# Powerpoint show question

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/powerpoint-show-question/265068>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [September 20, 2004, 1:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/powerpoint-show-question/265068 "2004-09-20T01:09:01Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Hanna](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b3f665/32.png) [@Hanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hanna)\
**Post date:** [September 20, 2004, 1:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/powerpoint-show-question/265068/1 "2004-09-20T01:09:01Z")

</div>

One of my professors is doing Powerpoint shows for class. I would like to view/print these from my home computer. On most of the slides I cannot get the pictures to show up. There is a white space where the picture should be and a message:“Quicktime and a photo jpeg decompressor is needed to view this picture”. I have Quicktime. I am not sure what a photo jpeg decopressor would be, a plug in?

I have had this problem before with one of my other prof’s powerpoint shows. I had been using the Powerpoint viewer, but I finally got MS office and the problem with viewing pictures in his particular slideshows went away when I opened them in Powerpoint (as opposed to only the PP viewer).

I know my professor is using a Mac to create his shows, and I use Windows. Could that be the problem? The other elements of the slideshow are showing up fine, it is just the pictures themselves. The words and lines added are showing.

Does anyone know what the problem could be?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Aeschines](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aeschines/32/16251_2.png) [@Aeschines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aeschines)\
**Post date:** [September 20, 2004, 4:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/powerpoint-show-question/265068/2 "2004-09-20T04:41:21Z")

</div>

Sorry, I don’t know what the problem might be, but if your prof makes a PDF of the PPT, you can easily view it in Acrobat–with no special jpeg software, etc.

Video PDFs are also possible.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Hanna](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b3f665/32.png) [@Hanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hanna)\
**Post date:** [September 20, 2004, 11:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/powerpoint-show-question/265068/3 "2004-09-20T11:36:05Z")

</div>

Thanks. I’ll talk to him about that. I can also see of they show up on the lab computers and print them there. I was hoping this was a common problem and and I need a plug in or something.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Podkayne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/edb3f5/32.png) [@Podkayne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Podkayne)\
**Post date:** [September 20, 2004, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/powerpoint-show-question/265068/4 "2004-09-20T14:41:32Z")

</div>

I had that problem when I tried to drag and drop images into my lectures from the Safari web browser; for some reasons the images were converted to TIFFs (IIRC) which are not read by standard Powerpoint.

As **Aeschines** says, converting the slide show to a PDF makes it possible for anyone to read them (and makes the files considerably smaller, reducing download times and server load.)

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![larsenmtl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/d78d45/32.png) [@larsenmtl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/larsenmtl)\
**Post date:** [September 20, 2004, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/powerpoint-show-question/265068/5 "2004-09-20T17:30:10Z")

</div>

Here’s what MS has to say about this:

[http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;198204](http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;198204)