I have developed some PowerPoint 2002 presentations where a "parent"
application has hyperlinks to specific frames in several "child"
presentations. There are command buttons that allow the user to easily
return to the "parent" presentation. This all works well from within
PowerPoint 2002 itself. However, I want to distribute this on CD-ROM.
When I "pack and go" and include the "ppview32.exe version 8" viewer,
at best the "parent" hyperlinks only invoke the first page of a
"child" presentation and not the specific frame within the "child"
presentation. I have tried every combination of "relative path"
settings I can think of as well as various ways to invoke the viewer.
Is there a correct procedure to use to get this to work, or is this a
known limitation in the free PowerPoint viewer program?

Hello and thank you for your question.

The problem you describe has been known to exist in 'Pack and Go'
since 1997, and Microsoft hasn't gotten around to fixing it.

 Pack and Go Serious Problems and PPT Viewer (Sept. 15, 1997)
http://tinyurl.com/11tt
[if you have any problem using this abbreviated link, enter the search
terms that appear at the end of my answer into Google Groups and the
full links will appear]

Sonia Coleman is a Powerpoint expert (more about her below), and this
problem was recently brought to her attention.
Here's her response:
"What I have concluded is that the Viewer is not compatible
with the use of Custom Shows.  The hyperlink that you created to each
of
your custom shows is actually, internally, a link to the first slide
of the
custom show.  That works fine in the Viewer, but the Viewer does not
understand that it's a custom show and doesn't return back to the menu
once
it plays the slide that you defined as the last slide in your custom
show.
It just keeps going....I used one of my own presentations, defined a
subset of slides as a single custom show and then put a link to the
custome show on the first slide of my presentation.  Sure enough, in
the Viewer clicking on the hyperlink causes the first slide of the
custom show to play, but then it just keeps rolling, right on to the
end of the presentation.... The same presentation played in PowerPoint
behaves as designed.   That is the hyperlink jumps to the first slide
of the custom show and the last slide of the custom show returns to
the menu, without intervention....Sooo you have found one more reason
to hate the Viewer...."
 Hyperlinks with pack and go (Jan 28, 2002)
http://tinyurl.com/11tx

In the same entry cited above, Sonia offers the following sort-of
solution which is one of the two solutions that I can offer you:
"Since you want to distribute your presentation via CD with the
Viewer, I
would recommend that you consider breaking your presentation into
separate
presentations, the first one being the menu."

The second solution that I have for you also involves Sonia.
Sonia makes a nice living selling an add-on to Microsoft's free
viewer.  You should consider downloading her product (her demo allows
2 free presentations, then you have to pay her $25); presumably her
program doesn't have the same limitation.  The principal benefit of
her program is that it creates an entirely self-contained CD, which
the user simply plays from his or her CD drive, without any harddrive
installation on the user's computer.
 Autorun CD Project Creator
http://www.soniacoleman.com/Tutorials/PowerPoint/acdpc_instructions.htm


Search terms used in Google Groups:
powerpoint viewer link pack and go
http://groups.google.com/

I hope this helps!
Sincerely,
richard-ga

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Clarification of Answer by richard-ga on 16 Aug 2002 22:24 PDT

I apologize for the choppy text in the quoted material.  There were
line breaks in the material copied from Google Groups that I failed to
notice.

-R

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Request for Answer Clarification by justjim-ga on 17 Aug 2002 17:46 PDT

Excellent information. Thanks. Regarding your suggestion, "What are
some third-party PowerPoint presentation and PowerPoint Viewer CD-ROM
or DVD-ROM distribution solutions?"

---

Clarification of Answer by richard-ga on 17 Aug 2002 18:32 PDT

Hello again.

I believe that Sonia's program will do the job.  The cite to her
product is contained in my original answer.

An alternative would be for you to import PowerPoint into Macromedia's
Director and then use the Director projector to show your
presentation.
www.macromedia.com/software/director/ 

But I'd suggest you try Sonia first--it's a free download, fully
functional for the first two uses.

Good luck!
richard-ga

Very quick response. Complete and to the point. Thanks much!

justjim...

The following page, on the Microsoft Knowledge Base,
notes that "Running Microsoft PowerPoint Viewer from
CD-ROM Not Supported":
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=KB;EN-US;q237891&
and suggests:

"If you want to run your PowerPoint presentation and
the PowerPoint Viewer from a CD-ROM or DVD-ROM,
Microsoft suggests that you look for third-party
solutions on the web."

"To find out more information about any third-party
PowerPoint presentation and PowerPoint Viewer CD-ROM
or DVD-ROM distribution solutions, you can use the
various search engines available on the Web as well
as asking other PowerPoint users in the public
newsgroup (microsoft.public.powerpoint)."

Would you like to modify your question to:
"What are some third-party PowerPoint presentation
and PowerPoint Viewer CD-ROM or DVD-ROM distribution
solutions?"


Searches done, via Google:

"powerpoint viewer" + CD
://www.google.com/search?num=50&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=%22powerpoint+viewer%22+%2B+CD

sublime1-ga