Powerpoint: Every image in my presentation shows "This picture can't be displayed" and a red X

Hi Rick,

Thanks for posting in the community. We are happy to help you.

Per your description, I suggest you upload the file to OneDrive and open it in the PowerPoint web app (in the browser). Check if you can see these pictures. You can go to www.office.com, sign into your account, and click the OneDrive icon in the left sidebar. In OneDrive for Web, click "Add new"> Files upload to upload the file.

If you can see these pictures, please post back and let us know.

If you still cannot see these pictures, I am afraid you need to rebuild the presentation.

Also, we welcome community members to share ideas about the situation if one has related experiences.

Sincerely,

George | Microsoft Community Moderator

OUCH! What a kick in the teeth!

What you're seeing is typical of linked images when the source image isn't available for some reason (deleted, internet connection down, etc) but from your description of how the presentation was created, it seems VERY unlikely that these images (ALL of them) are linked. If you'd like to make an abbreviated version of the presentation, say two or three slides that exhibit this problem, available, I'd be happy to have a look. Upload to OneDrive or the like, post the link back here.

It'd be worth doing just to be sure, but again, it doesn't really seem that links are the problem.

Other thoughts:

Completely shut down the computer, let it sit for a few minutes (glaring at it is optional). Restart, and see if the problem persists.

If so, restart the computer (no need for the time-out) then start PowerPoint in Safe Mode: hold down the CTRL key while you start PPT (ideally by doubleclicking the PowerPoint icon rather than the icon for any particular PPTX file). When asked if you want to start in Safe Mode, say yes. See if the problem recurs.

Make a copy of your presentation file, then add a .ZIP extension to the end of the file name. You must have Windows set to show file extensions for this to work; this feature is, idiotically, off by default, so in Windows File Explorer, go to the View tab and check this section:

Make sure "File name extensions" has a checkmark. You probably don't want "Hidden items" checkmarked; total Geek Move. I'm a total Geek. ;-)

Having renamed the file with a .ZIP extension, you can doubleclick it to open it and see something like this:

Doubleclick the "ppt" folder, then the "media" folder within it to see a list of the images in your PPTX file.

They won't have the same names as your original image files but drag a few to the desktop to see if they'll open in Windows Paint or whatever other image editing/viewing program you use.

If they've all gone corrupt, I'm not sure if there's anything you can do but start over. But if the images are still viewable and look correct, you've got a starting point to work with in recreating your presentation. You might even try right-clicking some of the Red-X images in your original file, choosing Change Picture, then picking one of the images you've rescued from the media folder.

Here's hoping that SOMETHING will help.

Thanks for your response.

I'm checking again today because... surprise, it's happened again, with a completely different presentation saved locally on my hard drive.

In answer to your question, I was already aware of the .ZIP trick, and I tried it to see which images might be left in the file. All the images missing from the PPT were also missing from the .ZIP file structure (unsurprisingly, I guess).

Here's a particularly bizarre example:

Those images were inserted with Insert -> Icons in the Powerpoint toolbar. They're not external files, they weren't pasted in. They were just inserted using the native "icon" library in PowerPoint.

Unfortunately, I don't really have any hope of resolving this, as it appears to be pretty unique to me, and when a bad version of the file is saved, the original and its images are gone. It's a corporate laptop and I can't even connect an external hard drive, so running File History to capture versions isn't even an option. When it happens once a month and I lose my stuff, I just have to rebuild :-/