How do I force hyperlinked documents to show in the browser window

[Guest]

I have powerpoint slides on my website - the slides have hyperlinks to other
documents on that website. I'm doping this to share information with
colleagues. Sometimes when I click the hyperlink the linked document appears
in the browser window and sometimes the native application launches (ppt,
word, excel...). How do I force the linked document to always appear in the
same browser window as the original presentation? I often find that if I
close the powerpoint window and click the link again, then I get the document
in the browser window. I find that when linking to word documents they
almost invariably open Word.

Any suggestions please?

 

[Steve Rindsberg]

I have powerpoint slides on my website - the slides have hyperlinks to other
documents on that website. I'm doping this to share information with
colleagues. Sometimes when I click the hyperlink the linked document appears
in the browser window and sometimes the native application launches (ppt,
word, excel...). How do I force the linked document to always appear in the
same browser window as the original presentation? I often find that if I
close the powerpoint window and click the link again, then I get the document
in the browser window. I find that when linking to word documents they
almost invariably open Word.

This will give you some insight into how the browser is likely to open linked
files and what can be done about it:

Control how the browser opens PowerPoint files
http://www.rdpslides.com/pptfaq/FAQ00189.htm

Note that the control is all at the user end, rather than something that you can
do in creating the links and web site to force the issue.

That said, you may want to experiment with different ways of presenting the
information.

For example, if you have an HTML (ie, normal web) page with a link to a PPT or
PPS file, the file will open in PowerPoint or the viewer. The instance of the
viewer may be standalone (ie, looks just like PPT is opening the file normally)
or it may be "hosted" within the browser (looks like the file's opening within
the browser).

Links from the PPT to other documents may behave differently, depending on which
way the PPT opens, and differently again from links to the same documents
directly from an HTML page.

Sometimes the best bet is to supply the link to the documents in an HTML page
and advise the users that they can click to start the file in the usual program
or rightclick to download the file to their own PC and load it from there.

At least that way the behaviour of the links is more consistent across a variety
of other PCs

 

[Guest]

Steve,

Many thanks indeed - lots of options to consider. But I think that I have
found a way to make it work the way I want - but testing is needed (as
always). I'll work on it some more and let you know how I get on. Very
helpful

 

[Steve Rindsberg]

Steve,

Many thanks indeed - lots of options to consider. But I think that I have
found a way to make it work the way I want - but testing is needed (as
always). I'll work on it some more and let you know how I get on. Very
helpful

Yes, please! This and variants of it is a perennial problem. The more
solutions we have, the better.

 

[Guest]

Steve,

I'm struggling a bit here. Having thought I had solved the problem I now
have others. Let me explain - this is all connected with my post last week
about hyperlink base.

I am trying to provide colleaues all over the world with a mechanism to
access and contribute intellectual capital (in the form of word documents,
PPTs, etc). We''l not touch the contribute part but just access for the
moment. I have built a master slide with a standard taxonomy of the
important categories of information. It's an appealing picture (icon if you
will). Lots of coloured text boxes with hyperlinked text. I want to give
the user the opportunity to left click (open/show) or right click (download).
I want make it easy by having everything in one browser window. So
following your advice I built an html page (save ppt as html) with all the
top level links which go straight to the 'iconic' view - behind that are
other hyperlinks to the detailed documents themselves. Basically it works
fine on my main PC - but when I try it on another one the behaviour is
inconsistent - sometimes the file download occurs and the doc opens in the
native application - sometimes the resulting doc appears in the bowser. And
now I've found that the jump slide hyperlinks that I thought I had fixed last
week doesn't work either - it does on my main PC but not on the machine I am
using for usability test. For example: A hyperlink of the form
(http//:myserver/myfilesystem/mydirectory/this_document.ppt#7. slide title)
to go to another page - as I think you suggested.
I've looked at the suggestion about editing the registry settings - but that
might fix it for me - but I couldn't expect other users (potentially many
thousands) to do that.

Any ideas?

 

[Steve Rindsberg]

Hi Graham

I am trying to provide colleaues all over the world with a mechanism to
access and contribute intellectual capital (in the form of word documents,
PPTs, etc). We''l not touch the contribute part but just access for the
moment. I have built a master slide with a standard taxonomy of the
important categories of information. It's an appealing picture (icon if you
will). Lots of coloured text boxes with hyperlinked text. I want to give
the user the opportunity to left click (open/show) or right click (download).
I want make it easy by having everything in one browser window. So
following your advice I built an html page (save ppt as html) with all the
top level links which go straight to the 'iconic' view - behind that are
other hyperlinks to the detailed documents themselves. Basically it works
fine on my main PC - but when I try it on another one the behaviour is
inconsistent - sometimes the file download occurs and the doc opens in the
native application - sometimes the resulting doc appears in the bowser.

Such dogs, these things. (sorry, couldn't resist.)

now I've found that the jump slide hyperlinks that I thought I had fixed last
week doesn't work either - it does on my main PC but not on the machine I am
using for usability test. For example: A hyperlink of the form
(http//:myserver/myfilesystem/mydirectory/this_document.ppt#7. slide title)
to go to another page - as I think you suggested.
I've looked at the suggestion about editing the registry settings - but that
might fix it for me - but I couldn't expect other users (potentially many
thousands) to do that.

The first thing I'd try is to get PowerPoint and its HTML totally out of the
mix as regards the "home" or index page you described above.

Try handcoding one with simple

a href="http://relativepath/this_document.ppt"

links.

See if the behaviour changes if you then add the named reference ( #7. slide
title) to it (or simpler, create two links, one each way, in the same page)

That will at least give you some sort of standard behaviour to begin with.