hyperlinks breaking a lot

[Guest]

I've got a large presentation and have inserted about 20 hyperlinks that lead a user from a button on a slide to another slide in the same presentation. The links that specify an action (end show) or a relative navigation (next slide, previous slide) work great. However, the links that specify a specific slide (e.g., go to slide 4) constantly break. They'll work fine for a while, but then when I come back the next day and open the ppt 2003 file (windows), these specific slide links have all turned into a link to a URL (which is unspecified). The result is that these links don't work. I've had to relink them several times and it's annoying. Any ideas? FYI, I have added slides after creating the links, but always the slides I've added have been AFTER the slide with the button and AFTER the slide it's linked to, so it's not like the slide numbers involved are changing. I'm puzzled. And tired of relinking. I'd appreciate any ideas.

 

[Guest]

I can't quite figure out why your links would be changing to URLs. You didn't "round trip" your presentation through HTML (File/Save as Webpage) or anything, did you?

How are you adding the links in the first place? What version of PPT?

 

[Guest]

Thank you for your reply. I'm pretty desperate to find an answer. Here's some more info that might provide a clue:

I'm using PPT 2003 Windows. I just saved the presentation normally (file>save or file>save as). It is unusually large (2000 slides!) because I started with one main presentation that linked to 25 other presentations. Those links all worked fine, but I had a problem using the Viewer (I need to distribute this on CD) -- if a user clicked more than once on a link it would open multiple copies of the linked presentation. Because I'm distributing this to 80 11-year-olds (it's a yearbook -- a present for their graduation), I expect this is a crowd that will multiple click a lot.

The only workaround I could figure was to create one mammoth presentation, and have the user jump between slides in the single presentation. It is after I created this large file that the "lost links" problem began.

Is it just that the file is too big for PPT to handle? Or could I have too many hyperlinks? I have about 30 hyperlinks to other sections of the presentation, but I have many more "next slide, " "home" and "previous slide" buttons -- one of each on nearly every slide. If too many buttons is the problem, I could delete the "previous slide" buttons from each slide, and the user would just have to navigate in one direction. But I hesitate to do that unless I know it will help because it is a lot of work.

I saw elsewhere in this forum someone solved a similar problem by filling in text boxes for some reason. But her problem was lost links between files, not within a file.

Also, I don't know if it's significant that the URL choice is the one right next to the "Slide..." choice in the hyperlink dialog box (I am certain I am selecting the right one, as the link does work for a short time, and when I check it right after setting it, it looks fine).

Please, any ideas?

I can't quite figure out why your links would be changing to URLs. You didn't "round trip" your presentation through HTML (File/Save as Webpage) or anything, did you?

How are you adding the links in the first place? What version of PPT?

--
Echo [MS PPT MVP]
http://www.echosvoice.com
presenter, PPT Live '04
Oct 10-13, San Diego http://www.powerpointlive.com

I've got a large presentation and have inserted about 20 hyperlinks that lead a user from a button on a slide to another slide in the same presentation. The links that specify an action (end show) or a relative navigation (next slide, previous slide) work great. However, the links that specify a specific slide (e.g., go to slide 4) constantly break. They'll work fine for a while, but then when I come back the next day and open the ppt 2003 file (windows), these specific slide links have all turned into a link to a URL (which is unspecified). The result is that these links don't work. I've had to relink them several times and it's annoying. Any ideas? FYI, I have added slides after creating the links, but always the slides I've added have been AFTER the slide with the button and AFTER the slide it's linked to, so it's not like the slide numbers involved are changing. I'm puzzled. And tired of relinking. I'd appreciate any ideas.

 

[Michael Koerner]

Care to tell us how large the presentation is? Sounds like your exceeding the
system capabilities of your machine

--
<>Please post all follow-up questions/replies to the newsgroup<>
<><>Email unless specifically requested will not be opened<><>
<><><>Do Provide The Version Of PowerPoint You Are Using<><><>
<><><>Do Not Post Attachments In This Newsgroup<><><>
Michael Koerner [MS PPT MVP]


Thank you for your reply. I'm pretty desperate to find an answer. Here's some
more info that might provide a clue:

I'm using PPT 2003 Windows. I just saved the presentation normally (file>save or
file>save as). It is unusually large (2000 slides!) because I started with one
main presentation that linked to 25 other presentations. Those links all worked
fine, but I had a problem using the Viewer (I need to distribute this on CD) --
if a user clicked more than once on a link it would open multiple copies of the
linked presentation. Because I'm distributing this to 80 11-year-olds (it's a
yearbook -- a present for their graduation), I expect this is a crowd that will
multiple click a lot.

The only workaround I could figure was to create one mammoth presentation, and
have the user jump between slides in the single presentation. It is after I
created this large file that the "lost links" problem began.

Is it just that the file is too big for PPT to handle? Or could I have too many
hyperlinks? I have about 30 hyperlinks to other sections of the presentation,
but I have many more "next slide, " "home" and "previous slide" buttons -- one
of each on nearly every slide. If too many buttons is the problem, I could
delete the "previous slide" buttons from each slide, and the user would just
have to navigate in one direction. But I hesitate to do that unless I know it
will help because it is a lot of work.

I saw elsewhere in this forum someone solved a similar problem by filling in
text boxes for some reason. But her problem was lost links between files, not
within a file.

Also, I don't know if it's significant that the URL choice is the one right next
to the "Slide..." choice in the hyperlink dialog box (I am certain I am
selecting the right one, as the link does work for a short time, and when I
check it right after setting it, it looks fine).

Please, any ideas?

I can't quite figure out why your links would be changing to URLs. You didn't

"round trip" your presentation through HTML (File/Save as Webpage) or anything,
did you?

How are you adding the links in the first place? What version of PPT?

--
Echo [MS PPT MVP]
http://www.echosvoice.com
presenter, PPT Live '04
Oct 10-13, San Diego http://www.powerpointlive.com

I've got a large presentation and have inserted about 20 hyperlinks that

lead a user from a button on a slide to another slide in the same presentation.
The links that specify an action (end show) or a relative navigation (next
slide, previous slide) work great. However, the links that specify a specific
slide (e.g., go to slide 4) constantly break. They'll work fine for a while, but
then when I come back the next day and open the ppt 2003 file (windows), these
specific slide links have all turned into a link to a URL (which is
unspecified). The result is that these links don't work. I've had to relink them
several times and it's annoying. Any ideas? FYI, I have added slides after
creating the links, but always the slides I've added have been AFTER the slide
with the button and AFTER the slide it's linked to, so it's not like the slide
numbers involved are changing. I'm puzzled. And tired of relinking. I'd
appreciate any ideas.

 

[Guest]

I think you've simply hit the link limit for PPT. When you said something about 20 hyperlinks, that made me think there weren't many in the presentation, however, it sounds as if there may be many more than that.

PPT only has 32kb or so (or 64kb, but at any rate, it's not much) for storing hyperlinks and other info such as document properties. Once that space is used up, you'll start having problems with links not working, resetting themselves, things like that. http://www.rdpslides.com/pptfaq/FAQ00401.htm explains. (There's also a link to TAJ's linking tutorial there -- see more about that later in this post.)

One thing that helps is to shorten the path to your files. Just put everything on your C drive in a folder named A or something really short. And name all your presentations with very short names. So maybe you'll have files like C:\A\kids.ppt Then do your links. I don't know that that will help you, though, as it seems you probably have a *lot* of links.

Another thing that helps is something that Steve Rindsberg mentioned a couple of days ago -- cut down the amount of link text by substituting a simple title like "Sld 1".

Basically the drill is:

Copy the existing title text
Paste it back as a plain text box
Change the title placeholder to something very short

Then move the title placeholder off the slide on the slide master so the shortened
titles don't appear.

Again, not sure this will solve your problem, though. It depends on how much linkage you really have.

The one reliable workaround is to break the presentation into smaller presentations. TAJ has good info about using menus and things for that. http://www.powerpointbackgrounds.com/powerpointmenu.htm He has a great linking tutorial, too, but that method won't work if you're distributing with the new PPT Viewer as it doesn't support that technique. (And it sounds as if you're using the Viewer.) If you're not using the Viewer for distribution, then use that method.

--
Echo [MS PPT MVP]
http://www.echosvoice.com
presenter, PPT Live '04
Oct 10-13, San Diego http://www.powerpointlive.com

Thank you for your reply. I'm pretty desperate to find an answer. Here's some more info that might provide a clue:

I'm using PPT 2003 Windows. I just saved the presentation normally (file>save or file>save as). It is unusually large (2000 slides!) because I started with one main presentation that linked to 25 other presentations. Those links all worked fine, but I had a problem using the Viewer (I need to distribute this on CD) -- if a user clicked more than once on a link it would open multiple copies of the linked presentation. Because I'm distributing this to 80 11-year-olds (it's a yearbook -- a present for their graduation), I expect this is a crowd that will multiple click a lot.

The only workaround I could figure was to create one mammoth presentation, and have the user jump between slides in the single presentation. It is after I created this large file that the "lost links" problem began.

Is it just that the file is too big for PPT to handle? Or could I have too many hyperlinks? I have about 30 hyperlinks to other sections of the presentation, but I have many more "next slide, " "home" and "previous slide" buttons -- one of each on nearly every slide. If too many buttons is the problem, I could delete the "previous slide" buttons from each slide, and the user would just have to navigate in one direction. But I hesitate to do that unless I know it will help because it is a lot of work.

I saw elsewhere in this forum someone solved a similar problem by filling in text boxes for some reason. But her problem was lost links between files, not within a file.

Also, I don't know if it's significant that the URL choice is the one right next to the "Slide..." choice in the hyperlink dialog box (I am certain I am selecting the right one, as the link does work for a short time, and when I check it right after setting it, it looks fine).

Please, any ideas?

I can't quite figure out why your links would be changing to URLs. You didn't "round trip" your presentation through HTML (File/Save as Webpage) or anything, did you?

How are you adding the links in the first place? What version of PPT?

--
Echo [MS PPT MVP]
http://www.echosvoice.com
presenter, PPT Live '04
Oct 10-13, San Diego http://www.powerpointlive.com

I've got a large presentation and have inserted about 20 hyperlinks that lead a user from a button on a slide to another slide in the same presentation. The links that specify an action (end show) or a relative navigation (next slide, previous slide) work great. However, the links that specify a specific slide (e.g., go to slide 4) constantly break. They'll work fine for a while, but then when I come back the next day and open the ppt 2003 file (windows), these specific slide links have all turned into a link to a URL (which is unspecified). The result is that these links don't work. I've had to relink them several times and it's annoying. Any ideas? FYI, I have added slides after creating the links, but always the slides I've added have been AFTER the slide with the button and AFTER the slide it's linked to, so it's not like the slide numbers involved are changing. I'm puzzled. And tired of relinking. I'd appreciate any ideas.

 

[Guest]

It's 120 MB. I've also got links to 4 .wmv files, which work fine.

Care to tell us how large the presentation is? Sounds like your exceeding the
system capabilities of your machine

--
<>Please post all follow-up questions/replies to the newsgroup<>
<><>Email unless specifically requested will not be opened<><>
<><><>Do Provide The Version Of PowerPoint You Are Using<><><>
<><><>Do Not Post Attachments In This Newsgroup<><><>
Michael Koerner [MS PPT MVP]


Thank you for your reply. I'm pretty desperate to find an answer. Here's some
more info that might provide a clue:

I'm using PPT 2003 Windows. I just saved the presentation normally (file>save or
file>save as). It is unusually large (2000 slides!) because I started with one
main presentation that linked to 25 other presentations. Those links all worked
fine, but I had a problem using the Viewer (I need to distribute this on CD) --
if a user clicked more than once on a link it would open multiple copies of the
linked presentation. Because I'm distributing this to 80 11-year-olds (it's a
yearbook -- a present for their graduation), I expect this is a crowd that will
multiple click a lot.

The only workaround I could figure was to create one mammoth presentation, and
have the user jump between slides in the single presentation. It is after I
created this large file that the "lost links" problem began.

Is it just that the file is too big for PPT to handle? Or could I have too many
hyperlinks? I have about 30 hyperlinks to other sections of the presentation,
but I have many more "next slide, " "home" and "previous slide" buttons -- one
of each on nearly every slide. If too many buttons is the problem, I could
delete the "previous slide" buttons from each slide, and the user would just
have to navigate in one direction. But I hesitate to do that unless I know it
will help because it is a lot of work.

I saw elsewhere in this forum someone solved a similar problem by filling in
text boxes for some reason. But her problem was lost links between files, not
within a file.

Also, I don't know if it's significant that the URL choice is the one right next
to the "Slide..." choice in the hyperlink dialog box (I am certain I am
selecting the right one, as the link does work for a short time, and when I
check it right after setting it, it looks fine).

Please, any ideas?

I can't quite figure out why your links would be changing to URLs. You didn't

"round trip" your presentation through HTML (File/Save as Webpage) or anything,
did you?

How are you adding the links in the first place? What version of PPT?

--
Echo [MS PPT MVP]
http://www.echosvoice.com
presenter, PPT Live '04
Oct 10-13, San Diego http://www.powerpointlive.com

I've got a large presentation and have inserted about 20 hyperlinks that

lead a user from a button on a slide to another slide in the same presentation.
The links that specify an action (end show) or a relative navigation (next
slide, previous slide) work great. However, the links that specify a specific
slide (e.g., go to slide 4) constantly break. They'll work fine for a while, but
then when I come back the next day and open the ppt 2003 file (windows), these
specific slide links have all turned into a link to a URL (which is
unspecified). The result is that these links don't work. I've had to relink them
several times and it's annoying. Any ideas? FYI, I have added slides after
creating the links, but always the slides I've added have been AFTER the slide
with the button and AFTER the slide it's linked to, so it's not like the slide
numbers involved are changing. I'm puzzled. And tired of relinking. I'd
appreciate any ideas.

 

[Michael Koerner]

I think that Echo covered all the bases. 2000 slides is an extremely large
presentation. The 64k that windows allocates for resources, can quickly
disappear when you start using things like long filenames etc.

--
<>Please post all follow-up questions/replies to the newsgroup<>
<><>Email unless specifically requested will not be opened<><>
<><><>Do Provide The Version Of PowerPoint You Are Using<><><>
<><><>Do Not Post Attachments In This Newsgroup<><><>
Michael Koerner [MS PPT MVP]


It's 120 MB. I've also got links to 4 .wmv files, which work fine.

Care to tell us how large the presentation is? Sounds like your exceeding the
system capabilities of your machine

--
<>Please post all follow-up questions/replies to the newsgroup<>
<><>Email unless specifically requested will not be opened<><>
<><><>Do Provide The Version Of PowerPoint You Are Using<><><>
<><><>Do Not Post Attachments In This Newsgroup<><><>
Michael Koerner [MS PPT MVP]


Thank you for your reply. I'm pretty desperate to find an answer. Here's some
more info that might provide a clue:

I'm using PPT 2003 Windows. I just saved the presentation normally (file>save or
file>save as). It is unusually large (2000 slides!) because I started with one
main presentation that linked to 25 other presentations. Those links all worked
fine, but I had a problem using the Viewer (I need to distribute this on CD) --
if a user clicked more than once on a link it would open multiple copies of the
linked presentation. Because I'm distributing this to 80 11-year-olds (it's a
yearbook -- a present for their graduation), I expect this is a crowd that will
multiple click a lot.

The only workaround I could figure was to create one mammoth presentation, and
have the user jump between slides in the single presentation. It is after I
created this large file that the "lost links" problem began.

Is it just that the file is too big for PPT to handle? Or could I have too many
hyperlinks? I have about 30 hyperlinks to other sections of the presentation,
but I have many more "next slide, " "home" and "previous slide" buttons -- one
of each on nearly every slide. If too many buttons is the problem, I could
delete the "previous slide" buttons from each slide, and the user would just
have to navigate in one direction. But I hesitate to do that unless I know it
will help because it is a lot of work.

I saw elsewhere in this forum someone solved a similar problem by filling in
text boxes for some reason. But her problem was lost links between files, not
within a file.

Also, I don't know if it's significant that the URL choice is the one right next
to the "Slide..." choice in the hyperlink dialog box (I am certain I am
selecting the right one, as the link does work for a short time, and when I
check it right after setting it, it looks fine).

Please, any ideas?

I can't quite figure out why your links would be changing to URLs. You

didn't
"round trip" your presentation through HTML (File/Save as Webpage) or anything,
did you?

How are you adding the links in the first place? What version of PPT?

--
Echo [MS PPT MVP]
http://www.echosvoice.com
presenter, PPT Live '04
Oct 10-13, San Diego http://www.powerpointlive.com

I've got a large presentation and have inserted about 20 hyperlinks that

lead a user from a button on a slide to another slide in the same presentation.
The links that specify an action (end show) or a relative navigation (next
slide, previous slide) work great. However, the links that specify a specific
slide (e.g., go to slide 4) constantly break. They'll work fine for a while, but
then when I come back the next day and open the ppt 2003 file (windows), these
specific slide links have all turned into a link to a URL (which is
unspecified). The result is that these links don't work. I've had to relink them
several times and it's annoying. Any ideas? FYI, I have added slides after
creating the links, but always the slides I've added have been AFTER the slide
with the button and AFTER the slide it's linked to, so it's not like the slide
numbers involved are changing. I'm puzzled. And tired of relinking. I'd
appreciate any ideas.

 

[Glen Millar]

Shellyc,

If it is PowerPoint 2003, then I have seen this before. Your links are fine,
then when you re-open them they become jumbled. Would you be able to send me
a single master file that has been saved after the links have become
jumbled? That is, the slide all the links to other things are on? It doesn't
matter if any of the other files that are linked to are not included. There
is a program that can be run to analyse to see if it is the same problem
that has cropped up before.

--
Regards,

Glen Millar
Microsoft PPT MVP
http://www.powerpointworkbench.com/
Featured Presenter, PowerPoint Live 2004
October 10-13, San Diego CA
http://www.powerpointlive.com

I think you've simply hit the link limit for PPT. When you said something

about 20 hyperlinks, that made me think there weren't many in the
presentation, however, it sounds as if there may be many more than that.

PPT only has 32kb or so (or 64kb, but at any rate, it's not much) for

storing hyperlinks and other info such as document properties. Once that
space is used up, you'll start having problems with links not working,
resetting themselves, things like that.
http://www.rdpslides.com/pptfaq/FAQ00401.htm explains. (There's also a link
to TAJ's linking tutorial there -- see more about that later in this post.)

One thing that helps is to shorten the path to your files. Just put

everything on your C drive in a folder named A or something really short.
And name all your presentations with very short names. So maybe you'll have
files like C:\A\kids.ppt Then do your links. I don't know that that will
help you, though, as it seems you probably have a *lot* of links.

Another thing that helps is something that Steve Rindsberg mentioned a

couple of days ago -- cut down the amount of link text by substituting a
simple title like "Sld 1".

Basically the drill is:

Copy the existing title text
Paste it back as a plain text box
Change the title placeholder to something very short

Then move the title placeholder off the slide on the slide master so the shortened
titles don't appear.

Again, not sure this will solve your problem, though. It depends on how much linkage you really have.

The one reliable workaround is to break the presentation into smaller

presentations. TAJ has good info about using menus and things for that.
http://www.powerpointbackgrounds.com/powerpointmenu.htm He has a great
linking tutorial, too, but that method won't work if you're distributing
with the new PPT Viewer as it doesn't support that technique. (And it sounds
as if you're using the Viewer.) If you're not using the Viewer for
distribution, then use that method.

--
Echo [MS PPT MVP]
http://www.echosvoice.com
presenter, PPT Live '04
Oct 10-13, San Diego http://www.powerpointlive.com

Thank you for your reply. I'm pretty desperate to find an answer. Here's some more info that might provide a clue:

I'm using PPT 2003 Windows. I just saved the presentation normally

(file>save or file>save as). It is unusually large (2000 slides!) because I
started with one main presentation that linked to 25 other presentations.
Those links all worked fine, but I had a problem using the Viewer (I need to
distribute this on CD) -- if a user clicked more than once on a link it
would open multiple copies of the linked presentation. Because I'm
distributing this to 80 11-year-olds (it's a yearbook -- a present for their
graduation), I expect this is a crowd that will multiple click a lot.presentation, and have the user jump between slides in the single
presentation. It is after I created this large file that the "lost links"
problem began.too many hyperlinks? I have about 30 hyperlinks to other sections of the
presentation, but I have many more "next slide, " "home" and "previous
slide" buttons -- one of each on nearly every slide. If too many buttons is
the problem, I could delete the "previous slide" buttons from each slide,
and the user would just have to navigate in one direction. But I hesitate to
do that unless I know it will help because it is a lot of work.filling in text boxes for some reason. But her problem was lost links
between files, not within a file.right next to the "Slide..." choice in the hyperlink dialog box (I am
certain I am selecting the right one, as the link does work for a short
time, and when I check it right after setting it, it looks fine).didn't "round trip" your presentation through HTML (File/Save as Webpage) or
anything, did you?

How are you adding the links in the first place? What version of PPT?

--
Echo [MS PPT MVP]
http://www.echosvoice.com
presenter, PPT Live '04
Oct 10-13, San Diego http://www.powerpointlive.com



:

I've got a large presentation and have inserted about 20 hyperlinks

that lead a user from a button on a slide to another slide in the same
presentation. The links that specify an action (end show) or a relative
navigation (next slide, previous slide) work great. However, the links that
specify a specific slide (e.g., go to slide 4) constantly break. They'll
work fine for a while, but then when I come back the next day and open the
ppt 2003 file (windows), these specific slide links have all turned into a
link to a URL (which is unspecified). The result is that these links don't
work. I've had to relink them several times and it's annoying. Any ideas?
FYI, I have added slides after creating the links, but always the slides
I've added have been AFTER the slide with the button and AFTER the slide
it's linked to, so it's not like the slide numbers involved are changing.
I'm puzzled. And tired of relinking. I'd appreciate any ideas.

 

[Guest]

I might have a solution, but I don't guarantee that it will work. Others have mentioned that you might have reached PowerPoint's limit or you might have reached PowerPoint's hyperlink limit (because PowerPoint has limited space to store hyperlinks). If you have reached some general PowerPoint limit, then you'll have to follow the advice about breaking up the presentation. But if you have reached PowerPoint's hyperlinking limit, you should be able to fix it easily. You said that you only have a few hyperlinks, but almost every slide has a next and previous button. Have you tried putting the Next and Previous buttons on the slide master. I believe that this would count as two links, rather than 4000 links (for your 2000 slides).

This solution has two problems. First, some of your slides don't have next and/or previous buttons. For these slides, you can simply cover up the buttons with a shape that is the same color as your background.

The second problem is more serious. Slide master buttons are always behind the things that are on slides. This means that the buttons have to be in a place that is not covered by anything on any of the slides. This might be tough because your 2000 slides are already designed, but if you can leave a small space (perhaps a little control strip at the bottom), this might work.

It sounds like you have a tough problem. I hope these suggestions help. Good luck.

--David

David M. Marcovitz
Author of _Powerful PowerPoint for Educators_
http://www.loyola.edu/education/PowerfulPowerPoint/

 

[Bill Dilworth]

Hi David,

A minor correction...

Control buttons on the Master are always shown on top of everything, even
masking boxes (well, everything except playing movies - drat!). This is one
of their little quirky traits. It would be better to use an autoshape with
a hyperlink, rather than a control button, for this very reason. They could
be hidden by a masking box.

However, the autoshapes on the master slide will fall behind objects on the
slide, as you stated. Still, the thought of eliminating 3998 hyperlinks
would be a really good thing and may justify a slight rearrangement of the
slides. For that matter, why not do 3 links (Next, Prev, and TOC). Doing
this would limit all the links to one TOC slide and the slide master.


Shelly,

One thought would be to write a small VBA macro that would search for all
open presentations and eliminate any duplicates. However, this thought had
many problems. First the viewer does not support vba so any user using the
viewer would not be able to run this code. Second, users with the macro
security setting set to high, would not run the code. Problematic

Another alternative that would allow for smaller presentations, would be to
add an exit animation (disappear) to the linking object that makes it
disappear immediately when clicked. Since you can not click on an object
that is not being shown, the second clicks would be ignored. The object
would become visible the next time the slide was advanced into. Triggered
animations are supported in recent versions of PPT and the viewer. Of
course you would have to put up with the annoying 'harmful content'
warnings.

Just some random thoughts,

--
Bill Dilworth, Microsoft PPT MVP
===============
Please spend a few minutes checking vestprog2@
out www.pptfaq.com This link will yahoo.
answer most of our questions, before com
you think to ask them.

Change org to com to defuse anti-spam,
ant-virus, anti-nuisance misdirection.
..
..

I might have a solution, but I don't guarantee that it will work. Others

have mentioned that you might have reached PowerPoint's limit or you might
have reached PowerPoint's hyperlink limit (because PowerPoint has limited
space to store hyperlinks). If you have reached some general PowerPoint
limit, then you'll have to follow the advice about breaking up the
presentation. But if you have reached PowerPoint's hyperlinking limit, you
should be able to fix it easily. You said that you only have a few
hyperlinks, but almost every slide has a next and previous button. Have you
tried putting the Next and Previous buttons on the slide master. I believe
that this would count as two links, rather than 4000 links (for your 2000
slides).

This solution has two problems. First, some of your slides don't have

next and/or previous buttons. For these slides, you can simply cover up the
buttons with a shape that is the same color as your background.

The second problem is more serious. Slide master buttons are always

behind the things that are on slides. This means that the buttons have to
be in a place that is not covered by anything on any of the slides. This
might be tough because your 2000 slides are already designed, but if you can
leave a small space (perhaps a little control strip at the bottom), this
might work.

It sounds like you have a tough problem. I hope these suggestions help. Good luck.

--David

David M. Marcovitz
Author of _Powerful PowerPoint for Educators_
http://www.loyola.edu/education/PowerfulPowerPoint/

lead a user from a button on a slide to another slide in the same
presentation. The links that specify an action (end show) or a relative
navigation (next slide, previous slide) work great. However, the links that
specify a specific slide (e.g., go to slide 4) constantly break. They'll
work fine for a while, but then when I come back the next day and open the
ppt 2003 file (windows), these specific slide links have all turned into a
link to a URL (which is unspecified). The result is that these links don't
work. I've had to relink them several times and it's annoying. Any ideas?
FYI, I have added slides after creating the links, but always the slides
I've added have been AFTER the slide with the button and AFTER the slide
it's linked to, so it's not like the slide numbers involved are changing.
I'm puzzled. And tired of relinking. I'd appreciate any ideas.

 

[David M. Marcovitz]

Yeah, I didn't mean control buttons. I meant regular autoshpaes. I
never use controls because of their limited compatibility with the Mac.
When I said "control panel," I meant that as a design statement
(something along the lines of, "imagine a control panel at the bottom").
But I should have been clearer. However!!! If control buttons always
appear on top, that might be the solution. The biggest problem with my
suggestion (which I intended to be autoshapes but messed up the wording),
is that they will appear behind and possibly require a complete redesign
of 2000 slides. The control buttons might only require a redesign of the
slides where the next button is pointing to someone's nose.

--David

--
David M. Marcovitz, Ph.D.
Director of Graduate Programs in Educational Technology
Loyola College in Maryland
Author of _Powerful PowerPoint for Educators_
http://www.loyola.edu/education/PowerfulPowerPoint/

 

[Guest]

Bill, do you mean Action Buttons (which are also available from the autoshapes menu) as opposed to plain ol' autoshapes, or do you mean buttons added from the Control Toolbox (View/Toolbars/Control Toolbox)?

--
Echo [MS PPT MVP]
http://www.echosvoice.com
presenter, PPT Live '04
Oct 10-13, San Diego http://www.powerpointlive.com

 

[David M. Marcovitz]

Action Buttons are a form of autoshape. I think the distinction we were
discussing was between autoshapes (including action buttons) and buttons
from the control toolbox. Any autoshape (whether or not it is an action
button) can have hyperlinks or action settings. Of course the standard
next and previous action button autoshapes probably make the most sense
for next and previous slide buttons. Thanks for the clarification,
including where to find each of the kinds of butons.
--David

--
David M. Marcovitz, Ph.D.
Director of Graduate Programs in Educational Technology
Loyola College in Maryland
Author of _Powerful PowerPoint for Educators_
http://www.loyola.edu/education/PowerfulPowerPoint/

 

[Guest]

Thanks for your offer to analyze the presentation. Unfortunately, I can't send the file as it contains content that school policy prohibits me from sharing with people outside the school. But from your post and others, it appears that it's a flaw with PowerPoint -- there's a limit to the hyperlinks with no warning of it. I had four navigational buttons on most of the slides (next, previous, home, exit) and I deleted two of them on all the slides to see if that would work. It didn't.

Unfortunately, I need to leave the rest because I need the presentation to run in kiosk mode, so the navigation buttons are critical. I did find that the hyperlinks stop working after I do several saves and certainly after I close and relaunch the presentation. So I packaged the presentation to CD after only saving it once and that CD works. The source presentation is of course broken now, but at least I have a CD I can duplicate. If anyone wants to make changes to the presentation, I'll have to relink everything (and hope I get it all), and try this all over again. Arrgh!

Any other ideas? Thanks.

Shellyc,

If it is PowerPoint 2003, then I have seen this before. Your links are fine,
then when you re-open them they become jumbled. Would you be able to send me
a single master file that has been saved after the links have become
jumbled? That is, the slide all the links to other things are on? It doesn't
matter if any of the other files that are linked to are not included. There
is a program that can be run to analyse to see if it is the same problem
that has cropped up before.

--
Regards,

Glen Millar
Microsoft PPT MVP
http://www.powerpointworkbench.com/
Featured Presenter, PowerPoint Live 2004
October 10-13, San Diego CA
http://www.powerpointlive.com

I think you've simply hit the link limit for PPT. When you said something

about 20 hyperlinks, that made me think there weren't many in the
presentation, however, it sounds as if there may be many more than that.

PPT only has 32kb or so (or 64kb, but at any rate, it's not much) for

storing hyperlinks and other info such as document properties. Once that
space is used up, you'll start having problems with links not working,
resetting themselves, things like that.
http://www.rdpslides.com/pptfaq/FAQ00401.htm explains. (There's also a link
to TAJ's linking tutorial there -- see more about that later in this post.)

One thing that helps is to shorten the path to your files. Just put

everything on your C drive in a folder named A or something really short.
And name all your presentations with very short names. So maybe you'll have
files like C:\A\kids.ppt Then do your links. I don't know that that will
help you, though, as it seems you probably have a *lot* of links.

Another thing that helps is something that Steve Rindsberg mentioned a

couple of days ago -- cut down the amount of link text by substituting a
simple title like "Sld 1".

Basically the drill is:

Copy the existing title text
Paste it back as a plain text box
Change the title placeholder to something very short

Then move the title placeholder off the slide on the slide master so the shortened
titles don't appear.

Again, not sure this will solve your problem, though. It depends on how much linkage you really have.

The one reliable workaround is to break the presentation into smaller

presentations. TAJ has good info about using menus and things for that.
http://www.powerpointbackgrounds.com/powerpointmenu.htm He has a great
linking tutorial, too, but that method won't work if you're distributing
with the new PPT Viewer as it doesn't support that technique. (And it sounds
as if you're using the Viewer.) If you're not using the Viewer for
distribution, then use that method.

--
Echo [MS PPT MVP]
http://www.echosvoice.com
presenter, PPT Live '04
Oct 10-13, San Diego http://www.powerpointlive.com

Thank you for your reply. I'm pretty desperate to find an answer. Here's some more info that might provide a clue:

I'm using PPT 2003 Windows. I just saved the presentation normally

(file>save or file>save as). It is unusually large (2000 slides!) because I
started with one main presentation that linked to 25 other presentations.
Those links all worked fine, but I had a problem using the Viewer (I need to
distribute this on CD) -- if a user clicked more than once on a link it
would open multiple copies of the linked presentation. Because I'm
distributing this to 80 11-year-olds (it's a yearbook -- a present for their
graduation), I expect this is a crowd that will multiple click a lot.presentation, and have the user jump between slides in the single
presentation. It is after I created this large file that the "lost links"
problem began.too many hyperlinks? I have about 30 hyperlinks to other sections of the
presentation, but I have many more "next slide, " "home" and "previous
slide" buttons -- one of each on nearly every slide. If too many buttons is
the problem, I could delete the "previous slide" buttons from each slide,
and the user would just have to navigate in one direction. But I hesitate to
do that unless I know it will help because it is a lot of work.filling in text boxes for some reason. But her problem was lost links
between files, not within a file.right next to the "Slide..." choice in the hyperlink dialog box (I am
certain I am selecting the right one, as the link does work for a short
time, and when I check it right after setting it, it looks fine).didn't "round trip" your presentation through HTML (File/Save as Webpage) or
anything, did you?

How are you adding the links in the first place? What version of PPT?

--
Echo [MS PPT MVP]
http://www.echosvoice.com
presenter, PPT Live '04
Oct 10-13, San Diego http://www.powerpointlive.com



:

I've got a large presentation and have inserted about 20 hyperlinks

that lead a user from a button on a slide to another slide in the same
presentation. The links that specify an action (end show) or a relative
navigation (next slide, previous slide) work great. However, the links that
specify a specific slide (e.g., go to slide 4) constantly break. They'll
work fine for a while, but then when I come back the next day and open the
ppt 2003 file (windows), these specific slide links have all turned into a
link to a URL (which is unspecified). The result is that these links don't
work. I've had to relink them several times and it's annoying. Any ideas?
FYI, I have added slides after creating the links, but always the slides
I've added have been AFTER the slide with the button and AFTER the slide
it's linked to, so it's not like the slide numbers involved are changing.
I'm puzzled. And tired of relinking. I'd appreciate any ideas.

 

[Guest]

You do have Allow Fast Saves turned off in Tools/Options, don't you?

If you don't, do that and then resave and see if it makes a difference.

 

[Guest]

Thank you for clarifying which buttons you and Bill were talking about, David.

Thinking that the action button was maybe a *special* type of autoshape or something I didn't know about, I was all set to say, "Way cool! I didn't know action buttons would always show on top." Bummer I can't say that.

--
Echo [MS PPT MVP]
http://www.echosvoice.com
presenter, PPT Live '04
Oct 10-13, San Diego http://www.powerpointlive.com

 

[Bill Dilworth]

Thanks David,

I misunderstood which buttons you meant. My vbad.


--
Bill Dilworth, Microsoft PPT MVP
===============
Please spend a few minutes checking vestprog2@
out www.pptfaq.com This link will yahoo.
answer most of our questions, before com
you think to ask them.

Change org to com to defuse anti-spam,
ant-virus, anti-nuisance misdirection.
..
..

 

[Guest]

Here's an update on the breaking hyperlinks, in thanks to all who have offered suggestions:
I did not want to break the presentation into several smaller presentations, as suggested. This would have solved the problem if the breaking links were caused by a too-big presentation, but it would have caused other problems. I originally had designed this project as 25 or so different linked presentations, but had to convert it into one big one because the Viewer didn't work properly (software shortcoming) using separate files (see earlier post).
As suggested, I removed all the navigational buttons from the slides (hello carpal tunnel) and put everything on the master slides. I adjusted the slides that had photos which would obscure the master slide items. This greatly reduced the number of links, I'd guess, as long as PowerPoint counts a link on the master slide as "one," and doesn't count it every time it's used in a slide.Then I reset all my specific-slide links, which had all been broken.
I know you're all curious as to whether this worked, but I'm not yet sure if it did. Throughout this process, the links broke sometimes after I saved the file, and always after I quit and then relaunched PPT. Because my deadline was looming, I didn't do either. Instead, I Packaged for CD without saving first, and held my breath. I was able to burn a good CD, that works fine. I brought that to the duplicator this afternoon. When I have the stomach to revisit this, I'll look and see if the links remained now that I've quit out of PPT.
Thanks to all for your thoughtful advice. Two lessons: 1. PowerPoint cannot handle heavy-duty work (any suggestions for a better option for 2000 photos plus video?) and 2. This forum has some very kind and knowledgeable contributors. Thank you.

Thank you for clarifying which buttons you and Bill were talking about, David.

Thinking that the action button was maybe a *special* type of autoshape or something I didn't know about, I was all set to say, "Way cool! I didn't know action buttons would always show on top." Bummer I can't say that.

--
Echo [MS PPT MVP]
http://www.echosvoice.com
presenter, PPT Live '04
Oct 10-13, San Diego http://www.powerpointlive.com

Action Buttons are a form of autoshape. I think the distinction we were
discussing was between autoshapes (including action buttons) and buttons
from the control toolbox. Any autoshape (whether or not it is an action
button) can have hyperlinks or action settings. Of course the standard
next and previous action button autoshapes probably make the most sense
for next and previous slide buttons. Thanks for the clarification,
including where to find each of the kinds of butons.
--David

--
David M. Marcovitz, Ph.D.
Director of Graduate Programs in Educational Technology
Loyola College in Maryland
Author of _Powerful PowerPoint for Educators_
http://www.loyola.edu/education/PowerfulPowerPoint/

 

[Guest]

I'm very happy to hear that you were able to create one good CD, Shelley. That's the main point!

Re your lessons learned...

1. PowerPoint cannot handle heavy-duty work (any suggestions for a better option for 2000 photos plus video?)

You might want to look into Movie Maker. It's a free Windows application that can be downloaded from MS. That would be good for just a bunch of pictures with sound and video, but you wouldn't be able to jump around in the presentation.

As for something heavy duty for this type of thing where you need to move around a lot, there's always Flash or Director. The learning curves for those are higher than for PPT, though.

I wonder if Producer might be an option? That's a free add-in for PPT 2002/2003. Or you know, straight HTML might be the best bet for something this complex.

and 2. This forum has some very kind and knowledgeable contributors. Thank you.

And thank you. Stick around -- this can be a fun place.

--
Echo [MS PPT MVP]
http://www.echosvoice.com
presenter, PPT Live '04
Oct 10-13, San Diego http://www.powerpointlive.com

 

[Steve Rindsberg]

PowerPoint allocates a limited amount of space to storing links (it's a 32kb area that it
shares with document properties and apparently some other things that aren't documented).
Once you use that up, all bets are off.

If there are loads of links and/or lots of links to slides with long titles, or to long
urls or paths, you may be running into this.

As a simple test, download the free FixLinks demo at http://get.pptools.com
It includes a report feature that'll give you an approximate idea of how much space your
links occupy.

If you like, paste the results from the report back into a reply here and I'll take a
look.

I've got a large presentation and have inserted about 20 hyperlinks that lead a user

from a button on a slide to another slide in the same presentation. The links that specify
an action (end show) or a relative navigation (next slide, previous slide) work great.
However, the links that specify a specific slide (e.g., go to slide 4) constantly break.
They'll work fine for a while, but then when I come back the next day and open the ppt
2003 file (windows), these specific slide links have all turned into a link to a URL
(which is unspecified). The result is that these links don't work. I've had to relink them
several times and it's annoying. Any ideas? FYI, I have added slides after creating the
links, but always the slides I've added have been AFTER the slide with the button and
AFTER the slide it's linked to, so it's not like the slide numbers involved are changing.
I'm puzzled. And tired of relinking. I'd appreciate any ideas.
--
Steve Rindsberg, PPT MVP
PPT FAQ: www.pptfaq.com
PPTools: www.pptools.com
================================================
Featured Presenter, PowerPoint Live 2004
October 10-13, San Diego, CA www.PowerPointLive.com
================================================