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I have a PowerPoint 2010 presentation with 523 slides in it. I sent a copy to a colleague, he modified a few slides (added text to them), and sent it back to me. When I use the PowerPoint comparison on my original file and on the file he sent back, nothing happens, where "nothing" means:

  • After clicking "Merge" (from the Review>Compare dialog), I get the "working" hourglass cursor.

  • After a while, I see a dialog box with "Press the ESC key to cancel merging the document" in it. After a few seconds, this dialog box disappears.

  • The cursor returns to normal, and I can navigate around in my document, but there is no pane showing me the differences between the presentations.

I get the same behavior regardless of which of the two pptx files I open first.

Any idea how I can get the PowerPoint comparison feature to work? Or is there another way for me to find the edits my colleague made?

2 Answers 2

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From http://powerpointinfo.blogspot.com/2011/06/compare-two-versions-of-ppt-file-with.html

Here are steps to compare and merge two versions of a PowerPoint file:

1) Open the first version of PowerPoint file
2) Click on Review tab on Ribbon
3) Click on Compare
4) Open the version 2 of PowerPoint file

You will see a 'Revisions' pane on right side which will display the text changes and any slide additions done to the presentation.

While moving across the slides, you can accept or reject text or slide changes and create a final updated presentation.

This website explains step by step how to compare two .ppt files. What you said seems to match up with these steps. You should check here just to be sure. If that doesn't work you should double check with your colleague that he/she sent you back the modified powerpoint, not the original you sent them.

Another possibility is that your colleague made the revisions, then went to the 'Review' tab and already clicked accept the changes before sending it back to you.

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  • I followed the proper procedure, and I have verified that the file I got back is not identical to the one I sent. (The file sizes are different, and I've also manually identified some textual differences in the presentations.) Jul 8, 2015 at 20:02
  • Even if he accepted the changes, the file comparison should show them. Jul 8, 2015 at 20:21
  • You may have to go put in a ticket on the Microsoft forum. There may be a bug with Microsoft Powerpoint. Sorry I couldn't be of more help. Jul 8, 2015 at 20:26
  • You may want to edit this answer @Constuntine to include the steps listed in your link; it is already a relatively old (by internet standards) resource; and may go stale in the future.
    – bertieb
    Jul 9, 2015 at 0:26
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    Is the changed text in normal text boxes/shapes/etc. or is it in tables/smartart/charts/equations? It may be that PPT only "sees" the text that's easy to get at. Jul 12, 2015 at 15:18
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I found that this feature works for 50 slides or fewer but not for 60 slides or more.
Solution suggestion: Make 50 slide chunks. It's better than nothing

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  • What about 51 to 59 slides?
    – fixer1234
    Jul 8, 2016 at 16:15

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