that your machine provides to edit your files in the official PowerPoint cloud

While I don't think it has ALL the features of desktop powerpoint, it works better than most desktop alternatives.

answered Jan 20 '17 at 20:33

Ciprian Tomoiagă

573

It has very few features but is (almost) guaranteed not to muck up the things that it doesn't support. – wizzwizz4 Jan 21 '17 at 13:17

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered Jan 23 '17 at 06:22

I sum it up because there are so many solutions and i like to keep things organised.

After testing every possible solution mentioned here, i add my experience. From 1 to 5; with 1 to be the best solution.

*To have the fonts as mentioned here by San Lin Naing and Nisheet is a must anyway we choose to solve this, except in the option 2.

WPS office, mentioned by Tim in the comments. WPS office has the best compatibility with 365 latest office.
Virtual Machine plus office 365
Wine plus old office, answered from Karol. But we don't have compatibility with latest office 365.
Install all possible fonts found in Windows and use the stock LibreOffice. But we don't have compatibility with office 365.
Use the official PowerPoint in the cloud, answered by Ciprian. But a couple of features are missing.

score 0 · Answer 6 · answered Dec 20 '20 at 04:40

0

If it is a font problem, I suggest you look up this answer for installing open source replacements to Microsoft fonts and this answer on how you can install Microsoft fonts using fontist.

(disclaimer: both answers are mine)

answered Dec 20 '20 at 04:40

robertspierre

1,084
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11
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score 0 · Answer 7 · answered Jan 20 '17 at 16:28

I fairly regularly end up showing other people's .pptx files on LibreOffice and with some exceptions I've been quite happy with it (but I'm old enough to remember how bad compatibility was between different versions of poweropint). The exceptions that I've had most trouble with or know to be significant:

Fonts have been dealt with already but they're significant. They're still the ones mos t likely to catch me out, if someone uses something unusual.
Equation objects (or whatever ms office calls them these days). This might be the fonts issue again.
Animations -- but past experience has taught me to avoid them anyway, even if I control the whole platform.
Transitions, but these usually fail gracefully.
VBA -- just don't go there.

For the most robust presentations across platforms (and I've been doing this for years now, with sources including powerpoint, impress and latex) just convert everything to pdf. If you build up/swap elements, that just works out to a new page. Slide numbering isn't usually helpful anyway so leave it out. But whatever approach you take -- check it in plenty of time.

score -2 · Answer 8 · answered Jan 20 '17 at 19:21

Try using Google Slides. It's all in the cloud, handles versioning, revision history, auto-saves, and best of all, it's browser based, so you don't have to install the program everywhere you want to use it.

You can edit, download, and convert Microsoft® Office files in Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides.

To edit an Office file, you can either:

Edit the file using Office Compatibility Mode (OCM) Convert the file to Google Docs, Sheets, or Slides. Once you've edited a Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides file, you can then save and export it as an Office file to share with others.

(The above text was copied from here)

Why the downvotes? The OP specifically mentioned he is looking for a alternative app for PowerPoint compatibility. My solution offers exactly this. — Eric Seastrand, Jan 27 '17 at 15:39

How can I view and edit PowerPoint presentations that don't render correctly?

8 Answers8