Dumb question time: How do I insert a hyperlink?

[JoeB]

Duh.
I've got a quesion about a presentation that I've ported to the web, and I'd
like some opinions from the experts. I'd like to insert the URL as a
hyperlink in a message, but I don't see how to do that.

Thanks in advance.

 

[tohlz]

Do you mean hyperlinking in PowerPoint?
If so, Highlight the words, right click and select Hyperlink.
Then enter the url and click OK.

Or, do you want to link the powerpoint presentation through a web page?
If so, here's the html code. Note that the extension depends on what format
you saved the presentation as:
<a href="xxx.ppt">Click to view presentation</a>
--
Site Updated: December 04, 2005
http://www.pptheaven.xs3.com
PowerPoint Heaven - The Power to Animate
Contains tutorials on creating amazing animations for your PowerPoint
Presentations.
=========

 

[JoeB]

I'd like to include a "live" hyperlink in a message on this newsgroup so that
others can visit this presentation on the web and offer their opinions and/or
solutions to some quesions.

The URL is http://www.theprofessionals.us/PowerPoint/1024x768/PP4Realtors.htm

How do is make this an active linkin a message/question?

Thanks for the reply!

 

[David M. Marcovitz]

This is really an email question, and the answer depends on the software
you use to send email, and the software the receiver uses to receive
email. As the sender, you might be able to send the message in HTML
format, which will make your link live as long as the receiver can read
messages in HTML format. On the other hand, if you include the complete
URL as shown below (including the http://), many email clients will
automatically make that an active link. My email program does that, so I
can click on anything beginning with http:// regardless of the format of
the message (even if it is just plain text).
--David

--
David M. Marcovitz
Microsoft PowerPoint MVP
Director of Graduate Programs in Educational Technology
Loyola College in Maryland
Author of _Powerful PowerPoint for Educators_
http://www.PowerfulPowerPoint.com/

 

[tohlz]

See if this is what you want:
"LiveWeb - insert and view web pages real-time"
http://skp.mvps.org/liveweb.htm
--
Site Updated: December 04, 2005
http://www.pptheaven.xs3.com
PowerPoint Heaven - The Power to Animate
Contains tutorials on creating amazing animations for your PowerPoint
Presentations.
=========

 

[JoeB]

Hi David,

From your response, I gather that rather than posting my question directly
to this newsgroup, I post through an email client, e.g. Outlook. I simply
want to put the link to my presentation on this newsgroup so that some of the
more experiienced hands can render their opinions and/or solutions to a
couple of questions that I have.

Thanks again!

 

[PPTMagician]

Hi Joe,

The link works simply by entering it in your message when you post it to the
web interface on this News Group.

Your URL is:
http://www.theprofessionals.us/PowerPoint/1024x768/PP4Realtors.htm

And I can click directly to it from your previous post. Is that what you
are talking about? You narrate better than I do My southern hillbilly
twang gets in the way.

You might want to look at Steve's stuff on Webifying PowerPoint:
http://www.rdpslides.com/pptfaq/#WEBifying
just for some pointers. It's a bit slow for me and I'm on a T3 connection
today.


--
Thanks,
Glenna Shaw
Microsoft PowerPoint MVP Team
http://www.pptmagic.com

 

[JoeB]

Paydirt!!

Thanks a million (or a billion with inflation)! When I entered the URL in
the original post, it didn't look "active;" that is no underlining or font
color change.

Now that you've found my presentation, I'll state the reason for putting it
out there in the first place.

This presentation will be on 3 platforms for potential clients (PC/kiosk
mode, CD and the web). For the web version, I obviously want to reach as many
people as possible -- each of which will probably have a different
configuration on their respective PCs and internet connections. I have 4 PCs
of various vintages -- all with the same broadband connectivity, and receive
different experiences when entering the URL. Some play the animation, but
some don't. As far as the narrative, I utilized a suggestion from this form
and added the line of code:
<BGSOUND src="filename">. I find that on some of the PCs the narrative is
out of sync with the slide, and some not.

If you have any ideas, suggestions or comments on the presentation, I'd
greatly appreciate hearing/reading them.

Thanks once again!

 

[PPTMagician]

My 2 cents:

Since you've already saved the HTML files I'd use a sound editor to make the
WAV files smaller. Since it's simple narration there really isn't a need for
high quality sound and you pay in bandwidth.

After "shrinking" the sound files, I'd use a native PPS file for all
instances. Since the 2003 viewer is available I don't find a compelling
reason to convert the presentation to HTML.

However, if you feel that you just have to convert the presentation,
consider a third party product like PPT2HTML or Camtasia.

But, for the purposes you've described, I'd use a PPS file.
--
Thanks,
Glenna Shaw
Microsoft PowerPoint MVP Team
http://www.pptmagic.com

 

[JoeB]

Your 2 cents is worth a lot more!

1. Converting the .wav files to "mono" from stereo is a great suggestion. I
noticed that the wav file for 2 of the slides are each over 8 megs!
2. RE: pps and pptviewer: Are you suggesting "Package for CD," save to a
folder and then copy the folder to my web site? Then, I imagine that I would
link to the batch file that executes the viewer. Sounds like a great idea, if
I get your drift.

Thanks once more. As I become more proficient, I'll try to return the favor
to others that visit this newsgroup as they move down the learning curve. If
you saw my home page, http://www.theprofessionals.us, you may have noticed
that in a long life, I also spent some time as a "semi" tech person with a
few MS certifications. It's an endless learning process.

Have a great holiday season, whatever you celebrate!

 

[JoeB]

Hi Steve,

Good to hear from you again, and thanks for replying.
Regarding your observations:
1. What Corel balloon on my first page? I created a text box with PowerPoint
in Word Art, and REALORS followed by their registerd trademark symbl
(required by the National Association of Realtors).
2. The sounds on the last slide were obtained from http://www.dailywav.com
where there is no mention of copyright. I've also seen/heard them on other
websites. That doen't mean that they aren't copyrighted, just that I've seen
no notice of such. Another PowerPoint project that I'm considering is
personal greeting cards (for holidays, birthdays, etc.), and I purchased some
music tracks to try out in a presentation. I realize that they are
copyrighted, so I checked with various online music providers (MusicMatch,
WalMart and Virgin Records primarily), and the consensus is that if it is for
non-commercial, personal use, as long as 1 track is purchased for each CD
created, it's legal. Having said all that, I'll be careful about the stuff on
the last slide, and do some more research.
3. Following Glenna's suggestion, I changed the narratives to mono in
Audacity and the file sizes are SIGNIFICANTLY smaller. Thanks much. I thought
from the beginning that the file sizes were so large that it might cause a
problem loading in some cases.
4. I'm going to put in the caveat on my main website that this presentation
should be viewed in MSIE; as well as repeating that there is narrative and
that volume should not be mute on viewer's PCs. We must make some assumptions
about potential viewers, or we'll go nuts trying to make the presentation
universally compatible.

Thanks again for the reply, and for reading my lengthy response.

Joe

 

[JoeB]

Duh again, darn it!!

The Corel balloon is on my "Our Rates" disjoint rollover from the HOME PAGE
of my site. Good catch! Obviously the "Grand Opening Special" date is long
gone. We've been busy remodeling our house for over 6 months, and I set aside
business stuff for that time. I'll take it down pronto!

 

[David M. Marcovitz]

Sorry about this. I misread the question. I thought you were talking about
sending a hyperlink via email, not posting it to the newsgroup. The answer,
as you have seen is similar, as most newsreaders will take anything that
starts with http:// and make it into an active link. My newsreader is
particularly annoying because it makes the links active but doesn't give
you any indication that they are (such as turning them blue and
underlined).
--David

 

[PPTMagician]

What I'd do:

Save the presentation as a PPS file and

For the CD: Use the Package for CD option

For the Kiosk: SetUp the PPS to Loop until Esc and run the PPS

For the Web: Post the PPS file and create a single Home Page HTML with a
link to the PPS file and a link to the PPT 2003 viewer.


--
Thanks,
Glenna Shaw
Microsoft PowerPoint MVP Team
http://www.pptmagic.com

 

[JoeB]

Hi David,
Thank you first for responding to my query. After receiving your reply, I
added the newsgroup in my email client, so that's a plus. What you mentioned,
and what threw me initially, is that the entering the URL did not underline
or turn the text blue. Microsoft has lots of development teams, and each
group must work somewhat independently within the overall development
framework. There are lots of decisions to be made, and billions of lines of
code -- at least. The number of permutations leading to probable outcomes is
mind boggling. That's why it's good to have MVPs like you and all of the
other kind folks who have responded to my queries. In the future, as I
progress in PowerPoint development, I'll try to return the favor by offering
assistance to others where I can.

Happy Holidays to you sir!

 

[JoeB]

RE:
1. Corel ballon. Got it, and taking care of it.
2. Sound on last slide. You're right again. It's going to be gone later
today. I'm still cleaing up the file structures, and the various versions
I've saved. At this point, it would be a losing bet for me, so I'll pass.
Lesson learned!!
3. I've saved the narrative files as mono, and the difference in file size
is staggering.
4. Breaking up the slides to minimize animation -- and, therefore, file
size. That's another great idea. I don't know if you've had this experience,
but it seems that quite often after I ask the question, the answer occurs to
me almost spontaneously. The AHA experience lives!
5. Conssidering the limitation of presentations only really optimized for
MSIE, I may convert it to Flash when I get the time. Alternatively, Glenna
Shaw suggested saving it as a .pps file and porting it along with the
PowerPoint viewer to my site and running it in that way. It would still have
the limitation of not being able to replay individual slides -- at least not
yet -- but I'm going to give it a go either today or tomorrow.
6. Thanks for you comments about the structure of my site. I did it 5 years
ago in Macromedia's Dreamweaver/Fireworks/Flash suite. I'll update it with a
bit more pizzazz after I get this presentation worked out.

You've been a great help Steve, and I thank you very much.

Happy Holidays to you and those you care about.

Joe

 

[JoeB]

Hi Glenna,
The first 2 options are already in the configurations that you suggested (CD
and kiosk). Great minds run in the same channel!!
The web option is interesting. I don't want to sound obtuse, but if I
actually copied the "Package for CD" folder to my site, and then linked to
play.bat, wouldn't that do it ? If that's what you're suggesting, than please
pardon my mental thickness. I know that you're probably very busy, and you've
been more than a bit kind in responding to my queries, so please feel free to
ignore this. I'll try my interpretation out, and see what happens. Like all
of us "propeller heads," I'm a problem solver -- at least most of the time.

Thank you, and, again, happy holidays. Health, wealth and happiness in the
New Year!

Joe

 

[PPTMagician]

It would be overkill to copy the whole folder. If folks have PowerPoint or
PPTViewer installed on their PC, then the PPS file will typically run as soon
as they click on the link to it.

--
Thanks,
Glenna Shaw
Microsoft PowerPoint MVP Team
http://www.pptmagic.com

 

[PPTMagician]

To further clarify:

Let's say you wanted the presentation to be the entire contents of your
website:
http://www.PP4Realtors.us

First post the PP4Realtors.pps file to the root directory of your site

Then create an index.html file with this (and only this) as the html code:
<META HTTP-EQUIV="REFRESH" CONTENT="0;URL=http://PP4Realtors.pps">

Post the index.html file to the root directory of your site

When someone enters http://www.PP4Realtors.us as the web address it will
automatically redirect and launch the presentation.

This is handy when:
You know your intended audience has PowerPoint or PowerPoint viewer installed
You want to maintain the full functionality of your presentation (as opposed
to what you lose when you convert to HTML)

--
Thanks,
Glenna Shaw
Microsoft PowerPoint MVP Team
http://www.pptmagic.com

 

[JoeB]

For this presentation, I assume that much of the intended audience will not
have PowerPoint or the viewer installed on the PCs. It will be primarily for
listings of realtors in our small city -- Sedona, Arizona. The contacts will
most likely be middle age to "seniors."
The presentations (the production ones for my clients) will most likely
reside in sub-folders of the root folder on their respective websites. Your
suggestion is very useful, however. I could point to an HTML file in the
sub-folder -- instead of "index.html" in the root --, and use the same code
to redirect to the PPS file. Here comes a bit of density again!! I'd put the
viewer file in the same sub-folder. Of course, I'm assuming consistency with
the old days of PCs where invoking an application would lead the OS to
automatically look for the executable in the same folder first.

You're a gem Ms. Shaw. I've visited your website, and read about your family
(Ron, Kira and Sunshine), your "quirky" sense of humor, and your many
accomplishments. Sounds like a great life for a great lady.

Thanks once more.