Graphics displayed as red X in presentation

If you open a Microsoft PowerPoint presentation, one or more of the graphics may appear as a red "X." This problem may also occur if you try to paste a graphic into the presentation.

Microsoft PowerPoint, Microsoft Word, and Microsoft Excel all use a drawing and graphics engine called OfficeArt. When a program that uses OfficeArt cannot display a graphic for any reason, it replaces that picture with a red X.

Note You may not be able to recover a picture after it becomes a red X. If the techniques in this article do not recover the picture, you may have to reimport the picture from its original source.

If you open a presentation that contains a red X instead of the original graphic, follow these steps:

1. Close the file without saving it.
   
   If you save the file, the red X will be permanently stored in the file.
2. Restart your computer.
3. Close all other programs to free up as much memory as possible.
4. Open the file again.

If this does not correct the problem, or if you encounter this problem frequently, you may have a problem with your video driver or your Windows display settings. You might want to try the following techniques to reduce the frequency of this problem:

1. Use your current display driver, but lower the resolution and/or color depth. If your driver is set for High Color or True Color, try changing it to 256-color. Additionally, you may want to modify the hardware acceleration setting:
   1. Click Start, point to Settings, and then click Control Panel.
   2. Double-click the Display icon.
   3. Click the Settings tab, and then click Advanced.
   4. Click the Troubleshoot tab.
   5. Move the slider to the left to reduce the hardware acceleration, and then click OK.
   6. When you are prompted to restart your computer, click Yes.
      
      The hardware acceleration changes take effect when you restart your computer.
2. If your video driver was not included with Microsoft Windows 98, Microsoft Windows Millennium Edition (Me), Microsoft Windows NT 4.0, or Microsoft Windows 2000, you might want to check to see if your video adapter emulates one of the drivers that is included with Windows 98/Me, Windows NT 4.0, or Windows 2000. Try to run your computer with the emulated video driver. If nothing else, most video drivers can use the Windows 98/Me or Windows NT/2000 VGA display driver.
3. If you cannot use one of the video drivers that is included with Windows 98/Me or Windows NT/2000, contact the manufacturer of your computer or video adapter to see if there is an updated video driver available.

If you try to paste a picture into PowerPoint, and it appears as a red X, follow these steps:

1. Delete the red X.
2. On the Edit menu, click Paste Special.
3. Click the second choice in the As list. Click OK.
   
   If a red X appears, repeat steps 1 through 3, but instead of selecting the second choice in the As list, select the third choice, and then click OK.

If neither of the previous options resolves the problem, try the following:

1. Double-click the X. The toolbars and menus may change to those of another program, and the X may be replaced with the actual picture. Click outside the picture to restore the PowerPoint toolbars and menus.
2. If step 1 fails, select the X and then click Ungroup on the Draw menu. Click Yes when you receive the following message:
   This is an imported object, not a group. If you convert it to a Microsoft Office drawing, embedded data or linking information will be lost. Do you want to convert the object?

This problem has occurred in the following scenarios. Note that other reasons may exist for why OfficeArt cannot display the picture.

• To display any type of graphic element, Windows uses a memory pool called Graphics Device Interface (GDI) resources or GDI memory. This is a fixed amount of memory; it is the same regardless of how much physical (RAM) memory your computer has. If you have many open windows, many programs running in the background, or many open files, you may be running out of GDI resources. If there is not enough GDI memory available to display all the pictures in your file, one or more of them may not be displayed properly.
• The Office 97 programs can save files by using one of two methods: full saves and fast saves. To choose which type of save you want to use, click Options on the Tools menu, click the Save tab, and then click to select the appropriate option. If a full save fails because you do not have enough disk space, and PowerPoint then attempts a fast save, OfficeArt may lose track of where the picture data is stored in the document.

Note Many of the potential causes of this symptom are corrected in Microsoft PowerPoint 97, Service Release 1 (SR-1). For additional information, click the following article numbers to view the articles in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: