PPT: Some Sound Files Are Not Played in PowerPoint 97/2000 Presentations (259729)


The information in this article applies to:

  • Microsoft PowerPoint 2001 for Macintosh
  • Microsoft PowerPoint 98 Macintosh Edition
This article was previously published under Q259729

SYMPTOMS

In Microsoft PowerPoint for Macintosh, when you open a Microsoft PowerPoint for Windows presentation that contains sound objects, and you double-click a sound object in Slide view, you may receive either of the following error messages:
This multimedia object is unavailable for playback because it is linked to a file on a different platform.

-or-

The server application, source file, or item cannot be found. You should reinstall the server application.

CAUSE

This error message occurs because in Windows, the sound object on the slide represents a link to the actual sound file on the hard disk. Because the Macintosh operating system uses a different file system than Microsoft Windows, PowerPoint cannot read the path to the sound file.

RESOLUTION

To resolve this problem, increase the Link sounds with size greater than ___ Kb setting in PowerPoint 97 or 2000. This allows you to embed the sounds into your presentation and have them play back in PowerPoint for Macintosh.

To do this in PowerPoint 97 or PowerPoint 2000, follow these steps:
  1. On the Tools menu, click Options.
  2. On the General tab, increase the Link sounds with size greater than ___ Kb setting to a size just larger than your largest sound file.

    The maximum size you can set is 50,000 kilobytes (KB), which equals 50 megabytes (MB).
  3. Click OK.
  4. Delete the sound objects that are currently not working. Then, reinsert the sounds into the slides.

    They are now embedded and should play on both operating systems.
NOTES:

You have to reset the play settings for each sound after you reinsert it into the original presentation.

This process increases the file size of the presentation by the size of the sound file being embedded.

These steps only apply to *.wav, *.au, and *.aiff sound files. You cannot embed MP3 sound files into PowerPoint presentations, even though PowerPoint 2000 can play MP3 files.

REFERENCES

For additional information about similar behavior with movies, click the article number below to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

256295 MacPPT: Movies Do Not Play When Moved to Other Macintoshes

Modification Type:MajorLast Reviewed:10/3/2002
Keywords:kberrmsg kbprb KB259729
©2002 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.