Repair a corrupted PowerPoint file online

Why it happens

• Downloads, attachments and syncs that stop part-way.
• Presentations exported by other programs with broken links to layouts or media.
• Old .ppt files whose internal filesystem is damaged.

Try these first, they're free

1. 1If the file came from email or the web, right-click it, choose Properties, tick Unblock and press OK. PowerPoint refuses blocked files with messages that look like damage.
2. 2Move the file out of a synced or network folder to your desktop and open it from there: a half-synced copy is a common culprit.
3. 3Check the file's size. A file of 0 KB holds nothing at all, so look for another copy.

How we fix it

We repair broken links and parts instead of deleting slides, restore missing layouts and masters, and show you the slides before you download. Old .ppt files come back as .pptx.

On 384 damaged Office files, we recovered 81% of the content; Office's own repair recovered 53%. See the benchmark.

Other messages

• PowerPoint found a problem with content
• “Sorry, PowerPoint can't read” the file
• Excel: “We found a problem with some content”
• Excel cannot open the file because the format or extension is not valid