Relative Links

[bjs2]

I am trying to link an htm page to a PowerPoint graphic using a relative link. As instructed by Breeze TechNote 3d8a98f9 (Creating relative hyperlinks for Breeze presentations published locally), I created a top level folder that contains all of the published files and a subfolder for the linked file. I manually edited the relative link as instructed: ..\breezetraining1\linkedfiles\drill_down1.htm.

When I published the presentation with Adobe Presenter and tested it, I got an error message indicating that it is looking for the file on my PC at //c:\Documents and Settings\bs267179\My Documents\Breeze_Sample\breezetraining1\data\breezetraining1\linkedfiles\drill_down1.htm.

We will be hosting the course on a company server.

What should I try next?

[Guest]

Nothing... unless they came up with something between March and now. Relative links don't work... so you can't publish to a CD and expect any linking to a file you place on the CD. IF you place the link to a location on the web, then the link will work.

Best,

Katherine

[Guest]

bjs2,

Creating relative links to "external" documents is absolutely achievable. I've created a number of presentations that have been deployed both on GeoLearning as well as Docent 6.5 LMS servers with links to html documents.

The problem with the link you reference that points to your C: drive may be twofold:

1. (and although I'm sure you've done this a hundred times) you need to go back into powerpoint to verify the hyperlink in the powerpoint editing environment. If you've copied and pasted an object from one slide to another, I've personally seen instances where the hyperlink is "reset" in powerpoint effectively killing off the path I set for the link to begin with. One thing to note as well is the following: when directing the hyperlink in powerpoint, you really need to watch the slashes used. There is a significant difference between the "/" and the "\" slashes. In powerpoint, you need to be using the forward slashes, just as you would if entering a URL in your address bar in a browser. In my experience, and this is just my opinion, backslashes will fail every single time!

2. the TechNote you reference is only half correct. Here's why:
After publishing a course using the Breeze/Presenter plugin, if you then zip up the content and deploy it somewhere on a server or LMS, the pathing is actually altered when the content is unzipped and installed on the LMS or server. This is because the zip file itself creates its own "internal" directory (meaning that it self-contains the files and directory structure within the zip) and the process of extracting actually creates a new folder. I've seen this happen, and I've spent many-a-time working with IT support at GeoLearning to rectify that issue in particular. I know that sounds ridiculous, but I'm telling you...it took several rounds of interacting with folks to finally find a solution that works. Bottom line: you need to keep an eye on how extracted files are placed on a server.

Nevertheless, here's what I've been doing as of late:

1. Each new presentation gets its own project folder. For example, I have a course for Racial Competency, and the project folder is simply called "Race". Inside that project folder is the ppt deck, ppc files, graphic files for the project, etc. (just as the TechNote suggests)

2. Inside the project folder is another folder titled "localPublish". This is used to store all the files that are created during the conversion process when the deck is converted into Breeze/Publisher content. (again, I believe this was also documented in the TechNote)

3. Now, when creating any relative links to external assets (html pages, pdfs, ect that are NOT included as attachments in the presentation), the path for me looks like this: "../localPublish/resourceDir/fileName.file", where resourceDir is the name of a folder or directory that will store your external assets and " fileName.file" is the htm or pdf you're linking to.

4. When publishing a presentation, I just need to make sure that I'm pointing to the "localPublish" directory within my project folder that I specified above.

That said, again, I'd suggest looking at the syntax of your hyperlinks...start there and see if there's any improvement with the links. And for what it's worth, I'd be happy to troubleshoot the deck if that's an option your comfortable with.

Hope that helps!

Rob
Check out my forum for Breeze/Presenter at:
www.robrode.com/yabb

[KCWebPlaza-5meuTi]

Rob,
My team of 12 developers has tried to use Relative links to files using Breeze 6. None of us have gotten it to work. These workarounds of manually creating relative links used to work for us in version 5. We've tried dozens of variations with the link syntax, folders, forward/back slashes, etc. It just doesn't work for us.

[Guest]

KC, I totally hear you. I don't know what's happening yet with Presenter 6. And yes, there is a bug here that requires some explaining from Adobe in my opinion.

I'm in the process of working with a file that bjs sent me in an attempt to figure out why, all of a sudden and without warning, relative links are getting blown apart. It simply doesn't make sense. Short of pointing at absolute addresses, as far as I'm concerned, this is a huge problem. For those of us who develop presentations with the intention of providing lessons via CD, this is a MONSTER situation that needs to be resolved.

When I first read bjs's comments, it wasn't entirely clear to me that she was operating with Presenter 6, which is why I responded the way I did.

In any event, I'm still going to look into this...and at the very least, perhaps we need to "rattle the cages" over at the Connect User forums http://www.connectusers.com/forums/cucbb/, because I know that several Adobe folks monitor those boards!!!

Rob

[KCWebPlaza-5meuTi]

I've down a lot of testing the last couple of days, and have found that relative links to Microsoft Office (at least .doc files confirmed so far) do NOT work. Using the same exact code, a relative link to a .pdf works perfectly.

Absolute links to MS office files - http://myserver/folder/filename.xxx work just fine.

I remember doing a search last week about his issue, and another contributor documented the same findings.

[Bobcat9]

I am using Adobe Presenter (version 6 of Breeze Presenter) and found the following solution to the problem of attachments not working on local or CD versions. The bottom line: put everything on the top level and it will work.

1. Rename your document all lowercase and no spaces or special characters (I.E. myspreadsheet.xls)
2. In Presentation Settings, Attachments, choose Link (not file) and type in the filename
3. Publish the presentation to an output directory
4. Manually copy the document files to the top level of the output directory (the directory where index.htm, viewer.swf, etc are located)

The file will then open on a local machine or by CD from the attachments links.

[Guest]

Hey folks, I just wanted to report some findings after looking at a couple of decks from other folks. I apologize in advance for the long reply here, but there are points that I believe warrant explaining.

First, a couple of items to get out of the way:
1. Using Presenter 6.0 build 432, using MS PowerPoint 2007 and I published locally.
2. Set up links to pdfs, html pages and MS Word 2007, with the word file saved as a Word 2003 with ".doc" extension.

The hyperlink method within PowerPoint needs to be massaged just a bit in order for the pathing to be rectified when the deck is published. As far as I can tell, what I recently discovered is that Presenter 6.0 likes to have ALL associated files living within the resources folder within the data directory of published presentations. After several rounds of tests, here's the process I used to acheive the results and what I found:

I set up a project file and associated directories as mentioned in my earlier post above. Bottom line: I have a project folder that contains my ppt deck. Within that project folder, I have another folder called "localPublish". Lastly, inside the localPublish directory I created one last folder called "extAssets". The extAssets folder contains all my external assests (pdfs, docs, html, etc). And for the sake of being clear, I'm hoping that its obvious to everyone that the localPublish folder will utlimately contain the published presentation. Think of it this way: the extAssets directory is nested in the same location of the published deck; this way, if you have to republish your ppt file, the contents within the extAssets folder will NEVER be messed with!

That said, to resolve the error in pointing to a bogus url, I simply redirected a hyperlink in powerpoint:
../../extAssets/myWordDoc.doc

Once I republished the file and tested the playback, the word document loaded and displayed properly (after waiting for Word to launch of course!). Bottom line, it's working, and fortunately all it took was a redirection of the link pointing to the asset I want to display. Also, I tried publishing 2 ways: to my project folder as well as the default My Adobe Presentations folder.

In both cases, each presentation had resolved links to external files.

Again, I think that Presenter 6.0 is looking for assets originating in the resources directory by default; by using the "../../" syntax, we're telling Presenter to look 2 directories up and out of the Resources folder. This redirection forces the browser to hunt down the file outside of the Data folder and should display the file(s) successfully.

Because I absolutely hate testing in an isolated manner (no to mention sounding like a complete idiot if this doesn't work for others!), what I'd like folks to do if possible: retype the hyperlink as indicated above. Please test this yourselves and report your findings here.

Again, I hope that helps!

Rob
Check out my forum for Breeze/Presenter at:
www.robrode.com/yabb

[techgirl13]

robva65:

I did exactly as you said and I was able to access the links. Now - I need to create an autorun "Breezo" for a cd that contains links to other "Breezos." Any ideas on how to do this?

Thanks.

[Guest]

Hey techgirl!

Yup, indeed I do. I have burned auto-run CD's that contained various presentations many times before, but I'll be honest; I'm not entirely convinced that my method is either the best, or the most efficient. I'll tell you this though: the process I've used is simply too long to outline here.

I have, however, documented it on my site: http://robrode.com/yabb/YaBB.pl?num=1200357089/0. Feel free to take a look there. And as I mention in that post, if you have any problems or questions, please feel free to contact me.

Rob
Check out my forum for Breeze/Presenter at:
www.robrode.com/yabb