hyperlink base in PowerPoint:mac v.X

[Jeremy Cooperstock]

Greetings:

I'm trying to port a presentation from Windoze to OS X but am having
serious headaches with the hyperlink base. Although it seems to work
fine under the Win platform, all my attempts at specifying the base
under the Mac have failed, giving me either "The address of this site
is not valid. Check the address and try again." (in the event that I
specify the base beginning with a slash as in /Volumes/misc/video) or
"Cannot open the specified file" (if I omit the leading slash). After
scouring various related postings, I tried first saving the file and
then recreating the hyperlink, all to no avail. Anyone have better
experience?

On another matter, while I know it's not recommended pratice, I'm
using a combination of action buttons and regular hyperlinks to hook
to the videos. This is because my presentation includes a mix of
video clips of various formats (including MP4) and it's (a) apparently
not possible to embed MP4 natively and (b) since I often move the
clips around or post my presentations without the clips, it's a
serious nuisance for viewers to wade through the incessant "Searching
for file..." messages that appear when the associated clips aren't
available. Of course, it's also agonizingly painful to reinsert each
clip manually when the directory structure changes, hence my desire to
use the hyperlink base. (And no, I'm not about to convert the MP4
files to a less efficient format simply to make them embedded!)

The problem, of course, on the Mac version is that clicking through
any hyperlink pops up the silly warning about viruses. I don't
suppose there's been any progress on this front?

Thanks for any tips...
- Jeremy

 

[Steve Rindsberg]

I'm trying to port a presentation from Windoze to OS X but am having

serious headaches with the hyperlink base. Although it seems to work
fine under the Win platform, all my attempts at specifying the base
under the Mac have failed, giving me either "The address of this site
is not valid. Check the address and try again." (in the event that I
specify the base beginning with a slash as in /Volumes/misc/video) or
"Cannot open the specified file" (if I omit the leading slash).

Have you tried replacing the slashes (/ or \) with colons )?
I don't know that this will help, but it's worth a shot.

As to the other problem, you can't embed video of any format in PPT Windows, so
you're not spinning your wheels by trying to get links to work.

The only way to create reliable links manually (and even these are not perfect)
is to put the file in the same folder as the PPT file (implying that the PPT
has been saved at least once) and then link to them.

On another matter, while I know it's not recommended pratice, I'm
using a combination of action buttons and regular hyperlinks to hook
to the videos. This is because my presentation includes a mix of
video clips of various formats (including MP4) and it's (a) apparently
not possible to embed MP4 natively and (b) since I often move the
clips around or post my presentations without the clips, it's a
serious nuisance for viewers to wade through the incessant "Searching
for file..." messages that appear when the associated clips aren't
available. Of course, it's also agonizingly painful to reinsert each
clip manually when the directory structure changes, hence my desire to
use the hyperlink base. (And no, I'm not about to convert the MP4
files to a less efficient format simply to make them embedded!)

The problem, of course, on the Mac version is that clicking through
any hyperlink pops up the silly warning about viruses. I don't
suppose there's been any progress on this front?

Thanks for any tips...
- Jeremy

================================================
Steve Rindsberg, PPT MVP
PPT FAQ: www.pptfaq.com
PPTools: www.pptools.com
================================================

 

[Jeremy Cooperstock]

Have you tried replacing the slashes (/ or \) with colons )?
I don't know that this will help, but it's worth a shot.

Thanks for your response, but neither the backslashes or colons have
any greater success. Furthermore, the guidelines provided under "Set
a hyperlink base for a presentation" in the "Microsoft Office Help"
(associated with the application on OS X) provide the example with
forward slashes, as follows:

3. In the Hyperlink base box, type the path you want to use for all
hyperlinks you create in this presentation — for example: /Macintosh
HD/Documents/Sales.
Note You can override the hyperlink base by typing the full address
for the hyperlink in the Insert Hyperlink dialog box instead of
selecting a file from the list. This sets the path to the hyperlink as
a fixed file location.

Unless someone with greater affinity for Microsoft products can
convince me otherwise, I'd say we have a discrepancy between theory
and practice.

As to the other problem, you can't embed video of any format in PPT Windows, so
you're not spinning your wheels by trying to get links to work.

Perhaps we're using different versions of the software, but I have no
problem with AVI files under PPT Windoze.

The only way to create reliable links manually (and even these are not perfect)
is to put the file in the same folder as the PPT file (implying that the PPT
has been saved at least once) and then link to them.

Yes, that indeed does work and is the solution I've been forced to
adopt. I was just trying to be fair to the product as I spend a lot
of time in class critiquing bad design and software bugs.

Cheers,
- Jeremy

 

[Jim Gordon MVP]

Hi Jeremy,

A little experiementation revealed what is going on with hyperlink base.

I have two drives on my computer. One is called "PB", the other one is
called "Big."

When I opened a blank presentation and saved it on PB, then made a
hyperlink to a picture called "a.jpg" that's over on the "Big" drive in
a folder called "N". The hyperlink that was made is:
file://localhost/Volumes/Big/N/a.jpg

Then I opened a new blank presentation and used File > Properties and on
the Summary tab where it says Hyperlink Base I typed
Big:N
And then saved the file on PB. Then I repeated the steps and linked to
the same file over on "Big." The resulting hyperlink was just
a.jpg

In both cases I let PowerPoint determine the link address by choosing
the Document tab and browsing to the file a.jpg in the "N" folder.

There may be other syntax that works just as well for the hyperlink
base. I only tried one and happened to get it to work the first try. It
seems that PowerPoint resolved file://localhost/Volumes/ by itself. I
used a colon as the delimiter for the remainder of the file path.

This should solve the linking problem for you.

You ought to be able to embed MPEG4 into PowerPoint. Use the movie
toolbar (View > Toolbars > Movie). PowerPoint will embed the object as a
QuickTime object and let QuickTime handle the file (only works on Mac).
Right now there are some problems with QuickTime and PowerPoint 2004,
so for the time being stick with linking.

-Jim

--
Jim Gordon
Mac MVP
MVP FAQ
<http://mvp.support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=fh;EN-US;mvpfaqs>

 

[Steve Rindsberg]

Thanks, Jim ... very interesting and useful info!

Hi Jeremy,

A little experiementation revealed what is going on with hyperlink base.

I have two drives on my computer. One is called "PB", the other one is
called "Big."

When I opened a blank presentation and saved it on PB, then made a
hyperlink to a picture called "a.jpg" that's over on the "Big" drive in
a folder called "N". The hyperlink that was made is:
file://localhost/Volumes/Big/N/a.jpg

Then I opened a new blank presentation and used File > Properties and on
the Summary tab where it says Hyperlink Base I typed
Big:N
And then saved the file on PB. Then I repeated the steps and linked to
the same file over on "Big." The resulting hyperlink was just
a.jpg

In both cases I let PowerPoint determine the link address by choosing
the Document tab and browsing to the file a.jpg in the "N" folder.

There may be other syntax that works just as well for the hyperlink
base. I only tried one and happened to get it to work the first try. It
seems that PowerPoint resolved file://localhost/Volumes/ by itself. I
used a colon as the delimiter for the remainder of the file path.

This should solve the linking problem for you.

You ought to be able to embed MPEG4 into PowerPoint. Use the movie
toolbar (View > Toolbars > Movie). PowerPoint will embed the object as a
QuickTime object and let QuickTime handle the file (only works on Mac).
Right now there are some problems with QuickTime and PowerPoint 2004,
so for the time being stick with linking.

-Jim

================================================
Steve Rindsberg, PPT MVP
PPT FAQ: www.pptfaq.com
PPTools: www.pptools.com
================================================

 

[Jeremy Cooperstock]

Hi Jim,

Thank you so much for the helpful response.


[snipped]

Then I opened a new blank presentation and used File > Properties and on
the Summary tab where it says Hyperlink Base I typed
Big:N

Yes, that approach worked! Clearly, the PowerPoint (help)
documentation provided an incorrect and misleading example of syntax
with "/Macintosh
HD/Documents/Sales"

There may be other syntax that works just as well for the hyperlink
base. I only tried one and happened to get it to work the first try. It
seems that PowerPoint resolved file://localhost/Volumes/ by itself.

Interestingly, I didn't see the 'localhost' showing up when I repeated
your steps, but otherwise, all was fine. And with further
experimentation, I was able to use file://localhost/Volumes/data/...
equally well as a hyperlink base (which, oddly enough, is interpreted
with three forward slashes between the colon and localhost when the
file is opened!)

You ought to be able to embed MPEG4 into PowerPoint. Use the movie
toolbar (View > Toolbars > Movie). PowerPoint will embed the object as a
QuickTime object and let QuickTime handle the file (only works on Mac).

Ah! Yes, I see that this does work, but only for MPEG4 files with a
".mov" suffix. Despite QuickTime's naming convention of ".mp4" it
seems that PowerPoint doesn't respect this. At any rate, as mentioned
earlier, I didn't want to embed movies but provided this as part of my
rationale.

Right now there are some problems with QuickTime and PowerPoint 2004,
so for the time being stick with linking.

Sure... now if only there was some way to stop those annoying and
distracting "virus warning" popups from appearing (without, perhaps,
being told to upgrade to PowerPoint 2004, in the event that they've
since corrected this unfortunate design "feature"), I'd have a
complete solution!

Best,
- Jeremy