Embed movie in Power Point broken link problem
I’ve gotten so many questions about this issue it is time to devote a post to it. Basically a question comes to me like this:
“I’ve got a power point presentation with a movie on one of the slides. I’ve got 7 other people that I need to email it to within my company. Every time I email it, the person who receives it cannot view the movie. They just get a broken link. Then they email me and tell me that I haven’t embedded the movie in the powerpoint design I did correctly and to put it in again. Which I do but it still doesn’t work. How can I embed a movie in power point so that the people I email it to can view it??? Help!”
Well, that’s pretty much the typical question. Except that it usually occurs about an hour before the critical presentation is due. Or when it is due.
OK, so here’s what we’ve got. This power point user is doing nothing wrong. You can bring a movie in, watch it and everything is hunky-dory. But as soon as you email it the link to the movie will be broken. The new user will see a “missing media” icon in place of the movie on the slide. One would think that power point would be able to “embed” a video so it could travel with the slide and be emailed, burned to disc, whatever. News item: Power point cannot embed a video/movie that will travel with the slide. There is no secret menu item, button, or technique within power point that will do this. I’m sure this causes stress for thousands of users every single hour of every day.
So what can you do?
There is a solution that I have used with good success with my clients. There is a third party program called FixLinks that does this trick. I don’t know how it works. What I do know is that clients tell me it does work. Plus there is a free demo so you can give it a try (well before your powerpoint presentation due date advisably). The company that makes it is pptools at pptools.com. I don’t have any affiliation with this company by the way. The cost is $69 which is alot for a program that solves one tiny problem in one program. I think that gives you an idea of how valuable this is for powerpoint users actually.
If you have used this program to fix a media link by all means let me know how it has worked for you.
