Microsoft Office Workspace Live Cannot Display PowerPoint 2007 Slide Deck

The new Microsoft Office 2007 file format must really be difficult to deal with since Microsoft itself keeps having problems with it. First, they launched Windows Mobile 6 this spring without the ability for Office Mobile to read or write Office 2007 files. The add-in to provide this feature finally arrived this month (December) something like 7 months after WiMo6 launched. Now, it looks like the Office Workplace Live beta web service can't deal with the 2007 format either. I've tried to it on a PC running Windows XP with Office 2003 as well as Windows Vista with Office 2007. Office isn't actually needed to preview documents in Office Workplace. I just tested these configurations to make sure that the version of Office installed wasn't a factor. The PowerPoint 2007 slide deck I added to my Office Workplace storage area didn't render on either PC. The file converted to PowerPoint 2003 format, however, did render.

Note that the PowerPoint rendering does not look much like the native desktop rendering. The vector graphics used gives the slides an angular cartoony look. Still, it is a valuable service and I intend to keep playing with Office Workplace to learn how to use it effectively.