8 Best PowerPoint Repair Options for Windows and Mac (Online Free)

When running Microsoft PowerPoint, there might be a common error message that users will encounter, which starts with “PowerPoint found a problem with content in ...” as stated in the picture below:

But if you click Repair, it continues to come up with another message of “PowerPoint can't read...” error.

This usually means that your PowerPoint file is corrupted. More error messages to indicate PowerPoint file corruption also occur frequently, including but not limited to:

“PowerPoint cannot open the type of file represented by FileName.ppt.”
“This is not a PowerPoint Presentation.”
“Part of the file is missing.”
“PowerPoint was unable to display some of ... on the slides in the file FileName.ppt.”
...

Have you received any of these messages? Are you seeking for PowerPoint file repair solutions? If so, keep an eye on this post, where we will probe into several practical options on how to repair PowerPoint files, covering PowerPoint 2021, 2019, 2016, 2013 or earlier versions.

Option 1: Use the top PowerPoint repair software

Your optimal choice to repair PowerPoint file should be utilizing a piece of dedicated PPT file repair software, which will take you little effort to deal with either a slightly or severely damaged presentation file. Such software we recommend for you is Cisdem Data Recovery for Windows or Mac.

Cisdem is designed with a useful feature called Automatic Repair. A built-in repair tool can fix corrupted, damaged, and broken PowerPoint, Word, Excel, PDF, photo, video, or more files scanned by this program. When clicking to preview a PowerPoint file, Cisdem will automatically start the repairing process if it detects the original file is corrupt.

What’s more, Cisdem Data Recovery is also an excellent data retrieval tool, to restore deleted and lost PowerPoint file and other 1000+ types of file from both Windows/Mac internal drive and external storage devices like USB, SD card, digital camera, video player, etc.

Main features of Cisdem PowerPoint repair software:

• Fix damaged PowerPoint file on Windows and Mac automatically
• Recover PowerPoint file not saved, overwritten, formatted, deleted
• Support PC/SD Card/NAS/Crashed PC Recovery to get back files lost due to various scenarios
• Repair documents in Microsoft Office, PDF and more formats
• Preview items before recovery
• Quick access to recovery from specific folder: Desktop, Recycle Bin, system folder...
• Restore files to local disk or cloud services (OneDrive, Google Drive, Dropbox, iCloud...)

How to repair PowerPoint files on Windows or Mac?

1. Download, install and open Cisdem Data Recovery on your computer.
   Free Download Windows 11/10/8/7 Free Download macOS 10.9 or later
2. Choose Hardware Disk, select the location where your PowerPoint files are stored, and click Search for Lost Data.
3. After scanning, go to Type > Document > .ppt or .pptx, find the corrupt file you need to repair. You’re allowed to quickly locate it by using the filter or searching its name.
4. Double click on the thumbnail of your corrupted PowerPoint file for preview. You will see a message: "Loading, please wait a moment", which means Cisdem is repairing the file during preview. Once preview is available, the PowerPoint file repair process completes.
5. Select the repaired file and click Recover to save it to a proper location.

Option 2: Repair PowerPoint file online free

In fact we won’t get to see too many reliable online free PowerPoint repair tools. And one of their major limitations that can’t be ignored is online tools could merely handle PowerPoint files with minor corruption. If your document is severely damaged, they will be of no help. However, in any event, this method is worth a shot. Taking Recovery Toolbox for PowerPoint for example, follow up our steps below.

How to repair corrupt PowerPoint file online for free?

1. Visit the online website of Recovery Toolbox for PowerPoint.
2. Click “SELECT FILE” button to choose your corrupted PowerPoint presentation.
3. Enter your email address > click NEXT STEP.
4. Wait for the file to be uploaded and repaired.
5. Click NEXT STEP to download the repaired PowerPoint file.

Option 3: Open and Repair corrupt PowerPoint file

This is a quite easy and quick fix, by using a repair feature built in Microsoft PowerPoint app.

1. Launch PowerPoint on your computer.
2. Go to Open > Browse to select your damaged PPT file.
3. Click the down-arrow next to Open button > choose Open and Repair. This will open the file in Read-only mode.
4. Check if the PowerPoint file has been repaired.

Option 4: Insert slides into a blank presentation

In case you are still facing a problem, the next step you’re suggested to do is insert the slides of your corrupt PowerPoint file into a new presentation. This will achieve PowerPoint file repair in an ideal situation.

1. Open PowerPoint > go to Blank Presentation.
2. Click “New Slide” button > choose Reuse Slides to open the Reuse Slides sidebar on the right side of your screen.
3. Click Browse button to select and open your damaged PPT file.
4. The slides of your presentation will show up in the preview. Right click one of them > choose Insert All Slides to import slides into the blank file.
5. Check the imported slides. If they look right, click File > Save or Save As to save the repaired PowerPoint file with a new name.

Option 5: Open PowerPoint in Safe Mode

Provided that your presentation file can’t be opened properly in PowerPoint, try to run PowerPoint app in Safe Mode and then open that file again, which will fix the problematic PPT by disabling any add-ins or customizations that may cause the issue.

1. Press Windows+R to initiate Run box.
2. Type powerpnt /safe > click OK to open PowerPoint in Safe Mode.
3. Select File > Open > Browse.
4. Locate the corrupt PowerPoint file > select it and click Open. Check if it opens in Safe Mode.

Option 6: Add PPT file location to trusted locations list

Sometimes PowerPoint file error occurs for presentations that have been downloaded or taken from USB or other unknown sources. Then how to repair the corrupted PowerPoint files? Another attempt could be heading over to PowerPoint Trust Center and specifying the folder you require as a trusted location.

1. Start up PowerPoint on your system.
2. Click Option at the left bottom.
3. Select Trust Center > Trust Center Settings.
4. Continue to choose Trusted Locations > Add new location.
5. Click Browse to specify the folder path of your corrupt PowerPoint file > click OK.
6. Reopen the PPT file to see if it’s fixed successfully.

Option 7: Repair corrupted PowerPoint file with .tmp

Alternatively, you can make an attempt to repair a damaged PowerPoint file using .tmp files. This solution proves to be workable for all types of corrupted PowerPoint files stored on Windows drive C.

1. In PowerPoint app, navigate to Open > Recover Unsaved Presentations.
2. From the drop-down menu next to File name bar, select All Files option.
3. Find the exact .tmp file of your corrupt presentation file based on the time when you edited on it.
4. Open this .tmp file > finally check if you get a PowerPoint file working fine.

Option 8: Do PowerPoint repair by browser-based repair

Here comes our final choice, which is only applicable for a given situation: your corrupted PowerPoint file is saved under OneDrive. Then the browser-based repair (possibly works better than Windows-based repair) can be adopted to fix PowerPoint file corruption issue.

1. In Windows File Explorer, right-click on your broken PPT file.
2. Choose “View online” to open a browser-based version of PowerPoint.
3. Click the file name in the orange ribbon > choose Version History.
4. There will be a list of previous versions of your PowerPoint file. If lucky, you can find a previous version that’s not be corrupted. If not that lucky, all previous versions might be damaged.
5. Select and repair each previous version if it’s damaged, until you have repaired the slides as many as possible.
6. Create a new presentation in your browser > copy individual slides from previous versions into it, to get a new PPT file with undamaged slides.
7. Save the file to download it onto your desktop.

Bottom line

A corrupted PowerPoint file would lead to our hours of work being gone for good. It’s a trouble no one wants to be in, leaving us wishing for a simple and accessible solution to repair PowerPoint file. Hopefully this page can help you out to some extent. The majority of steps elaborated above are for PowerPoint users on Windows, but the workflow on Mac is pretty much the same. To do the PowerPoint repair without effort, Cisdem Data Recovery must be your right hand.