Hyperlinks 'Not Valid' In Viewer '97

[M]

We put together a presentation that uses the PowerPoint 2003 viewer to
review a variety of info - image files, Microsoft Word docs, PDF files - and
so on. Unfortunately, when the 'non-slide' items are clicked, Microsoft
Office rears it's ugly head and warns that "Some files can contain
viruses..." Duh! The client says that is unacceptably stupid, and I
couldn't agree more.

There is no workaround when using the 2003 Viewer, so I've reverted to using
Viewer 97 (which still allows the /V switch).

If I launch ppview32.exe, then select the ortho.ppt show, all the links work
perfectly (and, yes, they are all in the same directory). But I'd like to
elminiate the extra (clunky) step of selecting the ortho.ppt file, since
that's the only PowerPoint choice. If the .bat file reads
@ppview32.exe /V ortho.ppt
it launches straight into the presentation, but the links to the .docs and
..pdfs results in a "The address of this site is not valid" error.

I get the same error when running a CD in autorun mode, using the
open=ppview32.exe /V /S "playlist.lst" command line (where the only entry in
'playlist.lst' is 'ortho.ppt').

Help!

Michael

 

[Sonia]

Were all of your files in a single folder with the presentation file *BEFORE*
you inserted the links? How did you create the links?

The other thing that I can think of is that the PowerPoint 97 Viewer doesn't
much like links to PDF and Word documents unless the associated reader (Acrobat
& Word) files are on the CD too.

 

[M]

Hi, Sonia. Thanks for the reply.

Yes, the source files and the .ppt files were all in the same directory
prior to linking. I tried various iterations of linking (in PowerPoint 2003
and in 2000) and I saw how .ppt would sometimes hold onto the entire path.
I changed it so that it simply linked to the file (no path) in the same
directory.

I'm wondering if it's because Microsoft hates Adobe??? : )

What I think might be a hint is that if I run ppview32.exe, and then select
the 'ortho.ppt' show from the viewer menu, all the links work as intended.
It's only if I try to do it all at once (@ppview32.exe /V "ortho.ppt") that
I get the error.

I think that's the hint that I'm not understanding. Is that any sort of a
clue?

 

[Sonia]

The way that we get around it is to include all of the Acrobat Reader files on
the CD and create a bat file that launches the file in the reader. Then the
link is to the bat file instead of the PDF file. It looks something like:

@ECHO OFF
launch.exe open acrobat\reader\acrord32.exe "acrobat\reader\guide.pdf"

 

[Steve Rindsberg]

I'm wondering if it's because Microsoft hates Adobe??? : )

And everybody else they don't own, I guess. Part of the problem is that when
we say "link" they tend to hear "OLE". That's a different kind of linking with
totally different behavior than file linking.

What I think might be a hint is that if I run ppview32.exe, and then select
the 'ortho.ppt' show from the viewer menu, all the links work as intended.
It's only if I try to do it all at once (@ppview32.exe /V "ortho.ppt") that
I get the error.

I think that's the hint that I'm not understanding. Is that any sort of a
clue?

Part of the problem is this, I suspect:

If you hand it a link to a file that includes no path, PowerPoint looks for the
file on the current operating system path.

Depending on how you open the presentation in PowerPoint itself, that may be
the folder that the PPT file's in or it may not. I'm guessing that the same
holds true of the viewer. Start the viewer, open the PPT and it sets the OS
path to the path of the PPT file, so when it looks for a pathless link, it
finds the file in the same folder.

Apparently if you start the viewer and open the PPT on the command line as
you've done, it doesn't work. Try the same bat file but with the full path to
ortho.ppt spelled out (granted, you can't do that for CDs and expect them to
work everywhere, but at least this will give us a useful clue)

 

[M]

Steve:

A good friend of mine would say "BING [expletive deleted]ING O!

I modified my batch file to include the complete path: "d:\shows\@ppt
viewer 97\ortho.ppt" - and the files now link as expected.

So... how do we force the viewer to use the same directory it launches from?
Is there a way to set the Current Directory before or after starting the
viewer?

One possible issue (and likely a red herring): I built the project on a
network drive. I have moved it to a local drive and reworked the links -
with no change. Microsoft refers to a problem with links across network
drives in:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;886668

I'm nearly at the end of day 2 on this problem; thanks for your help!

Michael

 

[Steve Rindsberg]

A good friend of mine would say "BING [expletive deleted]ING O!

I modified my batch file to include the complete path: "d:\shows\@ppt
viewer 97\ortho.ppt" - and the files now link as expected.

So... how do we force the viewer to use the same directory it launches from?
Is there a way to set the Current Directory before or after starting the
viewer?

Not that I know of offhand, but it'd sure be useful if we can find out.

What if you try \shows\etc. instead of d:\shows\etc ...?
Or include cd shows in your bat file prior to launching the PPT?

I don't think the network drive is an issue here (else the links probably
wouldn't work even if the current directory is set correctly)