I am using PowerPoint 2010 and use Action buttons to launch programs during presentations. Usually I require a / switch in addition to the program path to pass information, such as C:\program\program.exe /X /Uabc.

This works immediately after I set this up. But after saving and closing the PPT file and then re-opening it, all of the / switch characters get reversed to \ characters, rendering the Run Program action unusable. In the above example, the Run Program action is now C:\program\program.exe \X \Uabc.



Does anyone know if this has been addressed in a SP or in PowerPoint 2013?

Pretty sure what needs to be addressed is the path should be in quotes if you have switches.

"C:\program\program.exe" /X /U

See if that works

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Thanks for the advice John. I gave it a try but alas, the switch characters still reverted to / after re-opening the PPT file.

Thank you for the video. Interestingly, when the PPT is re-opened, the switch characters were still /X, but the slashes in the program path all changed from \ to /.

I see that in my first analysis, I noticed that both the program and switch characters were the same and thus I assumed that the problem was still re-occurring. But in fact what happened was that the program slash characters changed and the switch characters did not. Thus I am able to successfully use the action to launch the program.

Thank you for your assistance, John!

I deleted my answer because I noticed that too! Works but not really correct.

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Microsoft PowerPoint MVP 2007-2023
Free Advanced PowerPoint Tips and Tutorials