PowerPoint 2010 and 2016 Startup Templates

With PowerPoint 2010, there was the ability to autoload templates with the .PPAM extension, by deploying the template to %ProgramFiles%\Office14\ADDINS\ and it would load with the launch of PowerPoint.

When migrating to PowerPoint 2016 however, this doesn’t work. Of course you’ll need to change the folder from Office14 to Office16, but it will still ignore the .PPAM template file.

The fix, I eventually found after trying several things, was to just rename the file from .PPAM to .POTM – no need to open and resave the file, just rename the file itself.

I can’t find anything specific about this online, but it works.

Side note – Excel and Word 2016 templates works the same way as 2010, with the XLSTART and STARTUP folders respecively for XLAM and DOTM templates.

(Updated to .POTM rather than .POTX for the file extension, as .POTM is macro enabled while .POTX is a template without macros – thanks Rhys!)

4 thoughts on “PowerPoint 2010 and 2016 Startup Templates

  1. Two comments:
    1 – you have moved from pushing a macro enabled format for PowerPoint add-ins (.PPAM) to a plain XML format that does not support macros (.POTX) have you checked your trust center settings?
    2 – if you still need VBA and the addin format doesn’t work, then you can still include macros in a .POTM file (CF .POTX).

    1. Hi Rhys,
      1. Changing to ‘Allow all macros’ in the trust center didn’t help with loading the .PPAM, and having macros disabled still lets the .POTX load – which may be because it’s in a trusted location?
      2. I’ve now tested .POTM instead of .POTX and that also works, so that may be better to allow macros to run?

      1. 1. I’m a bit ignorant as I have never used PPAM files, always POT/POTX/POTM.
        But MS acknowledge that you may not be able to load a PPAM after lowering the security if the file in question has already been blocked:
        https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/285470/powerpoint-cannot-load-an-add-in-when-you-lower-the-macro-security-level

        The POTX format does not support macros, so your macro security setting is irrelevant to whether this will load.

        2. The POTM format will allow macros, a benefit and a possible security risk – your call as to how you want to manage that one!

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