How do you include a query string in a hyperlink in PowerPoint?
Mickey Segal
Some Web pages are specified using query strings of the form:
http://www.something.com/page.html?stuff=type3
How do you put such a hyperlink with a query string into a PowerPoint document.
Everything seems to work fine creating a hyperlink without the query string. Is
there some special arrangement of quotation marks needed to make this work? Do
you need to use a macro? Or does it just not work at all?
Mickey Segal
computer. So what I am trying to launch is more properly represented as:
c:\Program Files\SuffFolder\page.html?stuff=type3
When I choose the URL setting that you describe, PowerPoint puts a "http" before
the file name so it doesn't work. When I try to use the file settings it does
not seem to allow the query string ("?stuff=type3") part. PowerPoint does not
seem to be set up to accept query strings to local html files, but it seems like
there should be some way around this by some alternate way of presenting this
string or some more versatile way to present the link to a file on the local
machine with a query string. I do this all the time using a local HTML page
with links to other local html files. It seems like it should be possible to do
this using PowerPoint since it often makes sense to demo Web pages from the
local machine instead of counting on Web access in some unfamiliar location in
which a talk is being given.
"Sonia" <spam...@noplace.com> wrote in message
news:exEoZjHGAHA.271@cppssbbsa05...
> This works for me, so you might want to try it. Browse to the "query link"
that
> you want to link to. Highlight the link in the address/location field of the
> browser. Copy it (CTRL|C). Return to your presentation and highlight the
> "object" that you want to apply the link to. Right click and select "Action
> Settings". In the new window that appears select "Hyperlink to:" and then
click
> on the little arrow and go down to URL. Now, use CTRL|V to paste the address
> from the clipboard. Save your presentation. Now click on the Slideshow icon
> and test the hyperlink.
>
> The only issue that I can think of is that some sites may move stuff about, so
> when you click on the object in your presentation, you may get a message that
> the site cannot be reached. This is rare, but it does happen.
>
> I have only tested this in PPT2000. If you are using PPT97, let us know and I
> can test it with PPT97 also to verify that it works there too.
>
> __________________________________
> E-mail: sonia at-sign soniacoleman dot com
> http://www.soniacoleman.com
>
>
> "Mickey Segal" <Mickey@_REMOVE_THIS_Segal.org> wrote in message
> news:uQrl8LHGAHA.239@cppssbbsa05...
Steve Rindsberg
> The HTML file with a query string that I am trying to launch is on the
local
> computer. So what I am trying to launch is more properly represented as:
> c:\Program Files\SuffFolder\page.html?stuff=type3
> When I choose the URL setting that you describe, PowerPoint puts a "http"
before
> the file name so it doesn't work. When I try to use the file settings it
does
> not seem to allow the query string ("?stuff=type3") part. PowerPoint does
not
> seem to be set up to accept query strings to local html files,
Let's stop there. When you create a link to a local html file, the browser
opens the file directly and displays it.
Period.
Attaching a query string to the end of the URL doesn't make sense/won't work
in a local file-only context like this because there's no http server to
process the query or pass it along to a behind the scenes CGI/ASP/Whatever
script for processing.
For this to work, there'd have to be some sort of web server accepting the
URL, handling the query and returning html based on the results.
Or am I misunderstanding the problem and assuming that you don't have a
local server, when in fact you do?
Mickey Segal
Using Edit Hyperlink I am able to get the proper path and query string:
c:\Program Files\SuffFolder\page.html?stuff=type3
I hover over the linked object I get
c:\Program Files\SuffFolder\page.html?stuff=type3
specified file" message that you report. Deleting the query string portion to
get:
c:\Program Files\SuffFolder\page.html
works fine, except I do not get the information in the query string passed on to
the HTML page.
I have tried without success to edit the hyperlink using "Action Settings" .
If I choose Hyperlink to | URL I can paste in
c:\Program Files\SuffFolder\page.html?stuff=type3
hyperlink.
"Sonia" <spam...@noplace.com> wrote in message
news:OfMOUCN...@cppssbbsa02.microsoft.com...
> When you go to Action Setting and select Hyperlink > URL you should paste the
> fully qualified path, i.e., c:\Program Files\SuffFolder\page.html?stuff=type3.
> If there is a "http://" value in the field, just paste over it. What shows up
> in the hyperlink window is
> File:///c:/Program%20Files/SuffFolder/page.html?stuff=type3 The %20 and %3F
are
> temporary substitutions that get translated back to "space" and "?".
>
> I don't have anything on my system to test this with, but when I pasted the
path
> example you provided and clicked on the linked object, I get a message "Cannot
> open the specified file", which implies that it is looking for a local file.
> Also, when I hover over the linked object it displays c:\Program
> Files\SuffFolder\page.html?stuff=type3. It works the same in PPT97.
>
> It looks like if you play with this, you might be able to make it work. I
wish
> I had a file that I could test with. It works for regular files and opens the
> associated application.
Sonia
Hmm. I don't understand why I get a different result. However, based on other
information in this thread, especially the fact that you are not running a local
server, my suggestion would be to link to an HTML page that contains the query,
since you say that works.
PowerPoint is a very powerful application, but we all seem to try to make it do
things it doesn't specialize in. HTML is definitely in this category. When
digging through your toolbox you can always grab the pliers and try to hammer
away at a nail, but the pliers won't do a very good job. Why not grab the
hammer, which is designed for the job?
I guess an extension of that thought would be, try building a presentation on a
Web page, all in HTML, and you'll have difficulty, or a tedious task, trying to
replicate the functions that PowerPoint does so well, e.g., transitions, custom
animations, etc., etc.
__________________________________
E-mail: sonia at-sign soniacoleman dot com
http://www.soniacoleman.com
"Mickey Segal" <Mickey@_REMOVE_THIS_Segal.org> wrote in message
news:uYZM9bN...@cppssbbsa02.microsoft.com...
Mickey Segal
one but a variant of the second one almost works and I will probably end up
using this solution unless someone can think of a better solution.
1. Linking from PowerPoint to an HTML page that itself includes a hyperlink
with the query seems to have a problem that curtails its usefulness. The
problem is that you need a separate HTML page for every possible query, and the
possibilities run into the millions.
2. Moving the presentation out of PowerPoint seems to be the best workaround
I've tried so far.
2A. I used the "Save as Web page" feature of PowerPoint to create a set of Web
pages that contains the presentation. This almost works properly; the problem
is that running the presentation in Full Screen Slide Show mode leads to
problems under certain conditions. Unfortunately these are conditions that I
need: if the page at the hyperlink opens a new browser window, it seems that
there is no good way to close this new window; there are neither browser
controls available nor relevant right click controls available. One can close
the browser window by using CTRL+ALT+DELETE, but this is not the sort of thing
you want to do during a presentation. However, using the browser's Fullscreen
mode instead of the PowerPoint-like Full Screen Slide Show mode gives you an
almost full screen that works, however with the annoyance that you have to click
an arrow at the bottom of the page to change slides instead of click the slide
as you can in Full Screen Slide Show mode or PowerPoint itself. Although this
is not nearly as good as Full Screen Slide Show mode it may be the best
workaround for these circumstances.
2B. I tried the File | Pack and Go feature, but this choked on the query
strings.
So it looks like I will use solution 2A in browser Full Screen mode, unless
someone has a better solution. It would be nice if PowerPoint could include a
query string in its local URLs, as can Internet Explorer.
"Sonia" <spam...@noplace.com> wrote in message
news:#yILdsNG...@cppssbbsa02.microsoft.com...
Sonia
I'm not conversant with queries, but could the "linked to" web page have a query
form? If so, seems like you could query any one of your thousands of
possibilities. Just a dumb user asking a dumb, uneducated question.
You might want to play with the new PPT2HTML tool that Steve announced
yesterday. There is a demo available at http://www.rdpslides.com/ppt2html/. It
gives you much more control over the generated HTML and might allow you to
address the shortcomings you are finding with the native "save as" or "publish"
to HTML feature in PowerPoint. I'm sure that Steve would enjoy your input,
since the tool is still in "beta" status. If you are comfortable mucking around
in HTML, the tool makes that job much more palatable than with what PPT
generates. The demo currently limits you to 12 slides from your presentation,
so you might want to make a limited 12 slide version of your presentation for
this testing.
When viewing a web page in the browser, you can always punch F11 to go to full
screen. Punch it again and you'll return to a view that includes the full
toolbar, etc. I don't know if this is what you need. I know I have some code
here that you could add to the HTML to open in full screen. I just can't find
it yet. I'm still searching for it though, and will post it as soon as I find
it.
But I definitely recommend that you give the new tool a try and play with it.
There is great flexibility available with the template.htm concept. You might
even come up with things even Steve hasn't thought of!
__________________________________
E-mail: sonia at-sign soniacoleman dot com
http://www.soniacoleman.com
"Mickey Segal" <Mickey@_REMOVE_THIS_Segal.org> wrote in message
news:uc#T7WOGAHA.242@cppssbbsa05...
Steve Rindsberg
> There is no Web server running, but using the same hyperlink:
> c:\Program Files\SuffFolder\page.html?stuff=type3
Interesting. If I type the same sort of URL into the browser (ie, a valid
one and tack on ?stuff=type 3) MSIE complains bitterly. If I tack the same
goodies onto the end of a link IN an html file, it simply goes to the
correct file and ignores the ?stuff= stuff.
Now if I pop that same link into PPT and view it in show mode, it doesn't
work. Tells me it can't find the specified file, so that tells me it's
trying to launch the whole url string as one whack rather than doing a
little filtering on it the way MSIE is. Or something along those lines.
If you plug in an http:// link rather than a file link, it does seem to work
properly from PowerPoint. Launches the browser and passes the complete link
along to it. Seems that it's a minor bug in PowerPoint, maybe, kindasorta,
that it doesn't strip off the query info when passing the link as a file
reference.
I'm curious, though ... why does this matter? Passing a query to a local
file system won't make anything happen.
Is it that you want to test locally before webbing globally, so to speak?
;-)
Steve Rindsberg
> This sounds promising. I will take a look at it.
I whanged away on it a bit while fiddling with this linking business. It
seems to be working, in that if I make a button with a URL link that points
to a specific file, then make HTML with PPT2HTML, the link works, points to
the right file on the local file system and when I view the HTML and click
the link, it passes the whole works off to the browser, query and all.
Mickey Segal
it. My HTML page captures the query string using JavaScript
(document.location.search) and passes it along to a Java applet, in a manner
similar to that illustrated at:
http://www.rgagnon.com/javadetails/java-0181.html
Your findings suggest that query strings in PowerPoint may work fine when
run from the Web instead of from the local hard drive. However, when giving a
PowerPoint talk I would like to be sure I can proceed without counting on Web
access at an unfamiliar location. So it is good that we have come up with some
acceptable workarounds.
I imagine this will get fixed in a later version of PowerPoint. There was a
related problem with query strings run from the hard drive in Internet Explorer
4.0 that was fixed in 5.0.
Microsoft, are you listening?
"Steve Rindsberg" <drop...@someplace.else> wrote in message
news:unsdhFRGAHA.196@cppssbbsa04...
Mickey Segal
This linking including query strings also works using the "Save as Web page"
feature in PowerPoint 2000. I am not sure what PPT2HTML is supposed to add for
PowerPoint 2000 users, but I will check this out at:
http://www.rdpslides.com/ppt2html/
"Steve Rindsberg" <drop...@someplace.else> wrote in message
Steve Rindsberg
The main reason for PPT2HTML is to let you take control over what your HTML
pages from PowerPoint look like. PowerPoint has, in effect, one template
built in. You can choose any look you like, as long as that's the one. The
Henry Ford approach to HTML generation, you might say.
PPT2HTML lets you create your own templates.
--
Steve Rindsberg, PowerPoint MVP
PPT FAQ - http://www.rdpslides.com/pptfaq
RnR PPTools - http://www.rdpslides.com/pptools
ZAP! for service bureaus - http://www.rdpslides.com/zap
Mickey Segal <Mickey@_REMOVE_THIS_Segal.org> wrote in message
news:uUns9qRGAHA.247@cppssbbsa05...
Mickey Segal
I fiddled with PPT2HTML a little, however the default options gave me output
that did not add much to what I got using PowerPoint 2000's "Save as Web page"
feature. I used the following conditions:
Browser version: IE 5.5
Browser screen mode: "Full Screen"
"Full Screen Slide Show" setting in the exported presentation: No.
"Outline" setting in the exported presentation: Yes.
This gave a presentation that was almost full screen, except for slide
navigation controls on the bottom. This seemed similar to the default output
from PPT2HTML except:
1. The PP2000 export had my query string links working; it seems I would have
to tinker with the PPT2HTML output to do this.
2. Some of the text in the PPT2HTML version had faint colored borders around
it, possibly an image compression artifact.
The PowerPoint type feature I want but don't have from either of these
methods is having a "Full Screen Slide Show" effect without leaving me with no
exit other than CTRL + ALT + DELETE if the page I hyperlink to pops up a new
browser window, as described elsewhere in this thread.
I have not fiddled with PPT2HTML enough to see if there is some way of
programming a "Full Screen Slide Show" without the problem experienced with
PP2000's "Full Screen Slide Show", but a need for too much fiddling defeats the
purpose of being able to change the PowerPoint slides easily. I recognize that
fiddling with PPT2HTML output may be the right choice if the user needs to post
material on the Web and PP2000's output does not work in other browsers, but
since I can do projection presentations using IE 5.5 that is not an issue for my
needs.
There are two obvious solution to the PowerPoint query string problem:
1. Design the presentation in a Web page designer in the first place, and
figure out some convenient way to change pages by clicking anywhere.
2. Microsoft fixes the limitation of PP2000 not being able to use query strings
for local HTML files.
It sounds like the next version of Microsoft Office will do some combination
of #1 and #2 by integrating various Office applications in a Web browser type of
environment.
"Steve Rindsberg" <drop...@someplace.else> wrote in message
news:OocKrmZGAHA.134@cppssbbsa04...
Steve Rindsberg
> Browser screen mode: "Full Screen"
> "Full Screen Slide Show" setting in the exported presentation: No.
> "Outline" setting in the exported presentation: Yes.
These settings will affect the HTML that PowerPoint generates but will have
no effect whatever on what comes out of PPT2HTML. If you want a completely
different layout from PPT2HTML, simply edit the default template or create
an entirely new one and use that instead. The appearance of the HTML output
is *entirely* dependant on the template you feed in.
> 1. The PP2000 export had my query string links working; it seems I would
have
> to tinker with the PPT2HTML output to do this.
Quite likely, yes. Then again, PPT2HTML was meant to be a tool for
tinkerers. ;-)
How are your links set up in PPT? Action buttons with a hyperlink to URL
action?
When I had a quick go at it, that seemed to be working. It seems that if
you specify the link via Action Settings, PPT insists on adding the http://
to the beginning of the URL. If you e.g. draw a rectangle then do Insert,
Hyperlink and type in just the name of the file (plus the query string) and
specify relative link, it behaves.
Another point: if you're using the default TEMPLATE.HTM file, which uses a
:map: command to create the imagemap of clickable links, you have to be
certain to specify the image size in pixels in the template (it's set to 600
there) AND specify the same image size in the Prefs dialog. Otherwise you
get the imagemap, but the coordinates are all wrong, so the hotspots end up
in the wrong place.
> 2. Some of the text in the PPT2HTML version had faint colored borders
around
> it, possibly an image compression artifact.
Most likely you chose JPG as the image format. Try GIF if your slides don't
have any photo-type images in them or experiment with PNG if they do. Note
that not all browsers support PNG.
> The PowerPoint type feature I want but don't have from either of these
> methods is having a "Full Screen Slide Show" effect without leaving me
with no
> exit other than CTRL + ALT + DELETE if the page I hyperlink to pops up a
new
> browser window, as described elsewhere in this thread.
This seems to be a browser feature/issue rather than a PowerPoint one. By
the time web pages are popping up windows, it's sort of out of PPT's hands,
isn't it? On the other hand, if you've got a way of preventing popup
windows with Javascript, you could certainly include that in the template
you feed to PPT2HTML.
Mickey Segal
"Steve Rindsberg" <drop...@someplace.else> wrote in message
> How are your links set up in PPT? Action buttons with a hyperlink to URL
> action?
> When I had a quick go at it, that seemed to be working. It seems that if
> you specify the link via Action Settings, PPT insists on adding the http://
> to the beginning of the URL. If you e.g. draw a rectangle then do Insert,
> Hyperlink and type in just the name of the file (plus the query string) and
> specify relative link, it behaves.
Yes, I could not get PP2000 to encode local hyperlinks with query strings
using Action Settings either; fortunately they also provide the similar
Hyperlink approach.
> Most likely you chose JPG as the image format. Try GIF if your slides don't
> have any photo-type images in them or experiment with PNG if they do. Note
> that not all browsers support PNG.
I just used default settings, so presumably I got JPG. If GIFs can be made
using PPT2HTML , I hope that is using some process that doesn't run afoul of the
Unisys GIF license issue.
> By the time web pages are popping up windows, it's sort of out of
> PPT's hands, isn't it?
I haven't looked into how the "Full Screen Slide Show" mode works. Since
the set of HTML pages that encodes the "Full Screen Slide Show" mode is
generated by PowerPoint, it seems that the behavior is determined according to
the instructions in the HTML pages created by PowerPoint. If I (or someone
else) gets some time to tinker, it would be interesting to see what in the
PP2000-generated HTML does this. Perhaps one could tinker within their HTML
code to disable "Full Screen Slide Show" mode before going off on some links.
This would be a quick elegant solution that would allow us to use PP2000's "Full
Screen Slide Show" except for one tiny bit of tinkering.
Steve Rindsberg
don't
> > have any photo-type images in them or experiment with PNG if they do.
Note
> > that not all browsers support PNG.
>
> I just used default settings, so presumably I got JPG. If GIFs can be
made
> using PPT2HTML , I hope that is using some process that doesn't run afoul
of the
> Unisys GIF license issue.
Look at the preferences dialog. You can choose output image size and
format, template and so forth there.
It's the little Head icon on the toolbar. PPT2HTML doesn't generate the
GIFs itself, it simply directs PowerPoint to, pretty much in the same way
as you'd direct it to by doing File, Save as, choosing GIF and clicking OK.
Either MS has it covered under contract or we're all in a lot of trouble.
I'm putting my bets on the former.
> I haven't looked into how the "Full Screen Slide Show" mode works
Nor I. OTOH, I just picked up a couple javascript books. There. The
world's been warned. ;-)
Mickey Segal
to send bugs to that e-mail address. They suggest reporting bugs at:
http://support.microsoft.com/support/feedback/
I have done so.
"Steve Rindsberg" <drop...@someplace.else> wrote in message
news:##hmauRGAHA.195@cppssbbsa04...
>
> Not here, but they do keep an ear on email sent to msw...@microsoft.com
>
> Mickey Segal wrote:
> > Microsoft, are you listening?