PPT XP: hyperlinks don't work when you change starting slide numbe

[Guest]

We've been using Powerpoint 97 until we recently upgraded to Powerpoint XP.
It has come to my attention that people are having problems with hyperlinks
when they change the 'number slides from' option in page setup.

I've tested this out with simple powerpoint ppt files.

I create a couple slides on a powerpoint file. I set up the Action Setting
on some text to link to another slide. Everything works fine.

Then in Page Setup I change the 'number slides from' from the default of 1
to say 200. The links just to the first page of the powerpoint file.

This seems like a bug or a loss of functionality when comparing Powerpoint
XP with Powerpoint 97.

In 97, all the people's slides have slide numbering set and hyperlinks work
just fine. This is a serious issue since people have hundreds of powerpoint
presentations that they'd have to go through to change the page numbering.

I cannot find anyone having this issue in the newsgroups.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Steve Rindsberg]

We've been using Powerpoint 97 until we recently upgraded to Powerpoint XP.
It has come to my attention that people are having problems with hyperlinks
when they change the 'number slides from' option in page setup.

I've tested this out with simple powerpoint ppt files.

I create a couple slides on a powerpoint file. I set up the Action Setting
on some text to link to another slide. Everything works fine.

Then in Page Setup I change the 'number slides from' from the default of 1
to say 200. The links just to the first page of the powerpoint file.

The last sentence no verb. ;-)

Can you explain that again?

Also let us know what SP level of PPT XP you use. Choose Help, About Microsoft
PowerPoint and quote the entire version string.

I've tried to do what I think you mean in both PPT XP, no service packs and PPT
XP SP3. The former runs screaming into the weeds and falls over thrashing its
legs aimlessly when I try to change Number Slides From. That's a known bug.

The latter seems to work fine, both as regards not falling over dead and
following the links as created.

 

[Guest]

Thanks Steve for the reply. I was in a little hurry to get the email out so
i apologize for my poor post.

Can you explain that again?

The hyperlink just goes to the first slide of the powerpoint file instead of
the appropriate slide set by the hyperlink.

Also let us know what SP level of PPT XP you use. Choose Help, About Microsoft
PowerPoint and quote the entire version string.

I apologize I am not at the machine. However one of the first things I did
was download the office xp SP 3 update.

The machine is XP SP1 originally installed with Office 97. It was installed
with Office XP upgrade. Today I installed Office XP SP3.

The latter seems to work fine, both as regards not falling over dead and
following the links as created.

Interesting that you had success with Office XP SP3.

Another simple test is hyperlinking between 2 powerpoint files. Doing the
same thing of creating a hyperlink but to a slide in another ppt file with
slide numbering being used I had the same issue.

I tried the above test (hyperlink between 2 ppt with the destination ppt
with slide numbering used) on an Office 2003 machine (this would be XP SP2)
and I got the problem.

you are right, when you are hyperlinking within a ppt file there doesn't
seem to be a problem when you use slide numbering.

Again, thanks so much for the reply Steve and any further insight would be
welcomed!

 

[Steve Rindsberg]

i apologize for my poor post.

Ah, THAT sentence verb. Has. ;-)

The hyperlink just goes to the first slide of the powerpoint file instead of
the appropriate slide set by the hyperlink.

OK, that's what I thought, but still haven't been able to dupe it.
But thanks for mentioning the alternative of linking to an external file; *that*
I've been able to replicate in Office 2003 (no SP on this one but will try it later
with SP1).

I created a presentation with 6 slides and saved it as LinkTo.ppt

I created another with one slide, added some text and gave the text an action
setting of Hyperlink to: Other Presentation and picked slide 3 of LinkTo.PPT. I
saved this second presentation as LinkFrom.PPT.

As is, it works as expected.

Changing the starting slide number in LinkTo has this bizarre effect: the link now
points to Slide (StartingNumber). In other words, if the starting number is 2,
that's where the link takes me. If the starting number is more than the number of
slides in the presentation, the link takes me to slide 1.

The same two files work as expected in PowerPoint 2000.

Do bugs have ears? I think you've earned 'em for this one.

I'll pass this up the line; in the interim, all I can suggest is not changing the
starting number.