2008/9/20 Ernie B <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> I bought Open Office for one reason only, to be able to open an email with
> a pps. extension. Please tell me how I can do this.
>
First, you need not have *bought* OpenOffice. It's free. Completely. You can
download it, free, from <www.openoffice.org>. You can use it, free, on as
many computers as you like. You can use it privately, for business or in any
other environment. You can give it, free, to friends, colleagues, clients
etc. etc. It runs on Windows, Linux, Mac and many flavours of Unix. All for
free. Support is also free via this e-mail list and via various other forums
described and linked to on the web site. Documentation is also free from the
web site. Please note that this e-mail list is run by users around the world
who volunteer time to help others; it is not a "professional" help desk.
There are some good reasons why people sell OpenOffice:
1. As a convenience to people with slow/expensive/unreliable internet
connections. The download is quite large. Expect to pay not much more than
about USD10 to cover the cost of producing the CD plus P&P
2. Because they provide additional facilities - enhanced software
capabilities, specialised templates, training and/or installation support
and so on. There are a few of these but not many.
There is also a bad reason why people sell OpenOffice: to make a fast buck
from people who don't realise it's available free.
I don't know what exactly you have bought or why but, given the above, you
may want to consider trying to get your money back.
Now. When you install the "real" OpenOffice it asks you how you want to
handle MS Word, Excel and Powerpoint documents. If you say you want them
handled by OpenOffice then simply double clicking on a *.ppt* file should
open it. You want to open a *.pps* file which is an "automated" slide show.
You may need to save the e-mail attachment somewhere - to your desktop for
example - and then use OpenOffice to open it by *right* clicking on it and
choosing OpenOffice Impress from the list of available programs. If Impress
isn't in the list, browse to it ("simpress.exe") in the explorer window
offered by the Open With dialogue. It'll be in the "program" folder within
the folder hierarchy where you installed the software. Once you have
selected Impress for a .pps file you can tick the "always use this program"
box. After this, double clicking a .pps file will invoke Impress
automatically. For more details about this, please read up on File
Associations in the Windows Help system (I assume you are using Windows).
Please note that OpenOffice will not behave exactly like the Powerpoint
slide viewer. OpenOffice does require some manual intervention to view the
slide show. Once the file is open in Impress, press F5 to view the first
slide and then click the left mouse button for each new slide. Press escape
(or the right mouse button) to quit.
For a completely automated program you can get the free Powerpoint
slide-show viewer from Microsoft. Search for it on the MS web site. This
free software lets you view .pps files but not edit them in any way.
--
Harold Fuchs
London, England
Please reply *only* to [email protected]
