PC relative links break on Mac - sometimes...

  • Thread starter Thread starter MikeDHardy
  • Start date Start date
M

MikeDHardy

I have many PPTs made on a PC, each of which links to a file in
subfolders of the folder containing the PPT. All links are relative.

I copy the entire folder structure to a Mac and the links in SOME of
the PPTs break -- either 1) there is no link at all; or 2) link points
to the wrong file. However, the links in some PPTs are OK. It's either
all or nothing within a PPT.

This is not an issue of the files not being available on target machine
or not being compatible - folder structure is intact and I can remake
the links on the Mac.

Anyone have a clue?? Or do I just have to re-make all links (many
hundred) on the Mac???

Thanks,
Mike
 
fyi all --

I found a solution to this problem. There may be others, but this
works.

As many others have noted here, the issue probably doesn't arise if all
of the files you link to are in the same folder as the PPT, but that
was not an option in my case. All my linked files were in subfolders
with relative links.

The problem appears to be that files saved in Windows lack information
(resource fork??) that the Mac needs in some of its file system
operations.

I got an external drive formatted for Mac and installed the program
"MacOpener" from Dataviz on my PC. MacOpener not only reads Mac drives,
but also writes files to it in native Mac format. Then I saved all of
the PPTs to the drive on my PC (can't just copy existing files; have to
open in PPT and "save as"). Going forward I will just do all my PPT
work on this drive & not have to take the extra step.

These files now work fine when moved to a Mac.

A CD, of course, must be a dual-format CD. Mac can read a PC CD, but
the links will break again. I use Toast on the Mac.

Mike
 
Mike,
The use of subfolders is the issue. We run into it in VBA coding when
we hard code a path with a "\" instead of using the dual platform
friendly .pathseparator instead of the "\". For the CD, I'd probably
vote for putting all files in the same folder and using file naming
conventions to distinguish between files one wants to open vs. have
opened by links etc.

Brian Reilly, MVP
 
Back
Top