Hyperlinks lost in PowerPoint. What's the current status?

[motnoslo]

I work in a school and this year has been disasterous for our
PowerPoint users (students and teachers). We run Macs with OS X 10.4.8
or 10.4.9, and Office for Mac v.X w/ 10.1.9; we have been plagued with
hyperlinks that are not retained between saves of a presentation. It's
not everyone, but it is a high percentage of presentations have this
problem. Most of the hyperlinks in student presentations are links to
existing slides in the presentation.

I've been searching for possible causes and clues, since this is the
first year we have experienced this problem and we have been using
Office v.X for 3-4 years. We upgraded a couple of teacher's to Office
for Mac 2004 and 11.3.5, with the same problem of losing hyperlinks.

It's confusing to me, because this problem has been around for a few
years, according to postings I've seen back from 2003. It's also been
a "known" problem for Microsoft? (I recall reading an explanation that
hyperlinks are saved in the ppt file itself, but if that part of the
file is full no more hyperlink information can be saved. -- Pardon my,
quick and dirty recollection.)
I've also seen postings that some people no longer have the hyperlink
problem after installing the Ofiice updates, and some people still do.
I'm never sure if once the hyperlinks are broken in a presentation is
that permanent? I've read that opening a PP presentation with and
saving with OpenOffice has curative powers.

I've seen lots of discussion about the issue, then the discussion end
with no resolution.

So it's the end of our school year, I have lots of teachers and
students expecting a solution to avoid a repeat of this year. I don't
have a good explanation why this PowerPoint hyperlink problem happened
or a workaround to it. Have I missed the solution to this problem? Is
the answer waiting for Office 2008; calling Microsoft at the hourly
rate?

Thanks in advance for your help.

Tom

 

[Jim Gordon MVP]

Hi,

One of the intervening updates (11.2.5) had a problem where hyperlinks would
not work as expected.

Description of the Microsoft Office 2004 for Mac 11.3.0 Update
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/924999

Be sure everyone has the current update.

-Jim Gordon
Mac MVP

I work in a school and this year has been disasterous for our
PowerPoint users (students and teachers). We run Macs with OS X 10.4.8
or 10.4.9, and Office for Mac v.X w/ 10.1.9; we have been plagued with
hyperlinks that are not retained between saves of a presentation. It's
not everyone, but it is a high percentage of presentations have this
problem. Most of the hyperlinks in student presentations are links to
existing slides in the presentation.

I've been searching for possible causes and clues, since this is the
first year we have experienced this problem and we have been using
Office v.X for 3-4 years. We upgraded a couple of teacher's to Office
for Mac 2004 and 11.3.5, with the same problem of losing hyperlinks.

It's confusing to me, because this problem has been around for a few
years, according to postings I've seen back from 2003. It's also been
a "known" problem for Microsoft? (I recall reading an explanation that
hyperlinks are saved in the ppt file itself, but if that part of the
file is full no more hyperlink information can be saved. -- Pardon my,
quick and dirty recollection.)
I've also seen postings that some people no longer have the hyperlink
problem after installing the Ofiice updates, and some people still do.
I'm never sure if once the hyperlinks are broken in a presentation is
that permanent? I've read that opening a PP presentation with and
saving with OpenOffice has curative powers.

I've seen lots of discussion about the issue, then the discussion end
with no resolution.

So it's the end of our school year, I have lots of teachers and
students expecting a solution to avoid a repeat of this year. I don't
have a good explanation why this PowerPoint hyperlink problem happened
or a workaround to it. Have I missed the solution to this problem? Is
the answer waiting for Office 2008; calling Microsoft at the hourly
rate?

Thanks in advance for your help.

Tom

--
Jim Gordon
Mac MVP

MVPs are not Microsoft Employees
MVP info

 

[motnoslo]

Hi,

One of the intervening updates (11.2.5) had a problem where hyperlinks would
not work as expected.

Description of the Microsoft Office 2004 for Mac 11.3.0 Updatehttp://support.microsoft.com/kb/924999

Be sure everyone has the current update.

-Jim Gordon
Mac MVP

Quoting from "(e-mail address removed)" <[email protected]>, in article
(e-mail address removed), on [DATE:

I work in a school and this year has been disasterous for our
PowerPoint users (students and teachers). We run Macs with OS X 10.4.8
or 10.4.9, and Office for Mac v.X w/ 10.1.9; we have been plagued with
hyperlinks that are not retained between saves of a presentation. It's
not everyone, but it is a high percentage of presentations have this
problem. Most of the hyperlinks in student presentations are links to
existing slides in the presentation.

I've been searching for possible causes and clues, since this is the
first year we have experienced this problem and we have been using
Office v.X for 3-4 years. We upgraded a couple of teacher's to Office
for Mac 2004 and 11.3.5, with the same problem of losing hyperlinks.

It's confusing to me, because this problem has been around for a few
years, according to postings I've seen back from 2003. It's also been
a "known" problem for Microsoft? (I recall reading an explanation that
hyperlinks are saved in the ppt file itself, but if that part of the
file is full no more hyperlink information can be saved. -- Pardon my,
quick and dirty recollection.)
I've also seen postings that some people no longer have the hyperlink
problem after installing the Ofiice updates, and some people still do.
I'm never sure if once the hyperlinks are broken in a presentation is
that permanent? I've read that opening a PP presentation with and
saving with OpenOffice has curative powers.

I've seen lots of discussion about the issue, then the discussion end
with no resolution.

So it's the end of our school year, I have lots of teachers and
students expecting a solution to avoid a repeat of this year. I don't
have a good explanation why this PowerPoint hyperlink problem happened
or a workaround to it. Have I missed the solution to this problem? Is
the answer waiting for Office 2008; calling Microsoft at the hourly
rate?

Thanks in advance for your help.

Tom

--
Jim Gordon
Mac MVP

MVPs are not Microsoft Employees
MVP infohttp://mvp.support.microsoft.com/

Yup, they have the latest update for Office for Mac 2004, 11.3.5.
The Office v.X users have their latest update. The problem persists.

Tom
The problem

 

[Jim Gordon MVP]

Hmm, then it sounds like a new bug.

Hopefully someone from MacBU will see this thread. If you want to alert
MacBU you can do so by creating a support incident via Microsoft's support
or use the Feedback option from PowerPoint's Help menu.

-Jim Gordon
Mac MVP

Hi,

One of the intervening updates (11.2.5) had a problem where hyperlinks would
not work as expected.

Description of the Microsoft Office 2004 for Mac 11.3.0
Updatehttp://support.microsoft.com/kb/924999

Be sure everyone has the current update.

-Jim Gordon
Mac MVP

Quoting from "(e-mail address removed)" <[email protected]>, in article
(e-mail address removed), on [DATE:

I work in a school and this year has been disasterous for our
PowerPoint users (students and teachers). We run Macs with OS X 10.4.8
or 10.4.9, and Office for Mac v.X w/ 10.1.9; we have been plagued with
hyperlinks that are not retained between saves of a presentation. It's
not everyone, but it is a high percentage of presentations have this
problem. Most of the hyperlinks in student presentations are links to
existing slides in the presentation.

I've been searching for possible causes and clues, since this is the
first year we have experienced this problem and we have been using
Office v.X for 3-4 years. We upgraded a couple of teacher's to Office
for Mac 2004 and 11.3.5, with the same problem of losing hyperlinks.

It's confusing to me, because this problem has been around for a few
years, according to postings I've seen back from 2003. It's also been
a "known" problem for Microsoft? (I recall reading an explanation that
hyperlinks are saved in the ppt file itself, but if that part of the
file is full no more hyperlink information can be saved. -- Pardon my,
quick and dirty recollection.)
I've also seen postings that some people no longer have the hyperlink
problem after installing the Ofiice updates, and some people still do.
I'm never sure if once the hyperlinks are broken in a presentation is
that permanent? I've read that opening a PP presentation with and
saving with OpenOffice has curative powers.

I've seen lots of discussion about the issue, then the discussion end
with no resolution.

So it's the end of our school year, I have lots of teachers and
students expecting a solution to avoid a repeat of this year. I don't
have a good explanation why this PowerPoint hyperlink problem happened
or a workaround to it. Have I missed the solution to this problem? Is
the answer waiting for Office 2008; calling Microsoft at the hourly
rate?

Thanks in advance for your help.

Tom

--
Jim Gordon
Mac MVP

MVPs are not Microsoft Employees
MVP infohttp://mvp.support.microsoft.com/

Yup, they have the latest update for Office for Mac 2004, 11.3.5.
The Office v.X users have their latest update. The problem persists.

Tom
The problem

--
Jim Gordon
Mac MVP

MVPs are not Microsoft Employees
MVP info

 

[htmelf]

I kinda doubt this notion pertains to everybody, but I'm thinking
about the possibility that Powerpoint might be getting confused about
hyperlinks when multiple copies of the same presentation are open.

Recently I wrecked a ton of hyperlinks in all my copies of a large
presentation. I had innocently opened a master and a backup copy of
the presentation (it's just easier to switch back and forth between
presentations to find the next slide you want to make a link to) and
eventually (not right away) I seem to have broken every hyperlink that
did not specify "Next slide" or "Previous slide."

I believe I'm seeing that the pointer information used by each
hyperlink is still there, but is garbled and unusable by the copies of
Powerpoint I have access to (Versions 11.3.0, 11.3.2 and 11.3.5). I
quit out of Powerpoint, went back, and re-opened every copy of the
presentation I had made, but alas, these hyperlinks were still broken.

Significantly, I had created the presentation in Keynote 2.0.2,
exported it, and lost all those hyperlinks then. After much grumbling
I had recreated them all in Powerpoint, and they worked (until I
corrupted them as described above)!

Later, as an experiment, I opened the corrupted presentation again in
Keynote 3.0.2 and after a long wait the presentation opened with ONLY
the "Next slide" and "Previous slide" links there at all. Keynote had
basically dumped all the garbled pointers and just turned these
hyperlinks into plain text. I will try to open the presentation with
OpenOffice if at all possible, to see if OO can fix the pointers in
the original presentation...(crossing of fingers)

Hmm, then it sounds like a new bug.

Hopefully someone from MacBU will see this thread. If you want to alert
MacBU you can do so by creating a support incident via Microsoft's support
or use the Feedback option from PowerPoint's Help menu.

-Jim Gordon
Mac MVP

Quoting from "(e-mail address removed)" <[email protected]>, in article
(e-mail address removed), on [DATE:

Hi,
One of the intervening updates (11.2.5) had a problem where hyperlinks would
not work as expected.
Description of the Microsoft Office 2004 for Mac 11.3.0
Updatehttp://support.microsoft.com/kb/924999
Be sure everyone has the current update.
-Jim Gordon
Mac MVP
Quoting from "(e-mail address removed)" <[email protected]>, in article
(e-mail address removed), on [DATE:
I work in a school and this year has been disasterous for our
PowerPoint users (students and teachers). We run Macs with OS X 10.4.8
or 10.4.9, and Office for Mac v.X w/ 10.1.9; we have been plagued with
hyperlinks that are not retained between saves of a presentation. It's
not everyone, but it is a high percentage of presentations have this
problem. Most of the hyperlinks in student presentations are links to
existing slides in the presentation.
I've been searching for possible causes and clues, since this is the
first year we have experienced this problem and we have been using
Office v.X for 3-4 years. We upgraded a couple of teacher's to Office
for Mac 2004 and 11.3.5, with the same problem of losing hyperlinks.
It's confusing to me, because this problem has been around for a few
years, according to postings I've seen back from 2003. It's also been
a "known" problem for Microsoft? (I recall reading an explanation that
hyperlinks are saved in the ppt file itself, but if that part of the
file is full no more hyperlink information can be saved. -- Pardon my,
quick and dirty recollection.)
I've also seen postings that some people no longer have the hyperlink
problem after installing the Ofiice updates, and some people still do.
I'm never sure if once the hyperlinks are broken in a presentation is
that permanent? I've read that opening a PP presentation with and
saving with OpenOffice has curative powers.
I've seen lots of discussion about the issue, then the discussion end
with no resolution.
So it's the end of our school year, I have lots of teachers and
students expecting a solution to avoid a repeat of this year. I don't
have a good explanation why this PowerPoint hyperlink problem happened
or a workaround to it. Have I missed the solution to this problem? Is
the answer waiting for Office 2008; calling Microsoft at the hourly
rate?
Thanks in advance for your help.
Tom
--
Jim Gordon
Mac MVP
MVPs are not Microsoft Employees
MVP infohttp://mvp.support.microsoft.com/

Yup, they have the latest update for Office for Mac 2004, 11.3.5.
The Office v.X users have their latest update. The problem persists.

Tom
The problem

--
Jim Gordon
Mac MVP

MVPs are not Microsoft Employees
MVP infohttp://mvp.support.microsoft.com/