Are there any utilities or methods to link AVIs to Powerpoint so that the AVIs will not be skipped w

[Daniel Raposo]

Is there a way to intelligently link AVIs to a Powerpoint presentation so
that they do not necessarily have to be contained within the same directory,
but will still play and more importantly be linked to when copying the
Presentations?

For example lets say I have a 500 Meg AVI as part of 4 presentations
customized for target audiences.

/home/Goverment/companyA/PresGA.ppt
/home/Goverment/companyB/PresGB.ppt
/home/Goverment/companyC/PresGC.ppt
/home/Commercial/companyA/PresCA.ppt

To play the AVI in the slide show I would need to keep a copy of it in a
directory that is accessible by all four presentations. Therefore I would
have two choices:

1) keep 4 copies of the same file ... one in each of the directories above
2) link all 4 presentations to a folder such as

/home/avi/cool.avi

Now let's say I want to copy that presentation to put on a CD ... is there a
way to link this so that it's impossible to not forget the AVI? So that
someone only needs to copy PresGA.ppt and the AVI will be copied as well?

 

[Austin Myers]

You might want to give PFCExpress (a free add-in) a try and use it's "zip"
feature. This creates a pathless link to the media files and places
everything in a common zip file. Once you have created the zip file simply
copy the contents (NOT THE ZIP FILE) of the file to CD with your favorite
burning software. The presentation and the video files should be burned to
the root of the CD. (Do NOT try to create sub folders for them on the CD.)


http://www.pfcmedia.com


Austin Myers
MS PowerPoint MVP Team

Provider of PFCMedia, PFCPro, PFCExpress
http://www.pfcmedia.com

 

[Steve Rindsberg]

Is there a way to intelligently link AVIs to a Powerpoint presentation so
that they do not necessarily have to be contained within the same directory,
but will still play and more importantly be linked to when copying the
Presentations?

For example lets say I have a 500 Meg AVI as part of 4 presentations
customized for target audiences.

/home/Goverment/companyA/PresGA.ppt
/home/Goverment/companyB/PresGB.ppt
/home/Goverment/companyC/PresGC.ppt
/home/Commercial/companyA/PresCA.ppt

To play the AVI in the slide show I would need to keep a copy of it in a
directory that is accessible by all four presentations. Therefore I would
have two choices:

1) keep 4 copies of the same file ... one in each of the directories above
2) link all 4 presentations to a folder such as

/home/avi/cool.avi

PowerPoint won't let you create anything but fully pathed links or links with
no path at all (and then only if you put the avi in the same file as the ppt
and then link, and it'll work only if you keep the avi and PPT together).

You can force the issue with VBA however; you could have all your
presentations in the root directory of a cd and set your links to movies\*.avi

Austin says no. I won't disagree. It may be version/situation dependant, but
I've been able to make it work this way.

Have a look at these and play with editing the links yourself:

Search and Replace for Hyperlinks
http://www.pptfaq.com/FAQ00773.htm

Show me the link and let me edit it
http://www.pptfaq.com/FAQ00433.htm

Powerpoint will not let you re-point the link to a file that doesn't exist;
copy your AVIs to the target folder before trying to relink them.

If you have lots of these, have a look at our FixLinks add-in, which'll do this
for you automatically.

 

[Austin Myers]

PowerPoint won't let you create anything but fully pathed links or links
with
no path at all (and then only if you put the avi in the same file as the
ppt
and then link, and it'll work only if you keep the avi and PPT together).

You can force the issue with VBA however; you could have all your
presentations in the root directory of a cd and set your links to
movies\*.avi

Austin says no. I won't disagree. It may be version/situation dependant,
but
I've been able to make it work this way.

No, I agree, it can be made to work, if your very careful. <g>