Problem: In October 2019, Microsoft released an update to PowerPoint that has broken the ability for Macros to communicate directly with the PowerPoint ribbon, rendering all items on the ‘assignment’ tab nonfunctional. The update has also produced other unpredictable and inconsistent errors. We are hopeful Microsoft will resolve these problems in a future update, but we have made and documented a workaround to allow students to complete/submit assignments in the meantime.

 

Workaround: Because macros cannot interact with the ribbon, they will need to be run manually. This can be done by following these steps:

 

  • Open the file and select "Enable Macros" like you normally would.

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  • Next, you will click on the ‘Tools’ menu, and navigate to ‘Macro’, then ‘Macros’

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  • After you click on ‘Macros’ it will open a new window with a list of pre-recorded macros.

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  • The listed Macros beginning with ‘app_’ correspond with the names and intended functionality of the nonfunctional items under the ‘Assignment’ tab of the ribbon.

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  • ***WARNING: ALWAYS SAVE YOUR PROGRESS BEFORE ATTEMPTING TO MANUALLY RUN A MACRO***

  • The first time you choose to run one of the macros from the ‘Macros’ window, it will not run. After this initial attempt, following the steps to reach the ‘Macros’ window again, and selecting the desired macro, should result in successful execution.

 

Workaround Problems: During our testing we have encountered odd behaviors such as the executed macros freezing the PowerPoint application.

 

If you encounter this, you will need to force quit the application manually by using the ‘Force Quit Applications’ tool provided in MacOS, selecting ‘Microsoft PowerPoint’ from the list of open applications, and clicking ‘Force Quit’.


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Force quitting the application will prompt a ‘Microsoft Error Reporting’ window to open. It’s important to uncheck the ‘Recover work and restart Microsoft PowerPoint’ option.

 

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Once you have quit out of the application, you will need to re-open the application, force quit again, and re-open the application a second time. Doing this should restore PowerPoint to a proper working state for you to use the initial workaround again.


If this does not work for you please reach out to support@myeducator.com directly.