It does seem odd, doesn't it?
I suspect the reason is that PowerPoint itself can't play video files, it can only
hand them off to the external MCI media player for playback, and I presume that
there's no provision for the player to grab and play video data out of memory vs.
from a disk file.
In any case, I couldn't agree more that something needs to change.
Whether it will in the next version of PPT is a matter for the tea leaf readers and
crystal ball gazers. MS ain't talkin'. They may not even have it nailed down yet.
As to the PITA-ness of it, yes. There's a commercial add-in that'll do the job for
you but if it's just something you want to share with friends, that's probably not
in the (credit) cards. (How'd we get back to sooth-saying?)
It should work to do the job manually as you've described, with two provisos:
1) Your friends must be able to play the videos in the MCI player using the codecs
they've got installed on their computers. In other words, if you do the re-link
thing, PPT will be able to find the video and ask Windows to play it; it's then up
to Windows to finish the job. If it can't because the vids use a codec that's not
installed on the target computer, it won't fly.
Again, there's a commercial addin that can help with the codec problem.
www.pfcmedia.com - the free demo's good for 14 days, so if this is just a one-shot,
it's WELL worth investigating.
2) Your friends mustn't start PPT and do File, and then click the file's name on the
most-recent-files list. If they do that, the links will likely break.
-----------------------------------------
Steve Rindsberg, PPT MVP
PPT FAQ:
www.pptfaq.com
PPTools:
www.pptools.com
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