Hyperlink to Network drive using UNC path is not working

Mar 15, 2011

Shawn Kogan
By Shawn Kogan

I have created a button and added a hyperlink pointing to a network drive where our faciliites keep some of their documentation (.DOCX, .PDF).   These documents are handled by several people.   They are updated as often is necessary.

When I run the slide presentation (PowerPoint), the link works fine and pulls up the document as expected.   However, when I publish and try the lik, I receive an error.

Path entered for hyerlink:

\\cpambar-app01\prism\Media\BTC\PSM\Common\PSSR\PSSR.doc

Resulting Error:

Cannot find 'file:///C:/cpambar-app01prismMediaBTCPSMCommonPSSRPSSR.doc'.  Make sure the path or Internet address is correct.

I have also tried using an Action button with the same result.   Any help would be greatly appreciated.

13 Replies
Brian Batt
13 years ago03/15/11 at 2:56 pm (UTC)

Hi Shawn,

Adobe doesn't recommend hyperlinking to content on network drives, especially UNC paths.  It's basically the same thing as trying to open a specific file on a user's machine from a web page (which is considered a security issue).

Can you tell me where your published content will reside?  Will it be online or on your network drive somewhere?

James Brown
13 years ago03/15/11 at 3:22 pm (UTC)

In this example say I made a link to a document that is shared on Jill's machine and I link to it from a local web page. I.e. //jill/documents/somedocument.doc. I run the link on my PC and on Jake's PC and  the document on Jill's pc opens. I then upload my web page to my web server. I try the link again, but this time it does not work? The reason is that the Web Server cannot see Jill's machine so the link is invalid. Hopefully that makes sense.

 

James Brown
13 years ago03/15/11 at 3:26 pm (UTC)

Brian, he may be linking to a file on an Intranet webpage which is not so much of a security issue as long as it's an INTRANET site. It's the linking of documents on a webserver using UNC that would be a bad thing since it gives a hacker a small snapshot of your network. Once they know that you website and or network can be hacked.

Shawn Kogan
13 years ago03/16/11 at 7:23 am (UTC)

Thanks for all the information.   The document resides on a Network Share.   It is not a website, nor is it an intranet site.  Originally, I did not have permissions to veiw these documents.   The owner had to request permissions for myself.  These documents (as well as the training) would only be accessible to those individuals from this specific facility.

We are currently moving our training over from Lectora to Articulate.    We are able to perform the same action in the Lectora module that we are trying to replicate in Articulate.

We did find we were able to add A Web Object to the Presentation and display the document.   However, there are some courses that have multiple links.   The content owner would rather have a button to call the document rather than launching automatically or having it take a portion of the screen.   In fact, I believe there is a limitation on the number of Web Objects per page.

Shawn Kogan
13 years ago03/24/11 at 7:55 am (UTC)

After four days, the answer was found.   When taking the address and throwing it into an Internet browser window, the document would launch and the user was prompted to "open, save or cancel".    I had her uncheck the box "Always prompt when opening this type of document" and the document continued to open.

We then went to her presentation and tried the hyper link... voila!   Success at last.   Apparently, Articulate sees that prompt and it immediately closes down the open process.

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