The problem: Everything works fine up to the point when you press play in PowerPoint, then the projector screen goes dark, although you can see the slides on the iPad.
Immediate solution: Reboot the iPad by holding the sleep button for a few seconds until you get the shutdown prompt. After it shuts down, press the sleep button again to turn on. PowerPoint works fine after a reboot.
The cause: If you quit PowerPoint (by pressing the home button) in the middle of a presentation in play mode, without first ending the show, then the next time someone tries to play a slideshow they will encounter the problem.
**Prevention**: Always end your slideshow before leaving the classroom. Do this by either touching the top of the screen and then touching “X”, or if you finished the slides you can keep swiping until you exit the show.
Make sure you are back to the standard powerpoint edit screen before walking away or pressing the home button:
Long term solution #1: We have been talking to support staff at both Apple and Microsoft about the bug, and hope to see bug fix update soon.
Long term solution #2: Using Keynote. Keynote works beautifully and does not seem to be affected by this bug. If you are a Mac user I heartily recommend using Keynote to create your presentations, rather than Powerpoint. If you would like some assistance using Keynote on the Mac, let us know and we’ll help you get started (media@law…).
The Keynote iPad app will also convert and play PowerPoint presentations, but you may see minor formatting differences, and animations/transitions may not port over. To try your PPT in Keynote on the iPad, in the mail app simply choose ‘Copy to Keynote’ rather than ‘Copy to PowerPoint’.