SLOW OPENING OF FILES WITH MOVIE LINKS

[Damian (Personal Home)]

Hi... Every time I open a ppt file with movie links embedded, it takes
forever to open because the Mac keeps searching for the links. Often I am
using old ppt decks and the movie links don¹t exist anymore. I just want
the deck to open quickly. I don¹t care about old movie links. There¹s a
stop button, but it doesn¹t seem to respond and the spinning beachball of
death just keeps on spinning.

Is there a way to permanently turn off this automatic searching for movie
files on opening a ppt file?

 

[Steve Rindsberg]

Hi... Every time I open a ppt file with movie links embedded, it takes
forever to open because the Mac keeps searching for the links. Often I am
using old ppt decks and the movie links dont exist anymore. I just want
the deck to open quickly. I dont care about old movie links. Theres a
stop button, but it doesnt seem to respond and the spinning beachball of
death just keeps on spinning.

Is there a way to permanently turn off
this automatic searching for movie files on opening a ppt file?

Other than deleting the linnks, I don't think so. But here's another thought:

If the link point to a disk that's available, it shouldn't take a noticeable
amount of time for PPT to determine that the linked file's not there and move
on.

But ...

If the link points to a disk that's not available, especially a network drive
or a location on the internet, PowerPoint asks the OS if the file's there, the
OS checks and if the disks's not there, waits a while, then checks again and
may do that periodically until a built-in network timeout value's been
exceeded. It might take as much as 30 seconds before the OS gives up, tells
PPT "Nope, sorry. Nobody by that name here."

And that's PER LINK. It can really add up.

If you need to leave the links in place, you might want to put the linked files
(temporarily) in the same folder as the PPT file, link to them there, then
remove them. That should speed up file opens, if my guess is correct, and it
should also mean that you can put the PPT file pretty much anywhere and, so
long as you pop the movies into the same folder, it should find them there.

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