I have a few files I dug up that look as though they were developed in PowerPoint 95 but we can't open using '03 or '10. If someone has Pp95 and would like to try opening these for me, I would appreciate it. I'm thinking that opening and exporting the content to Word would be better than not having any content at all.
You could try tnis... Power Point Viewer It's just a veiwer, but it says it supports PowerPoint 95 files. I'm not sure if it would allow you to actually copy any content, though. Frankly though, I am a bit surprised that at least PowerPoint 2003 won't open them and I wonder if the files are corrupt. Hopefully you can determine that with the viewer.
I also found this site that claims to convert files from one format to another... Zamzar - Free online file conversion I know absolutely nothing about the site... I just happened to come across it in a search, so if your documents contain any sensitive or personal information you might want to be a bit wary, but if not then it might work. One post that mentioned this site said that you need to change the extension on the PowerPoint 95 files to .pps, then tell it to convert them to .ppt. Good luck, Brett
If it truly is a PP95 file, then PP 2003 will open it unless it's corrupted. You can then save it as the newer version. PowerPoint 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003 can open a PP95 file. Try the viewers Brett gave you above.
I used the Viewer and was able to view them and print them to PDF via CutePDF. This is better than nothing which is what I had previously. I was going to use the converter but I didn't like the way the terms of service referred to the services as "free" including the quotes. I also didn't like the way they would convert the file and then email it to you. This means that the file resides on someone's server and they would have my email address. Both things I wanted to avoid Thanks, everyone for the help.
I have used the viewer before -- it's a good option, but what I really wanted to do was give a pat to CutePDF -- that utility is a wonder.
Gee I might have ppt95 on a computer. How bout that OpenOffice suite on CNET downloads...never tried it though.
Even though Tony seems to have found a substitute, I thought I'd address this. Every once in awhile with major upgrades, Microsoft changes the compatibility with with its file format. I do remember that PP 2000 was quite an upgrade when it came to multimedia standards. There might have been some codecs that were not recognized. The more recent versions of PP might have some sort of converter for PP95, but not all of the file might be formatted appropriately for 2000+. I remember this particular problem when I was designing PP presentations way back when I was in grad school (and I did hit dreaded error messages with version 95 vs 2000, 2002). Microsoft is pretty good about having solutions with their site. They might still have this file. Way back when, I seem to remember they had some utility for PP 95 vs PP 2000+. The other thing to remember is that PP 95 was Windows 95: a 16 bit OS with support for DOS vs Win 2000/XP: which were NT 32 bit standards. Anywho, these are just some of the points over why a MS ap is not always compatible with older versions. With PP, it has to keep up with some multimedia standards which are much more faster moving: and then Office products also go through revisions so that you'd have to disable some of the current standards to be able to save in a standard that's compatible with older formats.
