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I am trying to open a PowerPoint 95 proprietary file, in Office 2013. It won't let me, saying to download a standalone file converter. I can't find any such converter.

Any suggestions on a product that I could use to convert these files safely to a readable format?

phuclv
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PearsonArtPhoto
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3 Answers3

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LibreOffice still supports PowerPoint 95 format (I've tried it on my PC) so you can use it for this purpose

soffice --headless --convert-to pptx powerpoint95.ppt

The output format can have an optional filter when there are multiple versions. For example to convert from PPT95 to PPT97 use

soffice --headless --convert-to ppt:"MS PowerPoint 97" powerpoint95.ppt

The filter for PowerPoint 95 is "PowerPoint 3" as per the above documentation

In some versions you need to use libreoffice instead of soffice. And sometimes you need to move --headless to after --convert-to although in other cases you can omit it. I believe you can do the same with OpenOffice

You can also use unoconv since it can convert "between any document format supported by LibreOffice/OpenOffice"

unoconv -f pptx powerpoint95.ppt

See also this question or this blog in case you want to do mass conversion

phuclv
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The answer is there: You receive an error message when you try to open a PowerPoint 4.0 document after you install MS09-017 on PowerPoint 2000 and PowerPoint 2002

For "security" reasons, the subkey HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\<Office_Version>\PowerPoint\Security\FileOpenBlock must have the DWORD FilesBeforePowerPoint95 set to 0 or FilesFromPowerPoint95 set to 0 to open respectively pre-95 or 95 ppt versions in PowerPoint 2000 or 2002 versions.

phuclv
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Pierre Collet
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0

Source PowerPoint won't open my older PowerPoint presentations

You try to open an older file and see a message like this:

PowerPoint can't open the type of file represented by [your presentation file's name]

PowerPoint 2010, 2007, and 2003 with Service Pack 3 (SP3) or later won't open files that were saved in either the PPT 95 format or the PowerPoint 97-XXXX & PowerPoint 95 format (where XXXX is 2000, 2002 or 2003, depending on the version of PPT).

See below if you're using PowerPoint 2003 with SP3. If you have 2007 or 2010, you can't force them to open these older files. If you really need access to the files, here are a few possibilities:

  • Check to see if the file is "blocked". Right-click the file's icon, choose Properties. At the bottom of the General tab of the Properties dialog, look for a security message and a button marked Unblock. If the button appears, click it to unblock the file, close the Properties dialog box, then try opening it in PowerPoint again.
  • Find a computer with PowerPoint 2003 or earlier, open the files there, then save them in normal PowerPoint format.
  • Check with online file-conversion powerhouse, Zamzar, who has a solution for you
  • Try this clever trick from PowerPoint MVP John Wilson.
  • If you have Open Office, you might be able to open the files in it then save to the current PowerPoint format and then open the files in PowerPoint.

PowerPoint 2003 with Service Pack 3 (SP3)

Lately some PowerPoint 2003 users have been unable to open some older file types due to changes introduced in Service Pack 3 (SP3) for Office 2003.

This Microsoft Knowledgebase article describes the problem and suggests some fixes that involve making registry changes. The article includes links to REG files that solve the problems described.

DavidPostill
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