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mark_newman asked on

Powerpoint links to Excel are unavailable

I have a ~80 slide Powerpoint deck. Every month, I update data and charts in an Excel spreadsheet. This data and charts are manually linked to my slide deck. Once done with the Excel updates, I go to Powerpoint, update the links and my slide deck is ready to publish. This "used" to work perfectly when we were still using Office 2003. We upgraed to Office 2010 (and from XP to Win7) , and for the 2nd month in a row, I perform the steps above, and when I go to update the links, I am told they are unavailable. The slide deck and spreadsheet are opened in compatibility mode - that is they are .ppt and .xls files.

This is very frustrating - I can't see recreating all the links again as I seriously doubt it will suddenly work.

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John SR Wilson replied on

MVP Community Star

Is Service Pack 1 for Office installed?

Hints and Tips
http://www.pptalchemy.co.uk/powerpoint_hints_and_tips_tutorials.html

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mark_newman replied on

Help ---> About shows version = 14.0.6023.1000

I do believe this means SP1 has been installed

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John SR Wilson replied on

MVP Community Star

I think so but not sure, we see 14.0.6023.5001 here

You can check by clicking Additional Version and Copyright just below when it will say SP1 if it's there

Hints and Tips
http://www.pptalchemy.co.uk/powerpoint_hints_and_tips_tutorials.html

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mark_newman replied on

Yes, it says SP1

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John SR Wilson replied on

MVP Community Star

Sorry that was my best shot, I though SP1 fixed some linking problems.

Hints and Tips
http://www.pptalchemy.co.uk/powerpoint_hints_and_tips_tutorials.html

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Steve Rindsberg replied on

MVP Community Star

Have any of the files moved to different directories?

That might have broken the links.

PowerPoint Help:
http://www.pptfaq.com/

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mark_newman replied on

No, the 2 source Excel files are always the same names, and they stay in the same directory as the Powerpoint file. The Powerpoint file shows all the correct file locations for the links when I select "Edit links to files". They are all set to manual so I can have them update when I want.

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Steve Rindsberg replied on

MVP Community Star

>> No, the 2 source Excel files are always the same names, and they stay in the same directory as the Powerpoint file.

Unfortunately, that no longer seems to be enough. The entire PATH to the Excel files must be the same as when the link was created. That may still be the case here, but I wanted to make it clear that it's necessary.

>> The Powerpoint file shows all the correct file locations for the links when I select "Edit links to files". They are all set to manual so I can have them update when I want.

By "correct file locations" do you mean that it displays the correct, full path to where the Excel files are *now* or to where they were when the links were created? And depending on your answer to my first question, this one may not be relevant.

This may seem unduly picky about the details, but we've no choice. PowerPoint's unduly picky about the details.

PowerPoint Help:
http://www.pptfaq.com/

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mark_newman replied on

The path is the same as when the link was created.

Correct file locations - it displays the correct, full path to where the files are now, which is the same place they were created.

Please understand, I am using the same exact procedure as when I was running Office 2003, and it worked fine.

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Steve Rindsberg replied on

MVP Community Star

>> Please understand, I am using the same exact procedure as when I was running Office 2003, and it worked fine.

Yep, you made that clear from the getgo, and yep, I understand how infuriating this can be.

A couple of suggestions that you may or may not be able/permitted to follow up on:

- Install the free demo of my FixLinks add-in and run a links report on the presentation. Post the results here or if you'd prefer to keep it a bit less worldwide web, email them to me at steve at-sign pptools dot com.

Or reduce a copy of the presentation to just a few slides that include these breaking links and email me the PPT/PPTX* along with the necessary linked XLS/XLSX* files. With any proprietary data replaced with dummy data, of course.

Either way, if you email stuff to me, please select and copy the text of this conversation and pop that into the body of the email.

* That reminds me to ask: When you updated to 2010, did you open and save your PPTs as PPTXs and XLSs as XLSXs?

PowerPoint Help:
http://www.pptfaq.com/

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