I've run into some trouble with this process, and it's driving me nuts. Long story short, I've got a huge powerpoint presentation: 260+ slides, each containing anywhere from 1-3 hyperlinks to outside files on my company's internal server. We're using the slideshow as an easy way to navigate a bunch of compliance folders and files.



Given the ineptitude of our IT department, we want to have a back up for when our auditors visit, just in case the server is down. We'd like to put everything onto a thumb drive, but without the work of having to rewrite 260+ slides of hyperlinks one by one. To this end, I've been toying with the Package Presentation for CD option, which can copy the linked files as well. Trouble is, it only works for half of the links. I get error messages in the packaging process for the others: "Powerpoint couldn't process the linked file...do you want to continue anyway?"

Any pointers? Workarounds? I'd be grateful!

Is there a location difference between the files that seem to be working and the files you are getting an error for? Does the error message indicate the file path of the file it is having issues with?

I checked on that, and there isn't. They're all within the same folder hierarchy on my network drive originally. It's odd -- it will successfully link/package some files and "fail to process" other files within the exact same folder. I haven't been able to figure out a rhyme or reason to it.

Are the files that are failing larger than the ones which are working? Could it be a file size issue? I'm assuming if they are all in the same directory that they wouldn't have different permission settings?

After running it a few more times and cross-checking the skipped files, file size doesn't seem to be directly related. It's skipped some large ones (800kb), but then it'll turn around and skip a small one (30kb) while accepting another (40kb). As for permissions, those appear to be uniform as well.

There just doesn't seem to be a pattern, at least that I can discern, for which files PowerPoint "can't process."

Would the files which are linked possibly be open by another user at the same time you run the Package for CD process? Or are you the only one who has access to these?