Solving ‘PowerPoint cannot open the type of file’ Error

Encountering an error message while trying to open or access a PowerPoint presentation can be annoying. Since it needs a good deal of time and efforts to create an effective presentation, such errors usually demand an immediate PPT Recovery attention. If you are getting any of such error messages, this article might help. For example, you might receive an error message similar to below:

“PowerPoint cannot open the type of file represented by filename.ppt."

Fixing the Issue

This error can appear out of several reasons. You can try the following solutions to fix the problem.

Cause 1: The file is password-protected and you are trying to open it in previous version of PowerPoint.

Solution: You can resave the file without password-protection or try to open the file using PowerPoint 2003 Viewer.

Cause 2: You are using PowerPoint 2003 and observing issues opening a file created in a previous version of PowerPoint.

Solution: To solve this issue, you need to install the Critical Update for PowerPoint 2003. For this, you can open ‘Help’ menu, click ‘Check for Updates’, and then install the relevant update.

Cause 3: The file is indeed corrupt

Solution: In order to extract data from a corrupted presentation, you can try these tricks:

• Open a new blank presentation and try to insert the slides from the corrupt presentation to it. To do so, use ‘Slides from Files’ option of ‘Insert’ menu.
• Open the corrupt presentation in other programs like, MS Word
• Move the file to a different location. This trick usually works if you are trying to open the file from a removable media.
• Start the PowerPoint or computer in safe mode and try to open the file. To start PowerPoint in safe mode, click ‘Start’, ‘Run’, and then type ‘C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office10\Powerpnt.exe" /safe’ in ‘Open’ box. (Check the correct path for your PowerPoint version).

More Information

If you don’t have any luck to open the corrupted presentation by using any of the aforementioned methods, use a third-party PPT Recovery Software. These tools can prevent your re-work and repair a corrupted PPT file within few minutes. A PPT Recovery tool scans a corrupted presentation using effective yet safe algorithms. In addition, these tools are highly effective in terms of interactivity with users.

Applies to

• MS PowerPoint 2002
• MS PowerPoint 2003