.ppsx file conversion or viewer for Mac without Office?

Question

I was given a file with a .ppsx extension. I'm on a Mac and don't have Microsoft Office. Microsoft's site indicates that it is:

PowerPoint Show

An XML-based PowerPoint auto-running slide show. Cannot contain a VBAProject part.

Now, OpenOffice claims that it can open Windows 7 Files. I am using version 3. I tried the Zamzar online conversion tool but it alerts at me: "Filetype conversion is not supported for filetype ppsx."

I asked the sender if they could send me an older PowerPoint version or print to PDF but they said no. The OpenOffice page says:

As a last resort you can rename a copy of the file to .ZIP filetype, and access the content that way. This is of limited use for Powerpoint & Excel files, and works best for Word documents where the main content is in 'document.xml'.

I did this, and I can see some of the images inside (good), but none of the text (bad). Here's what's in there:

[Content_Types].xml
_rels
docProps
ppt

./_rels:

./docProps:
app.xml
core.xml
thumbnail.wmf

./ppt:
_rels
handoutMasters
media
notesMasters
notesSlides
presProps.xml
presentation.xml
slideLayouts
slideMasters
slides
tableStyles.xml
theme
viewProps.xml

./ppt/_rels:
presentation.xml.rels

./ppt/handoutMasters:
_rels
handoutMaster1.xml

./ppt/handoutMasters/_rels:
handoutMaster1.xml.rels

./ppt/media:
image1.png
image10.png
image11.gif
image12.png
image13.png
image14.png
image15.png
image16.png
image17.png
image18.png
image19.png
image2.png
image20.png
image21.png
image22.png
image23.jpeg
image24.jpeg
image25.jpeg
image26.jpeg
image27.jpeg
image28.jpeg
image29.jpeg
image3.png
image30.jpeg
image31.jpeg
image32.jpeg
image33.jpeg
image4.png
image5.png
image6.png
image7.gif
image8.png
image9.png

./ppt/notesMasters:
_rels
notesMaster1.xml

./ppt/notesMasters/_rels:
notesMaster1.xml.rels

./ppt/notesSlides:
_rels
notesSlide1.xml
notesSlide2.xml
notesSlide3.xml

./ppt/notesSlides/_rels:
notesSlide1.xml.rels
notesSlide2.xml.rels
notesSlide3.xml.rels

./ppt/slideLayouts:
_rels
slideLayout1.xml
slideLayout10.xml
slideLayout11.xml
slideLayout2.xml
slideLayout3.xml
slideLayout4.xml
slideLayout5.xml
slideLayout6.xml
slideLayout7.xml
slideLayout8.xml
slideLayout9.xml

./ppt/slideLayouts/_rels:
slideLayout1.xml.rels
slideLayout10.xml.rels
slideLayout11.xml.rels
slideLayout2.xml.rels
slideLayout3.xml.rels
slideLayout4.xml.rels
slideLayout5.xml.rels
slideLayout6.xml.rels
slideLayout7.xml.rels
slideLayout8.xml.rels
slideLayout9.xml.rels

./ppt/slideMasters:
_rels
slideMaster1.xml

./ppt/slideMasters/_rels:
slideMaster1.xml.rels

./ppt/slides:
_rels
slide1.xml
slide10.xml
slide11.xml
slide2.xml
slide3.xml
slide4.xml
slide5.xml
slide6.xml
slide7.xml
slide8.xml
slide9.xml

./ppt/slides/_rels:
slide1.xml.rels
slide10.xml.rels
slide11.xml.rels
slide2.xml.rels
slide3.xml.rels
slide4.xml.rels
slide5.xml.rels
slide6.xml.rels
slide7.xml.rels
slide8.xml.rels
slide9.xml.rels

./ppt/theme:
theme1.xml
theme2.xml
theme3.xml

I tried running the strings command but that results in no intelligible test, just a load of gunk or raw heavily marked up xml that is unreadable. I also tried importing it into Google Docs, which it did, but it does not convert it, it just sits in storage there.

Are there any other options for reading the ppsx file? Or for reading the component xml parts?

UPDATE: I have also tried Zoho Docs but it refused to accept the upload.

Solution

Just rename the extension to .pptx and try again to convert in OpenOffice.

Comments

[artlung]

That worked! That made no sense at all, but it worked!

[Admin]

It's because only PowerPoint cares about the extension differences - but they are all the exact same type. PowerPoint will run a PPSX automatically with all of it's animation/transition settings, but it won't do that with a PPTX. Under the hood, they are exactly the same file with the only difference being the extension name. So tell the sender to just keep sending PPSX files and make him/her feel like they've done something special :)