How can I view and edit PowerPoint presentations that don't render correctly?

Question

I have Microsoft PowerPoint projects that I can view correctly on Android, OS X and Windows, but on Linux with LibreOffice Impress, they are not rendered correctly. Instead, the letters and objects are outside the screen.

I need PowerPoint for my job. Is there a fix for that or an alternative app for PowerPoint compatibility without bugs?

Solution 1

I sum it up because there are so many solutions and i like to keep things organised.

After testing every possible solution mentioned here, i add my experience. From 1 to 5; with 1 to be the best solution.

*To have the fonts as mentioned here by San Lin Naing and Nisheet is a must anyway we choose to solve this, except in the option 2.

1. WPS office, mentioned by Tim in the comments. WPS office has the best compatibility with 365 latest office.
2. Virtual Machine plus office 365
3. Wine plus old office, answered from Karol. But we don't have compatibility with latest office 365.
4. Install all possible fonts found in Windows and use the stock LibreOffice. But we don't have compatibility with office 365.
5. Use the official PowerPoint in the cloud, answered by Ciprian. But a couple of features are missing.

Solution 2

If you have a licensed copy of PowerPoint, you can install it in Ubuntu using Wine from the default Ubuntu repositories. Wine is a compatibility layer for running Windows applications on Linux. You will also need to install Installer for Microsoft TrueType core fonts (ttf-mscorefonts-installer).

If you don't have a licensed copy of PowerPoint, you can download the free PowerPoint Viewer from the official Microsoft Download Center and use it for viewing PowerPoint presentations or you can upload an incompatible PowerPoint presentation to Google Drive, open it with Google Slides and select File -> Download -> ODP Document (.odp) to convert it to a format that is compatible with Impress and download it to your computer.

Solution 3

Actually, it may be font issues. Because of Microsoft's fonts are not included in the Linux OS, system substitute with specific fonts.

But these font may not be in same grid size or font attributes.

Try to install Microsoft fonts with following commands in your terminal.

wget http://httpredir.debian.org/debian/pool/contrib/m/msttcorefonts/ttf-mscorefonts-installer_3.6_all.deb
sudo dpkg -i ttf-mscorefonts-installer_3.6_all.deb

Check your documents again. And you should also check fonts such as Arial, Calibri, etc. in font list.

Solution 4

Most of the times, this issue pops up due to the standard fonts that come with Windows and are not available in Linux due to license or other issues. As a workaround, I usually create a .fonts folder in the home directory (if it doesn't exist) and then copy them there from a Windows fonts library.

Then manually rebuild the font cache:

fc-cache -f -v

However, this is a workaround and I will not recommend this for the obvious license issues.

Solution 5

You can use any browser that your machine provides to edit your files in the official PowerPoint cloud

While I don't think it has ALL the features of desktop powerpoint, it works better than most desktop alternatives.

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Comments

[Pavlos Theodorou]

yup it was a font issue indeed. thank you , that fixed it. Although now im thinking maybe ill go with karel suggestion to use wine and ms office

[Pavlos Theodorou]

Well, San Lin was right it was the fonts and now its fixed. Although im thinking to go with wine and ms office since Impress isn't too good

[San Lin Naing]

Good to hear that.

[wizzwizz4]

It has very few features but is (almost) guaranteed not to muck up the things that it doesn't support.

[Pavlos Theodorou]

keral , WPS office has full compatibility with the latest office 365. wine only support the old powerpoint. So either we use a virtual machine + office 365 , either WPS office !

[Eric Seastrand]

Why the downvotes? The OP specifically mentioned he is looking for a alternative app for PowerPoint compatibility. My solution offers exactly this.