Overview
ProPresenter itself cannot read PowerPoint files; instead, ProPresenter relies on connections that are inside of the PowerPoint software to ask PowerPoint to do something. This means that PowerPoint must be installed on the computer before ProPresenter can import PowerPoint files.
Because of this requirement, in some cases, you might see an error message saying that “PowerPoint is not found” or that “PowerPoint Viewer needs to be installed”.
Install PowerPoint
If you see one of these messages and you don’t have PowerPoint installed, then you would need to install PowerPoint for ProPresenter to import your files. You may need to purchase PowerPoint from Microsoft before you can install PowerPoint.
Already Installed
If you see one of these messages and you already have PowerPoint installed, then it is possible that ProPresenter can’t correctly find PowerPoint on your computer. If this is the case, then our recommendation would be to uninstall PowerPoint from your computer, then reinstall it. This will often get ProPresenter seeing PowerPoint again.
The steps for this would vary depending on your system and your version of PowerPoint, but generally speaking, you will first want to restart your computer, then you can uninstall PowerPoint. (This might be via the Windows Control Panel or, on Mac, opening the Application folder, right clicking on the PowerPoint application, and selecting Move to Trash.) After the application is uninstalled, you can re-download the installer file from Microsoft’s website (or insert your installer disk) and reinstall the application.
A few notes:
- In some cases, you may need to uninstall the entire Office suite in order to uninstall PowerPoint.
- You can reinstall PowerPoint from your original PowerPoint disks or installer file, or you can download a fresh copy from Microsoft’s website.
PowerPoint Viewer
In some cases, ProPresenter may say that you need to install PowerPoint Viewer. As of May 2018, all versions of PowerPoint viewer (on both Mac and Windows) have been retired by Microsoft. If you see a message from ProPresenter requesting to install PowerPoint Viewer, then you can follow the steps above for uninstalling and reinstalling PowerPoint.
Continued Support
If you are continuing to have the issue then please reach out to our support team for more troubleshooting steps.