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Convert all of PowerPoint's graphic metafiles at once Apps
I receive a lot of PowerPoint presentations from Windows users at work. One of the biggest annoyances in PowerPoint is that it doesn't convert all the graphic metafiles at once. Instead, the metafiles are converted one at a time as I go through the presentation slides one by one. If you use PowerPoint, you are probably familiar with this behavior. You open up PowerPoint, and a dialog box pops up that states "graphics filter... converting metafile." This is a significant hit in my productivity, and destroys my momentums as I go through the presentation, since I have to wait for the conversion to complete before I can view the slide.

Since I prefer to load all the graphic metafiles at once, I found a way to get around this that works for me. There may be a better way, and if so, I would love to hear your comments.

Open up the PowerPoint file as normal. You may get the annoying dialog box once or twice as it converts graphic files for the first slide. After the dialog box disappears, immediately go to File: Print, or hit Command-P. When you do this, all the other graphics metafiles will convert at once. When the conversion is done, the Print dialog box will appear, and you can Cancel it. After that, you can view the presentation without annoying interruptions from the graphics metafile dialog box.
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Convert all of PowerPoint's graphic metafiles at once | 5 comments | Create New Account
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Convert all of PowerPoint's graphic metafiles at once
Authored by: bobme on Jun 26, '06 08:19:30AM

Another way to acheve this is to go to the slide sorter view. This will also convert all metafiles.



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Convert all of PowerPoint's graphic metafiles at once
Authored by: thirdjal on Jun 26, '06 08:33:36AM

Yet another method to achieve the same result is to save the presentation.



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Convert all of PowerPoint's graphic metafiles at once
Authored by: umijin on Jun 26, '06 09:01:55AM

Hmmmm.... I have a similar problem with movie files inserted into PowerPoint presentations. It tries to find them everytime I open the presentation.

I changed the preference setting to save movies along with the presentation, but this doesn't change anything at all.

Maybe the 'print' hint will at least stop the searching.



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Convert all of PowerPoint's graphic metafiles at once
Authored by: mindflyer on Jun 26, '06 04:00:39PM

Wouldn't allowing "meta files to be converted" "BREAK" the powerpoint file?
I know I will have problems with playback and effects once a file has been converted on a Mac and then played on a PC.
The ppt file format is not truly platform agnostic.



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Convert all of PowerPoint's graphic metafiles at once
Authored by: dschroet on Jun 28, '06 12:49:04PM

As a possible add-on to the previous tip: I found that when I save the presentation after PowerPoint did all its metafile conversion, the next time you open that saved file will not do the conversion again.
So my typial workflow is that whenever I receive a PowerPoint file, I open it, sit through the conversion and save the file again.

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Suum quisque



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