powerpoint viewer

[jamdis]

hi all

I work at a school which has a number of projector carts. I'm trying to set up laptops with Ubuntu 10.04 to function as kiosks connected to each projector to enable teachers and guests to project content with a minimum of fuss. One of the big sources will be powerpoint files stored on USB flash drives. (before anyone says it, LibreOffice Impress is not an option, as it does a very spotty job rendering graphics from powerpoint presentations) I was hoping to use Microsoft's free powerpoint viewer under wine. I've had mixed success:

-there is actually a .deb of powerpoint viewer which installs quite nicely from the ubuntu software center. It even shows up as an option to associate .ppt files in ubuntu, which is crucial as I need people to just double-click their presentations and go. The problem is that opening the newer .pptx files causes this version of pptviewer to either complain and quit or just crash.

-If I install powerpoint viewer 2007 by running microsoft's installer under wine, along with this compatablity pack:www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/confirmation.aspx?id=3 It creates PPTVIEW.EXE inside ~/.wine/programfiles/OFFICE12/ Running this exe directly gives me a version of PPTview with which I can happily play .pptx files by opening them from inside the program. However, this does not show up in ubuntu as an option to which I can associate files. Again, I need my users to be able to just double-click and go.

Thoughts?

[jamdis]

Well I got it working on my own, finally.

I installed powerpoint viewer 2007 using microsoft's installer and PlayOnLinux.

Then I followed the instructions here in order to associate the filetype (had to substitute some names since I'm using Powerpoint viewer, not full office): http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1940522

Not easy or elegant, but it works!