Re: Viewing powerpoint files

[David Wright <d.wright@open.ac.uk>]

Quoting E.L. Meijer (Eric) (tgakem@sg10.chem.tue.nl):
> > Is there a utility to view MS powerpoint files? Do I have to install
> > that monster of StarOffice for this perpose? ;^)
> 
> It depends on what you call `view'.  Our secretary sometimes insists on
> sending lecture programs in powerpoint files per email (yuck, bleah),
> and all that matters is the text.  In that case a simple
> 
> strings <file.ppt> | less
> 
> will show you the text most of the time, after you scroll through a few
> pages of junk.  The text is usually somewhere at the bottom.  Funny
> thing is that you can often see older versions of the text that are
> invisible in powerpoint.

This sounds like Word. Unless the author uses SaveAs after completing
the document, you end up reading the version which was last SaveAs'ed
(or the first version saved if it's never been SaveAs'ed).

I recently received a Word attachment that had two identical versions
of a document embedded in quite a large amount of binary stuff. When I
eventually used Word to look at the document properly, what I had seen
before was but a fraction of the whole thing, and this fraction was
dispersed through the whole document. (Don't ask me why it was repeated.
Perhaps the author had duplicated it and then modified one version. It
was that sort of document, with repeated, slightly differing, sections.)

Caveat lector.

Cheers,

-- 
Email:  d.wright@open.ac.uk   Tel: +44 1908 653 739  Fax: +44 1908 655 151
Snail:  David Wright, Earth Science Dept., Milton Keynes, England, MK7 6AA
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official stationery. Views expressed here are either my own or plagiarised.