MS Office .pps files should open in presentation mode as with MS PowerPoint

[Oibaf]

Binary package hint: openoffice.org

MS Office .pps files are standard PowerPoint files that, when renamed from .ppt to .pps, open directly in presentation mode (F5) instead of edit mode.

OpenOffice Impress should behave like MS PowerPoint, opening it directly in presentation mode, but this is not the case.

It would be nice to have this properly fixed as it's an important feature when you want to use OOo on conference rooms, where the speaker arrives with its .pps file: if it starts in presentation mode there are no problem. If, instead, starts in edit mode it confuses the user (which most of the time never used OOo before).

As a temporary workaround I suggest to use the ImpressRunner extension from http://oooconv.free.fr/impressRunner/ .

I am using openoffice 2.4.1-11ubuntu2.1 from Ubuntu 8.10.

Thanks

[pablomme (pablomme)]

I would think this is fixed in karmic; PPSs now open in presentation mode. Perhaps this bug should be marked as fixed?

[Oibaf (oibaf)]

Confirmed fixed. Apparently this is an Ubuntu-specific change, as with Windows version 3.1.1 still does not work.

[Yannis Tsop (ogiannhs)]

How can we disable this function???? It's not a fix if it breaks default bahaviour.

[zzarko (zzarko-gmail)]

I have the same problem (I'm no longer able to open pps in edit mode) and I solved it with this script. It's brute-force solution (temporarily renames pps to ppt), but it works.
----------------SCRIPT----------------
#!/bin/bash
#script to open pps files in edit mode in Ubuntu
#script contains code found on several places on the internet and can handle only one parameter (file)

fullpath=$1
filename="${fullpath##*/}" # Strip longest match of */ from start
dir="${fullpath:0:${#fullpath} - ${#filename}}" # Substring from 0 thru pos of filename
base="${filename%.[^.]*}" # Strip shortest match of . plus at least one non-dot char from end
ext="${filename:${#base} + 1}" # Substring from len of base thru end
if [[ -z "$base" && -n "$ext" ]]; then # If we have an extension and no base, it's really the base
    base=".$ext"
    ext=""
fi
extnew=$ext
if [ "$ext" == "pps" ] || [ "$ext" == "PPS" ]; then
 extnew="ppt"
fi
if [ "$dir" == "" ]; then
 dir="."
fi
oldname="$dir/$filename"
newname="$dir/$base.$extnew"
mv "$oldname" "$newname"
ooimpress "$newname"
mv "$newname" "$oldname"
----------------SCRIPT----------------
Save it as ooimpress-noshow, do
chmod a+x ooimpress-noshow
and open your pps files with it. You can change association globally (from Properties on pps file), or (probably better) just for some programs in their local preferences (Thunderbird, Firefox, ...).

[Daniel (danielias)]

I also hate .pps files opening automatically in presentation mode. Mainly because of those "elaborated" presentations coming via e-mail, with the letters falling down from the top of the page - one at a time - to form frases (argh!)
The solution below worked fine for me. Try it.

The command ooimpress has the -n option:
# ooimpress -n filename
which is intended to create/edit a new file, using filename as a template.
To all intents and purposes, it is the same of opening filename in edition mode.

So, just create a shell script named ooimpress-edit (or whatever) containing:

#!/bin/bash
ooimpress -n $1
exit

As root, save this file to /usr/local/bin (which should be in your $PATH).
Don't forget to make it executable! (I mention it because I always do...)

Then edit the "file associations" (mime types) and include ooimpress-edit as the first option to open .pps files.
Of course, do the same in your e-mail client (in Thunderbird: Preferences->Attachments->View & Edit Actions...).

Cheers

[Daniel (danielias)]

Correction!
The small script above should be:

#!/bin/bash
ooimpress -n "$*"
exit

# The special parameter $*, within double quotes,
# expands to the positional parameters, starting from one,
# as a single word with the value of each parameter separated
# by white space (the first character of the IFS special variable).
# It is necessary if the passed file name has spaces.

[zzarko (zzarko-gmail)]

@Daniel: MUCH shorter solution, thanks! (I didn't know about the switch... :) )

[Glauco (glauco-hass)]

As there's no option to disable the auto presentation mode, should I open a new bug?
Fixes should never let the user without options. And this one change the default behaviour of the software, it's very intrusive.

[Blue (vali-dragnuta)]

I agree, the default behaviour should be user configurable.
And is there alt least a way to exit presentation mode after such a file was opened ?
Pressing escape closes the application....

[Yannis Tsop (ogiannhs)]

there is a much shorter version (if one wants to disable automatic presentation for all files). just:

sudo -s 'echo "#!/bin/sh" > /usr/bin/ooimpress'
sudo -s 'echo "/usr/lib/openoffice/program/soffice -n -impress \"\$@\"" >> /usr/bin/ooimpress'

[Blue (vali-dragnuta)]

Is anybody watching this ?
Besides the default open mode which is let's say just a mild annoyance, the other problem is that there seems to be NO WAY to exit presentation mode after such a file was opened... pressing escape just closes the whole application, which in turn is a VERY annoying BUG.
So, is anyone watching/doing something about this ?

[Zsombor (gzsombor)]

Yes, this auto presentation mode is very confusing for me, because I'm not able to open to edit/modify a pps file. The open command from the file menu is behaving similarly - auto play the presentation, and close the document, after it stopped - so there is no workaround for this problem !