Problem with hyperlinking to external web site

Dec 13, 2012

Tim Danner
By Tim Danner

I have a link to slide text in a PowerPoint presentation that goes to external web site, specially an HTML page. After publishing in Presenter, the link sometimes works (opens up a new browser tab to the site) and other times doesn't work (nothing opens, nothing happens). There's been absolutely no consistency with when the link works or doesn't work.

It always seems to work after I publish the presentation/course. However, if I move the course folder with published files to a different location on my computer, launch the course again and go to that slide and click the link, nothing happens. Also, the link has never worked when I've given the course folder to a colleague, both through a zipped file downloaded through Drop Box and through a shared drive on our network, and she's tried it on her computer.

The link has both worked and failed for me in Firefox 17.0.1 and IE 9. It has never worked for her in Firefox 17 or IE 9. Another colleague has had similar experiences as me when he's made changes to the presentation and published it -- sometimes the link works and sometimes it doesn't. I've also tested it on my computer at home and the link has never worked.

I've tried linking to an object on the slide, to just text on the slide, creating a test slide and linking to text, and nothing has consistently worked. Through reading some of the threads, I noticed there was an issue linking directly to something like a PDF file. But there didn't seem to be a problem linking to HTML files. In fact, we have a course in which a slide links to an external site and the link has always worked, to my knowledge.

Edit to add: The linking is done through the slide in PowerPoint -- right-clicking on text or object, selecting Hyperlink, putting in URL for existing file/web page.

Computer/software specs:

- Presenter 09, V6.3.1103.112 Pro

- PowerPoint 2010

- Windows 7 Enterprise

4 Replies
Christine Hendrickson
over 11 years ago12/13/12 at 10:05 am (UTC)

Hi Tim. Welcome to E-Learning Heroes!

First, I just want to make sure that you're publishing and uploading the content to the final environment (web server, LMS, etc) for testing. If you, or your colleague view the content locally, there are restrictions that can cause the hyperlink to malfunction - or worse, do nothing.

Here's some more information on the topic:

If you view a published Presenter '09 presentation on your local hard drive or send it to someone else to view on their local hard drive, you'll encounter security restrictions from the computer, web browser, Flash Player, and network that'll cause various features of your content to fail.
To properly test your published content and share it with others, upload it to the environment for which it was published. Please review the following article for details:
I know you mentioned you published the content, but I wasn't quite sure you were uploading it. If you have tried this and still experience the same problem, please let me know.
Thanks!
Christine
Tim Danner
over 11 years ago12/13/12 at 10:17 am (UTC)

Thanks for the response Christine. The problem we'll run into with your recommendation is, we're licensing the course to an outside company who will run it on their LMS. So we're unable to test it in the environment in which it will run before giving them the course.

All the tests we've conducted were done on local computers, because, as explained above, it will run in an environment outside of our university. We'll eventually give them a customized version of the published course, likely packaged in a zipped SCORM file. Then they'll integrate it into their LMS.

Christine Hendrickson
over 11 years ago12/13/12 at 10:24 am (UTC)

Hi Tim,

I see! Thanks for clarifying. I suppose the best option would be to test it locally using the publish to CD method then. Have you been able to try that? 

Here's some info on that process:

Offline

If you need to distribute your Presenter '09 content for offline viewing, publish for CD.

After publishing, do any of the following to share it with others. (Note: Double-click theLaunch_Presentation.exe file in the published output to view the course.)

Another alternative would be to recreate one of the slides that contains the hyperlinks and test them on Articulate Online. If you don't have access to it, there's currently a 30 day free trial available. That should give you enough time to test out the links and make sure that it's just an issue of viewing the content locally, etc. 

And another option would be to send it to us to test it. We'd be happy to take a look, too. If you'd like to do this, just let me know.

Thanks again Tim!

Christine

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