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Text in some labels is rotated by 180 degrees

Problem

The problem can occur if .ppt files converted from old Microsoft Office versions (Office 2003 and earlier) contain erroneous XML attributes. This bug is not restricted to think-cell charts. It may occur in any PowerPoint shape except PowerPoint text boxes:

To find out if your file is affected by this problem, insert an oval into the corrupt presentation:
Home > Drawing > Oval > and type some text into it.

The problem can occur if a .ppt file is opened with PowerPoint 2007 or later. Once an affected .ppt file was opened and saved with PowerPoint 2007 or later, the problem will also be visible when the file is opened with PowerPoint versions earlier than 2007.

Affected files contain the erroneous XML attributes rot="10800000" or vert="eaVert", which are misinterpreted by PowerPoint 2007 and later.

Microsoft acknowledged this to be a product flaw in Microsoft PowerPoint 2007 and later. If your company has a Microsoft Office Support contract and you want to contact Microsoft to ask for a fix, you may refer to Microsoft case number SRQ100209600604.

Solution

To repair affected files, the rot="10800000" and vert="eaVert" attributes must be removed.

Removing erroneous XML tags manually

Make a backup copy before editing the file.

  1. Rename the .pptx or .potx file to .zip and double-click it. This will open the zip file as a folder in a Windows Explorer window. (Alternatively, open the .pptx or .potx file with your favorite zip tool).
  2. Navigate to the subfolders "ppt\slides" and "ppt\themes", and copy all contained .xml files out of the zip folder, e.g., to your Windows desktop.
  3. Open each copied .xml file and remove the incorrect tags, using the replace function of a text editor.
  4. Copy the edited .xml files back into "ppt\slides" and "ppt\themes", respectively, within the zip folder.
  5. Close the zip folder and rename it back to .pptx or .potx.
  6. Open the fixed .pptx or .potx file in PowerPoint to verify.

Removing erroneous XML tags with OpenDoc tool

In his blog, Costin Boldisor, a support escalation engineer at Microsoft, offers a repair tool called OpenDoc. It is not officially supported by Microsoft. After performing the following steps, any newly inserted charts will have correct labels:

Make a backup copy before editing the file.

  1. Open the .pptx or .potx file with your favorite zip tool and navigate to the subfolder "ppt\themes". You will find one or more files "theme1.xml", "theme2.xml", etc. Note their names.
  2. Download the OpenDoc. tool and extract OpenDoc.exe to drive C:\.
  3. Create a file "batch.b" containing the necessary commands for the OpenDox tool:
    1. Create a new text-file in drive C:\ and rename it to "batch.b".
    2. Insert the following lines into the file:
      -r "Slide.pptx" /ppt/theme/theme1.xml //n:objectDefaults/n:spDef/n:bodyPr[@rot='10800000'] rot
      -r "Slide.pptx" /ppt/theme/theme1.xml //n:objectDefaults/n:spDef/n:bodyPr[@vert='eaVert'] vert
    3. Replace "Slide.pptx" with the name of your presentation or template file.
    4. If you found files other than "theme1.xml" in step 1, repeat steps b) - c) and replace "theme1.xml" by the respective filename.
    5. Save the file.
  4. Open a command prompt: Press Start or the Windows key → type cmd → Enter
  5. type C:\OpenDoc -b batch.b > Enter

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