PPT2000: Linked Pictures Lost When Unpacking Presentation

If you pack a Microsoft PowerPoint presentation that contains linked pictures, and then view the unpacked presentation, the links are broken and you only see image placeholders where the linked pictures should be.

The linked picture is attempting to reference the picture data from a temporary folder that the Pack and Go process uses. Because the picture is no longer there, you experience the problem.

To resolve this problem, obtain the latest service pack for Microsoft Office 2000. For additional information, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: To temporarily work around this problem, use the appropriate method for your situation.

Method 1: If You Have PowerPoint Installed

If you have PowerPoint on the computer on which you unpacked the presentation, open PowerPoint and reinsert the linked pictures. They will be in the same folder as your unpacked presentation.

Method 2: If You Do Not Have PowerPoint Installed

If you do not have PowerPoint on the computer on which you unpacked the presentation, and are using PowerPoint Viewer, copy the linked picture files into the folder that PowerPoint is referencing. To do this, follow these steps:

1. On the Start menu, click Run.
2. In the Open box, type Command, and then click OK.
3. In the MS-DOS prompt window, type Set |more, and then press ENTER.
4. Look for the line that says TEMP=path, and write the path down, (for example, TEMP=C:\windows\temp).
5. Type Exit and press ENTER to close the MS-DOS Prompt window.
6. On the Start menu, point to Programs, and then click Windows Explorer.
7. Browse to and select the folder that contains your unpacked presentation. You will see several picture files. Hold down CTRL and click each linked picture file that does not appear correctly inside PowerPoint. When you are finished, all of these pictures should appear highlighted.
8. On the Edit menu, click Copy.
9. Browse to the folder from step 4. Select the last subfolder of the path so that the folder name appears highlighted in the left pane, and the folder's contents appear in the right pane.
10. On the File menu, point to New, and then click Folder. Type pngsetup to name the folder and press ENTER.
11. Double-click the pngsetup folder.
12. On the Edit menu, click Paste.

The presentation should now appear correctly in the PowerPoint viewer.

Microsoft has made available an add-in for Microsoft PowerPoint that allows the user to convert all linked images in a presentation to embedded images. This add-in is useful when trying to workaround Pack and Go problems in which linked images are not included in a packed presentation. For more information about this please see the following article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

282943  (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/282943/EN-US/ ) PPT2000: PowerPoint Add-in for Embedding Linked Images

Microsoft has confirmed that this is a problem in the Microsoft products that are listed at the beginning of this article. This problem was first corrected in Microsoft Office 2000 Service Pack 2.