New problem/multiple masters/slide background

A new problem has cropped up for me. I am using PowerPoint X service
pack 1 with MacOS 10.4.8 on a PowerBook G4 1GHz with 768 GB RAM. I
reinstalled PP due to the multiple master capability having
disappeared. After removal and reinstallation, multiple masters again
worked--that is until I customized my toolbars and changed some
default preferences--then multiple masters again would not work. So, I
decided to live without multiple masters. Putil shows no problems with
pref files, although that must be the problem.

Now--I have another problem. When I want to change a slide background,
I click on the slide background icon on the toolbar and I get the
spinning beachball. The application hangs. Activity Monitor reports
that PowerPoint is not responding.

If I create a new presentation, I do not have the problem--but if I
copy a slide from the presentation having the problem into another
presentation, the problem follows into the new presentation.

This is a large group of presentations created in a prior version of
PP under MacOS 9x, if that has anything to do with it. All of these
presentations I am trying to update.

Thank you for any help you might be able to give.

On Feb 14, 5:25 pm, "Steve" <ksr....DeleteThis@yahoo.com> wrote:
> A new problem has cropped up for me. I am using PowerPoint X service
> pack 1 with MacOS 10.4.8 on a PowerBook G4 1GHz with 768 GB RAM. I
> reinstalled PP due to the multiple master capability having
> disappeared. After removal and reinstallation, multiple masters again
> worked--that is until I customized my toolbars and changed some
> default preferences--then multiple masters again would not work. So, I
> decided to live without multiple masters. Putil shows no problems with
> pref files, although that must be the problem.
>
> Now--I have another problem. When I want to change a slide background,
> I click on the slide background icon on the toolbar and I get the
> spinning beachball. The application hangs. Activity Monitor reports
> that PowerPoint is not responding.
>
> If I create a new presentation, I do not have the problem--but if I
> copy a slide from the presentation having the problem into another
> presentation, the problem follows into the new presentation.
>
> This is a large group of presentations created in a prior version of
> PP under MacOS 9x, if that has anything to do with it. All of these
> presentations I am trying to update.
>
> Thank you for any help you might be able to give.

I think I have discovered how to reproduce the problem of PowerPoint
hanging when I select the slide background tool. If the slide master
has a jpeg image as the background, then if a jpeg is put into a slide
and the slide background tool is selected the application hangs.