Guest Big_Mack1 Posted October 25, 2008 Posted October 25, 2008 I'm posting this in the XP forum because most of the people who will be getting my CD are still using XP, and I want the Data CD to be able to open and play on most of their machines. Setup for my question: I created a Data CD which contains: (1)400 wedding photos, (2)a Powerpoint 2007 slideshow of the wedding, reception, and honeymoon, (3)and 3 mp3 files that were played during the ceremony, which are also used in my Powerpoint slideshow. My question: How do I get my Powerpoint 2007 creator to use the ->user's<- CD-rom as the "default" disk when searching for a music file which is embedded in the slideshow? The problem I'm having is that the CD plays the music on my machine just fine (because the original mp3 files still reside on my hard drive), but when I insert it into my wife's laptop, the music doesn't play during the slideshow because the Powerpoint tries to locate the mp3's on her ->hard drive<- instead of the CD. When I tried to go into the creator to change the filename using a wildcard, or by using "..\" as the first characters in the filename (like "..\songname.mp3", the program wouldn't let me save it in that format. How do I force Powerpoint to use any user's CD-Rom as the default location when searching for a file? If I just put "F:\songname.mp3" as the filename, other people who play the CD may not have the CD-Rom with a device name of "F:"-- it may be D:, or E:...
Guest Big_Al Posted October 25, 2008 Posted October 25, 2008 Re: Creating a Data CD Big_Mack1 wrote: > I'm posting this in the XP forum because most of the people who will be > getting my CD are still using XP, and I want the Data CD to be able to open > and play on most of their machines. > > Setup for my question: > I created a Data CD which contains: > (1)400 wedding photos, > (2)a Powerpoint 2007 slideshow of the wedding, reception, and honeymoon, > (3)and 3 mp3 files that were played during the ceremony, which are also used > in my Powerpoint slideshow. > > My question: > How do I get my Powerpoint 2007 creator to use the ->user's<- CD-rom as the > "default" disk when searching for a music file which is embedded in the > slideshow? > > The problem I'm having is that the CD plays the music on my machine just > fine (because the original mp3 files still reside on my hard drive), but when > I insert it into my wife's laptop, the music doesn't play during the > slideshow because the Powerpoint tries to locate the mp3's on her ->hard > drive<- instead of the CD. > > When I tried to go into the creator to change the filename using a wildcard, > or by using "..\" as the first characters in the filename (like > "..\songname.mp3", the program wouldn't let me save it in that format. > > How do I force Powerpoint to use any user's CD-Rom as the default location > when searching for a file? If I just put "F:\songname.mp3" as the filename, > other people who play the CD may not have the CD-Rom with a device name of > "F:"-- it may be D:, or E:... You might want to post to microsoft.public.powerpoint newsgroup, if you get no good answers here.
Guest Patrick Keenan Posted October 26, 2008 Posted October 26, 2008 Re: Creating a Data CD "Big_Mack1" <BigMack1@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message news:52E4AF39-B542-4D83-9C1C-9FF41560DA86@microsoft.com... > I'm posting this in the XP forum because most of the people who will be > getting my CD are still using XP, and I want the Data CD to be able to > open > and play on most of their machines. > > Setup for my question: > I created a Data CD which contains: > (1)400 wedding photos, > (2)a Powerpoint 2007 slideshow of the wedding, reception, and honeymoon, > (3)and 3 mp3 files that were played during the ceremony, which are also > used > in my Powerpoint slideshow. > > My question: > How do I get my Powerpoint 2007 creator to use the ->user's<- CD-rom as > the > "default" disk when searching for a music file which is embedded in the > slideshow? It actually sounds like the music isn't embedded. *References to locations* of audio files are embedded. There's a large and very important difference. You have provided an "absolute" reference, complete with drive letter and full folder and file name. You need to change that to a "relative" reference, which doesn't provide a drive letter or full folder name. > The problem I'm having is that the CD plays the music on my machine just > fine (because the original mp3 files still reside on my hard drive), but > when > I insert it into my wife's laptop, the music doesn't play during the > slideshow because the Powerpoint tries to locate the mp3's on her ->hard > drive<- instead of the CD. This means that your PowerPoint presentation has an absolute reference to a hard disk location. You need to change this so that the music files are referred to as either in a relative location, or in the same directory. For example, as it is, your PP file identifies a piece of music as being specifically as, say, "C:\documents and settings\user\my documents\powerpoint\wedding\music\music.mp3". You need to change this to reflect where, exactly, the music is on the CD, without providing an exact reference to a drive letter. The simplest way to do this, and it isn't necesssarily the best, is to have the powerpoint and the music *in the same folder*. Then, the example music would be referred to as simply, "music.mp3". This kind of reference tells the OS to look in the current folder, then any place on the system path. You can also provide a relative location such as: "\music\music.mp3" with the "music" folder as a subfolder of the Powerpoint presentation folder. Of course, the music files do actually have to be on the CD. This leads to licensing issues, but that's another topic. > When I tried to go into the creator to change the filename using a > wildcard, > or by using "..\" as the first characters in the filename (like > "..\songname.mp3", the program wouldn't let me save it in that format. > > How do I force Powerpoint to use any user's CD-Rom as the default location > when searching for a file? If I just put "F:\songname.mp3" as the > filename, > other people who play the CD may not have the CD-Rom with a device name > of > "F:"-- it may be D:, or E:... See above. You clearly realize that providing an absolute location is the wrong thing to do, so you must provide an effective relative location.
Guest Paul Posted October 26, 2008 Posted October 26, 2008 Re: Creating a Data CD Big_Mack1 wrote: > I'm posting this in the XP forum because most of the people who will be > getting my CD are still using XP, and I want the Data CD to be able to open > and play on most of their machines. > > Setup for my question: > I created a Data CD which contains: > (1)400 wedding photos, > (2)a Powerpoint 2007 slideshow of the wedding, reception, and honeymoon, > (3)and 3 mp3 files that were played during the ceremony, which are also used > in my Powerpoint slideshow. > > My question: > How do I get my Powerpoint 2007 creator to use the ->user's<- CD-rom as the > "default" disk when searching for a music file which is embedded in the > slideshow? > > The problem I'm having is that the CD plays the music on my machine just > fine (because the original mp3 files still reside on my hard drive), but when > I insert it into my wife's laptop, the music doesn't play during the > slideshow because the Powerpoint tries to locate the mp3's on her ->hard > drive<- instead of the CD. > > When I tried to go into the creator to change the filename using a wildcard, > or by using "..\" as the first characters in the filename (like > "..\songname.mp3", the program wouldn't let me save it in that format. > > How do I force Powerpoint to use any user's CD-Rom as the default location > when searching for a file? If I just put "F:\songname.mp3" as the filename, > other people who play the CD may not have the CD-Rom with a device name of > "F:"-- it may be D:, or E:... This doc, differentiates between embedded and linked multimedia content. http://idea.uwosh.edu/nick/UsingMultimedia.pdf This one mentions that Powerpoint 2003 has an option in the file menu. http://t4.jordan.k12.ut.us/t4/index2.php?option=com_content&do_pdf=1&id=31 "One wonderful feature of PowerPoint 2003 is the Package for CD (File menu). If you forgot to do the instruction in the previous paragraph, it helps simplify these file path problems by copying all the files to one location (a CD or folder) with your presentation and updating all the links for the media files - definitely the best way to proceed if you're distributing or moving your presentation from your computer. It also has the added advantage of copying the free PowerPoint player program, so people who don't own PowerPoint licenses can still watch your presentation!" If the multimedia content relies on uncommon codecs, or the presence of player applications, then it could still break. It would almost be tempting to convert the presentation, into a movie of some sort, or use an "unbreakable" multimedia format. Some format that any Windows platform would support, for example. You would want the file paths to be "relative" and not "absolute". For example F:\songname.mp3 is an absolute pathname, and if the CDROM is actually G:, it would break. If, on the other hand, the path was ./songname.mp3, that would be relative to the current directory. You would hope whatever magic the "Package for CD" option is going to work, is going to set the paths relative, so as long as the associated files are in the same folder as the main PPT, it'll work. Paul
Guest Big_Al Posted October 26, 2008 Posted October 26, 2008 Re: Creating a Data CD Patrick Keenan wrote: > <snip> > You can also provide a relative location such as: > > "\music\music.mp3" > > with the "music" folder as a subfolder of the Powerpoint presentation > folder. > Not to nit pick, but don't you mean ".\music\music.mp3"? "\music\music.mp3" would mean that the music folder is in root of the current drive.
Guest Patrick Keenan Posted October 26, 2008 Posted October 26, 2008 Re: Creating a Data CD "Big_Al" <BigAl@md.com> wrote in message news:%23NisK%23wNJHA.728@TK2MSFTNGP06.phx.gbl... > Patrick Keenan wrote: > >> <snip> >> You can also provide a relative location such as: >> >> "\music\music.mp3" >> >> with the "music" folder as a subfolder of the Powerpoint presentation >> folder. >> > > Not to nit pick, but don't you mean ".\music\music.mp3"? > > "\music\music.mp3" would mean that the music folder is in root of the > current drive. Yes, you're right, so that would be two different ways to lay out the content on the CD. -pk
Guest Big_Mack1 Posted October 26, 2008 Posted October 26, 2008 RE: Creating a Data CD Thanks, guys. To Patrick and Al, I tried using one dot, two dots, just a backslash, and more, but when I went to save it, I got the dreaded "invalid filename" or something like that. I eventually made another post in the Powerpoint group and got a good answer there, too. Basically, in PowerPoint 2007 (the version I said I am using), there is NO SUCH "File" Menu. It's "hiding" in the Pizza in the top left corner. The "Package for CD" Option is now concealed way down under the "Publish" Option. Here's the link to the page where I answered a poster, and an explanation of what I ended up doing: http://www.microsoft.com/office/community/en-us/default.mspx?dg=microsoft.public.powerpoint&lang=en&cr=US My post is titled "Changing default location to CD" Again, thanks for all of your help, guys... Mack
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