Tips for Solving Common PowerPoint Problems

PowerPoint problems can stump the best of us, from beginners to seasoned users.

How to Fix Common PowerPoint Issues

PowerPoint presentations can be complicated to build, and getting the text, images, and audio right isn't easy. Try these solutions to the most common PowerPoint issues.

1. Troubleshoot audio issues. You can do a few things when you or others can't hear the music or sounds in your presentation. First, you should ensure you're using a compatible file type and then consider embedding the sound files rather than linking to them.

2. Extract sound files. If you'd like to use the music from a presentation someone shared with you (with permission, of course), you can save the audio files separately from the presentation.

3. Fix a red 'X' picture in your presentation. Sometimes a picture doesn't display correctly in PowerPoint and it's replaced with a red X. This can happen if something went wrong in the linking process or you night need to update PowerPoint.

4. Use portrait and landscape orientation. Some of your slides don't look right sitting on a landscape-oriented page. Thankfully, you can place portrait-oriented slides in your presentation too.

5. Change the font for the whole presentation. If you don't like the font in your presentation, you don't have to change it slide by slide. You can make a global change to the fonts.

6. Copy slides from one presentation to another. If you regularly present similar material in PowerPoint, you probably reuse the same slides from time to time. PowerPoint lets you quickly copy slides from one presentation into another, so you don't have to duplicate your work.

7. Prevent the fonts from changing when you use a different computer. If you embed your fonts, you don't have to worry about formatting issues when presenting with a different computer.

8. Recover an unsaved PowerPoint. You can use AutoRecover to retrieve an unsaved presentation. You should also check the trash and recycle bins in case you accidentally deleted the file.

9. Protect your presentations from being viewed or changed by others. Encrypt a presentation by adding password protection. You can also save the presentation as graphic images or a PDF file.