A presentation on CD-ROM or other removable media may not display pictures in PowerPoint

When you view your Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2007 or Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2003 presentation that you saved on a CD-ROM or other removable media, some pictures may not appear in your presentation.

Note This behavior may occur even when you move all the pictures with the presentation on the CD-ROM or other removable media, and make sure that the relative paths to the pictures remain unchanged.

This behavior may occur if you view your presentation on a different computer than the computer that you used to create it and if you use the Link to file option when you insert pictures into your PowerPoint presentation.

PowerPoint uses an absolute file path when you link to a picture file. The relative link to a picture stays the same, but the presentation may not be able to find the pictures if the drive letter is changed.

For example, you may put pictures in a folder that is named Picture on a removable media with the drive letter E (so that the path of the pictures is E:\Picture). When you open the presentation on another computer that assigns the letter F to the media (so that the path of the pictures is F:\Picture), the PowerPoint presentation may not find your linked pictures.

To work around this behavior, use one of the following methods.

Method 1: Use the Package for CD feature to share a presentation

If you have CD-ROM burning hardware, you may also distribute PowerPoint presentations by using the Package for CD feature. The Package for CD feature writes your presentation, any linked files, and the PowerPoint viewer to a CD-ROM. That CD-ROM can then be used on another computer to view the presentation, even if that computer does not have PowerPoint installed. To use the Package for CD feature, follow these steps:

1. Open the PowerPoint presentation that you want to copy to CD-ROM.
2. Insert a blank CD-R or CD-RW in your writable CD-ROM drive.
3. PowerPoint 2003
   On the File menu, click Package for CD.
   
   PowerPoint 2007
   Click the Microsoft Office Button, point to Publish, and then click Package for CD.
4. Type a name for your presentation in the Name the CD box.
5. Click Copy to CD.

Method 2: Use Insert instead of Link to File to put pictures in a presentation

To do this, follow these steps:

1. Open the PowerPoint presentation that you want to insert a picture in, and then select the slide where you want to put the picture.
2. Click Insert, point to Picture, and then click From File.
3. Select the picture that you want to insert in the slide, and then click Insert.

As an alternative method to using removable media to share a PowerPoint 2003 presentation, you can send the presentation for review or as an attachment to an e-mail message. This permits you to send a presentation by using Microsoft Office Outlook or another e-mail program.

Note This does not apply to PowerPoint 2007