Hyperlinks from PowerPoint Viewer 2003

[Lon]

I've created a presentation that hyperlinks to bookmarked pages within a
U.S. Government website (namely, the Copyright Office site). The hyperlinks
work perfectly, from the Slide Show mode of my full version of Power Point
2003. However, when I click on the hyperlinks from within Viewer 2003, they
do not work properly, in two respects:

1. I get a "hyperlinks may be viruses. . ." warning -- a warning I do not
get with my full version of Power Point 2003, even though my Security Level
is set on High.

2. The hyperlinks do not take me to the bookmarked portion of the
website -- even though they do take me to the bookmarked portion of the
site, when I use the full version of Power Point 2003.

These two problems are serious for me, because I hope to distribute my
presentation on CD-ROM, using Power Point 2003's "Package for CD" feature
that puts Viewer 2003 on the CD. If, however, I can't work around these
problems, the "Package for CD" feature is virtually useless to me.

Is there any way to work around either (or better yet, both) of these
problems?

Thanks,

-Lon Sobel

Lionel S. Sobel
Professor & Director of UK Summer Abroad Program
Southwestern University School of Law

 

[Echo S]

I've created a presentation that hyperlinks to bookmarked pages within a
U.S. Government website (namely, the Copyright Office site). The hyperlinks
work perfectly, from the Slide Show mode of my full version of Power Point
2003. However, when I click on the hyperlinks from within Viewer 2003, they
do not work properly, in two respects:

1. I get a "hyperlinks may be viruses. . ." warning -- a warning I do not
get with my full version of Power Point 2003, even though my Security Level
is set on High.

Nothing you can do about this one in a distributed presentation. On your
computer, you can run Chirag's utility to turn this off, but -- unless you
want your users to run this utility -- there's nothing you can do on other
systems. It's an MS security mandate thing. (And no, I don't like it,
either.) http://officeone.mvps.org/download/hyperlink_warning.html for
Chirag's utility.

Actually, on second thought, it's odd that you're not seeing this on PPT
itself, but you are on the Viewer. How did you set up your links?

2. The hyperlinks do not take me to the bookmarked portion of the
website -- even though they do take me to the bookmarked portion of the
site, when I use the full version of Power Point 2003.

Sorry, I don't know about this one. Hopefully someone else will. They'll
want to know how you set up your links here, too, though.

 

[Sonia]

For item #2, what happens? Do you see the hand icon when you hover over the
links? Are you linking text or are you creating an object like a button, etc.
and linking to it? Does the object have a fill applied?

 

[Lon]

Item #2 is a text link. In the full version of PPt 2003, the link takes me
directly to the bookmarked part of the linked-to page. However, in the
Viewer 2003, that same link takes me to the top of the web page, rather than
to the bookmarked paragraph.

The reason this matters is that I'm linking to specific sections of the
Copyright Act. At the Copyright Office website, each "Chapter" of the
Copyright Act is a long, single web page, which has a bookmark for each
individual section within the Chapter.

For example, Chapter 2 of the Copyright Act consists of sections 201 through
205. In the full version of PPt, my link to section 204 takes me directly to
that section (which is almost at the bottom of the web page), while in
Viewer, my link takes me to the top of the webpage.

Thanks for your help.

 

[Lon]

My links are text links. They're not linking to executables. They're linking
to pages of a U.S. Government-run website (the Copyright Office) which are
ordinary html pages.

 

[Sonia]

Okay. The issue is the PowerPoint 2003 Viewer. If you use the PowerPoint 97
Viewer your links will work. You can find a product that will do what Package
for CD does at http://www.soniacoleman.com/Tutorials/PowerPoint/acdpc.htm and we
have a Viewer Converter for those who need to use the PowerPoint 97 Viewer. Or,
if you want to do it yourself manually, see
http://www.echosvoice.com/autoruncd.htm.

Either way, one thing I notice is that if the user has a browser window open
when the link is clicked, the browser window will be behind the presentation and
not visible. You'll need to tell users to close each browser window after they
finish reading the info on the web page (click on the "X" in the upper right
corner.)

 

[Lon]

Thanks, Sonia!

Apparently, newer versions aren't always better than older versions. They're
just different.

-Lon

 

[Sonia]

Or better in some ways, but worse in others. I didn't know of this problem
until you brought it to our attention. I'll add it to my website in the list of
things the Viewer doesn't do. Thanks.

 

[Steve Rindsberg]

Apparently, newer versions aren't always better than older versions. They're

just different.

Hey, at least the bugs are New! and Improved!

 

[Lon]

Steve,

Yes, you're right. And when I posted my comment that "newer versions aren't
always better," I had the same good-natured attitude that I read into your
post.

Now, though, I'm feeling real frustration with Viewers. The 2003 version can
do some things the 97 version can't, and the 97 version can do some things
the 2003 version can't. Why were some Viewer 97 functions taken out of
Viewer 2003?

Here's my current dilemma:

I have a 200-slide "presentation." I put quotes around "presentation"
because it's really a legal analysis tool for users to run from their own
individual computers, not a presentation that I would make in front of a
group. Each slide is linked to others and many slides are linked to
websites. There are literally hundreds and hundreds of links in the
"presentation," all of which work exactly as intended in my full version of
PPt 2003.

Viewer 2003 is unsatisfactory for two reasons:
1. It produces a virus warning each and every time a website link is
clicked, even though the website is a U.S. government, standard issue html
site.
2. It does not recognize bookmarks in the linked to web pages.
On the other hand, Viewer 2003 does recognize and respond to all types of
hyperlinks, including hyperlinked arrows that I use (quite a bit) for
navigation purposes.

Viewer 97 is better than Viewer 2003 in two respects:
1. It does not produce virus warnings when website links are clicked.
2. It does recognize bookmarks in the linked to web pages.
But . . . Viewer 97 does not recognize or respond to the hyperlinks I
attached to arrows. The arrows are just dead, as though no hyperlinks had
been attached to them at all.

So, I'm wondering whether you or anyone in this newsgroup has:
1. a solution to my problem, or
2. knowledge of a superior PowerPoint viewer created by someone other
than Microsoft that deals with these problems.

I love Power Point, but Microsoft's failure to provide a Viewer that has all
the viewing functionality of the full program means that Power Point is
simply a presentation program -- not an authoring or publishing program.
(I'm not asking for the ability to create presentations for free, just to
view them the same way they appear in the full program.)

-Lon

 

[Steve Rindsberg]

Lon,

Yes, you're right. And when I posted my comment that "newer versions aren't
always better," I had the same good-natured attitude that I read into your
post.

We read each other right. ;-)

Now, though, I'm feeling real frustration with Viewers.

You're not alone.

Viewer 97 is better than Viewer 2003 in two respects:
1. It does not produce virus warnings when website links are clicked.
2. It does recognize bookmarks in the linked to web pages.
But . . . Viewer 97 does not recognize or respond to the hyperlinks I
attached to arrows. The arrows are just dead, as though no hyperlinks had
been attached to them at all.

This set off an interesting burst of quality playtime here. It seems that
Viewer97 does recognize hyperlinks attached to arrows, but only if the arrows
are at least the tiniest bit off horizontal or vertical.

Another trick is to draw another shape atop the arrow, assign it the hyperlink,
then give it no fill, no outline so it's invisible. It still works as a link,
at least in the 97 Viewer. Only the outline will behave as a link in the 2003
viewer (but of course there it warns you of the evil things that will befall
you if you click on it. And casts out the named destination.)

So, I'm wondering whether you or anyone in this newsgroup has:
1. a solution to my problem, or
2. knowledge of a superior PowerPoint viewer created by someone other
than Microsoft that deals with these problems.

Saving as MHT (Single-file HTML) preserves the named destinations and works
even with horizontal/vertical arrows. But only the outlines of
unfilled/unoutlined shapes are live as links.

If you don't need animation and want to consider using HTML and a browser
instead of PPT files, have a look at our PPT2HTML add-in
(http://html.pptools.com). It handles everything we've discussed so far well
except for perfectly vertical/horizontal arrows and lines. How do you like
that, you've discovered a bug in software you've never even heard of. ;-)

I think I can fix that one fairly simply.

 

[Sonia]

Re: PowerPoint 97 Viewer and the links on arrows - - if you want a work around,
create an arrow, create a narrow rectangle about the same dimensions of the
arrow. Align them by center and middle. Give the box no line and no fill and
group the two objects to keep them together. Now, you can copy and paste the
arrow whenever you need it. BUT... because of a stupidity in the PowerPoint 97
Viewer which doesn't recognize hyperlinks on grouped objects, once you've done
the paste and have the arrow where you need it, ungroup the arrow/box and then
apply the hyperlink to the invisible box. To select the box place your cursor
close to, but not on the arrow and click to select.

 

[Lon]

Steve,

Wow! PPT2HTML is exactly the tool I have been looking for. It makes
PowerPoint more than a presentation program. It makes it an authoring and
publishing program too! It solved all the problems I complained of in my
last post, and then some.

Here's what I like about PPT2HTML so far. (I say "so far," because I haven't
yet read the instructions on how to use it, or the description of all of its
features. I'm one of those "If all else fails, read the instructions" types.
The reason I haven't read the instructions is that PPT2HTML is so intuitive,
it worked for me the first time I tried it, without my having to read
anything.)

I like that:
- It picked up all of my presentation's hyperlinks (there are hundreds of
them), and all of them work perfectly from the html pages it created. In
fact, PPT2HTML even picked up and properly converted hyperlinks I had
attached to small and perfectly horizontal arrows.
- The links it created from html page to html page execute faster than
the links from slide to slide in PowerPoint itself.
- When the html version of my presentation (created by PPT2HTML) links to
an external website, I can return to the same slide of the presentation
(i.e., the slide from which I linked out) simply by clicking my browser's
"back" button. When I used PowerPoint's own "Save as Web Page" feature, I
couldn't return to the same slide (from which I linked out). Instead,
clicking my browser's "back" button took me back to the first slide of my
presentation. That's (just) one of the reasons PowerPoint's "Save as Web
Page" feature was useless to me.
- The html code created by PPT2HTML is clean and neat, and I can easily
find which html page corresponds to which PowerPoint slide. This is
important to me, because eventually I'm going to insert some additional code
into the html pages (code for Microsoft Agent character animations). This
additional code will be different for each html page, and the code has to
correspond to what's on the page (because the character animation will
discuss what's on the page). I couldn't do that with the html pages created
by PowerPoint's "Save as Web Page" feature, because PowerPoint's html pages
are incredibly complicated, and are numbered differently from the slides to
which they correspond. As a result, I couldn't even find the html page that
corresponds to each PowerPoint slide. Also, I can open PPT2HTML's pages in
Microsoft FrontPage, but FrontPage choked and froze on the html pages
created by PowerPoint!
- The images PPT2HTML creates are sharp and clear, even though my slides
contain lots of small (10 pt) type, small rectangles and thin lines.
- PPT2HTML's html pages don't produce annoying virus warnings.
- It's fast. It took just 3 minutes to convert a 207 slide presentation.

One of PowerPoint's unique features is that automatically scales slides up
or down, so they perfectly fit the user's monitor. Html pages can't do that
(not even those produced by PPT2HTML). On the other hand, PPT2HTML does
create html pages for any desired monitor resolution. Since I'll be using it
as a publish-to-the-world tool, I'll simply use PPT2HTML to create several
sets of pages, each for a different monitor resolution; and I'll let my my
users select the set of pages that matches the resolution of each of their
monitors.

The only thing PPT2HTML doesn't do (I gather) is pick up PowerPoint slide
transitions and object animations. I don't use those Power Point features,
so it's no loss to me. In any event, since I'll be using my presentation in
a university setting -- where many students use Macs and even Linux
computers -- the ability to create html pages that can be viewed on all
operating systems -- even Linux -- more than offsets the lack of slide
transitions and object animations.

Congratulations, Steve, on a terrific piece of software. You're familiar,
I'm sure, with the line of computer books called "The Missing Manual." Well
PPT2HTML is the "Missing Module" that everyone who wants to "publish"
PowerPoint presentations should have.

-Lon

Lionel S. Sobel
Editor and Publisher
Entertainment Law Reporter
www.EntertainmentLawReporter.com
Professor & Director of UK Summer Abroad Program
Southwestern University School of Law (Los Angeles)

 

[Lon]

Sonia,

Thanks for this insight. I realize, now, I should have tested my
presentation in Viewer 2003, and then in Viewer 97, after finishing just a
few slides, rather than wait until I finished the entire thing. My
presentation is 207 slides, and there are literally hundreds of hyperlinked
arrows in it. I could still do what you suggested (using an invisible linked
box), but it would take me forever to do, and it would be too tedious a job
to contemplate let alone finish.

Fortunately for me, Steve Rindsberg's PPT2HTML does exactly what I need
done. So for this project, at least, my problem has been solved.

Thanks again for your response.

-Lon

 

[Steve Rindsberg]

Lon,

<blush> Thanks for the kind words.

As I mentioned in my email earlier, it can also map PowerPoint's slide
transitions to MSIE's as well as pick up the slide transition times and apply
them in HTML. But as you mention, object animations aren't supported.

 

[Mike M.]

Steve, get him on the payroll! ;-)

 

[Steve Rindsberg]

Steve, get him on the payroll! ;-)

I figured everbody'd assume he was already. ;-)

Tell 'em it ain't so, Lon.

 

[Lon]

It ain't so. That is, I'm not on Steve's payroll. In fact, I never
corresponded with him -- directly or through this newsgroup -- until he
answered my post here a couple of days ago.

Lest anyone think that I hand out compliments willy-nilly . . . that ain't
so, either. In fact, I've been quite critical of some things right here in
this newsgroup, even though I'm a Microsoft shareholder! (A while back, I
got so heated in this newsgroup about my frustrations with the virus
warnings produced by PPt Viewer that another member of group had to calm me
down with a post of her own.)

I said the things I said (here in this newsgroup) about Steve's PPT2HTML for
one reason, and one reason only: It does exactly what I need done; and I've
searched a long time for something that would do those things.

-Lon