Creating a Data CD

[Big_Mack1]

I'm posting this in the XP forum because most of the people who will be
getting my CD are still using XP, and I want the Data CD to be able to open
and play on most of their machines.

Setup for my question:
I created a Data CD which contains:
(1)400 wedding photos,
(2)a Powerpoint 2007 slideshow of the wedding, reception, and honeymoon,
(3)and 3 mp3 files that were played during the ceremony, which are also used
in my Powerpoint slideshow.

My question:
How do I get my Powerpoint 2007 creator to use the ->user's<- CD-rom as the
"default" disk when searching for a music file which is embedded in the
slideshow?

The problem I'm having is that the CD plays the music on my machine just
fine (because the original mp3 files still reside on my hard drive), but when
I insert it into my wife's laptop, the music doesn't play during the
slideshow because the Powerpoint tries to locate the mp3's on her ->hard
drive<- instead of the CD.

When I tried to go into the creator to change the filename using a wildcard,
or by using "..\" as the first characters in the filename (like
"..\songname.mp3", the program wouldn't let me save it in that format.

How do I force Powerpoint to use any user's CD-Rom as the default location
when searching for a file? If I just put "F:\songname.mp3" as the filename,
other people who play the CD may not have the CD-Rom with a device name of
"F:"-- it may be D:, or E:...

 

[Big_Al]

Re: Creating a Data CD

Big_Mack1 wrote:
> I'm posting this in the XP forum because most of the people who will be
> getting my CD are still using XP, and I want the Data CD to be able to open
> and play on most of their machines.
>
> Setup for my question:
> I created a Data CD which contains:
> (1)400 wedding photos,
> (2)a Powerpoint 2007 slideshow of the wedding, reception, and honeymoon,
> (3)and 3 mp3 files that were played during the ceremony, which are also used
> in my Powerpoint slideshow.
>
> My question:
> How do I get my Powerpoint 2007 creator to use the ->user's<- CD-rom as the
> "default" disk when searching for a music file which is embedded in the
> slideshow?
>
> The problem I'm having is that the CD plays the music on my machine just
> fine (because the original mp3 files still reside on my hard drive), but when
> I insert it into my wife's laptop, the music doesn't play during the
> slideshow because the Powerpoint tries to locate the mp3's on her ->hard
> drive<- instead of the CD.
>
> When I tried to go into the creator to change the filename using a wildcard,
> or by using "..\" as the first characters in the filename (like
> "..\songname.mp3", the program wouldn't let me save it in that format.
>
> How do I force Powerpoint to use any user's CD-Rom as the default location
> when searching for a file? If I just put "F:\songname.mp3" as the filename,
> other people who play the CD may not have the CD-Rom with a device name of
> "F:"-- it may be D:, or E:...

You might want to post to microsoft.public.powerpoint newsgroup, if you
get no good answers here.

 

[Patrick Keenan]

Re: Creating a Data CD

"Big_Mack1" <BigMack1@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:52E4AF39-B542-4D83-9C1C-9FF41560DA86@microsoft.com...
> I'm posting this in the XP forum because most of the people who will be
> getting my CD are still using XP, and I want the Data CD to be able to
> open
> and play on most of their machines.
>
> Setup for my question:
> I created a Data CD which contains:
> (1)400 wedding photos,
> (2)a Powerpoint 2007 slideshow of the wedding, reception, and honeymoon,
> (3)and 3 mp3 files that were played during the ceremony, which are also
> used
> in my Powerpoint slideshow.
>
> My question:
> How do I get my Powerpoint 2007 creator to use the ->user's<- CD-rom as
> the
> "default" disk when searching for a music file which is embedded in the
> slideshow?

It actually sounds like the music isn't embedded. *References to
locations* of audio files are embedded.

There's a large and very important difference.

You have provided an "absolute" reference, complete with drive letter and
full folder and file name.

You need to change that to a "relative" reference, which doesn't provide a
drive letter or full folder name.

> The problem I'm having is that the CD plays the music on my machine just
> fine (because the original mp3 files still reside on my hard drive), but
> when
> I insert it into my wife's laptop, the music doesn't play during the
> slideshow because the Powerpoint tries to locate the mp3's on her ->hard
> drive<- instead of the CD.

This means that your PowerPoint presentation has an absolute reference to a
hard disk location. You need to change this so that the music files are
referred to as either in a relative location, or in the same directory.

For example, as it is, your PP file identifies a piece of music as being
specifically as, say,

"C:\documents and settings\user\my
documents\powerpoint\wedding\music\music.mp3".

You need to change this to reflect where, exactly, the music is on the CD,
without providing an exact reference to a drive letter.

The simplest way to do this, and it isn't necesssarily the best, is to have
the powerpoint and the music *in the same folder*. Then, the example music
would be referred to as simply,

"music.mp3".

This kind of reference tells the OS to look in the current folder, then any
place on the system path.

You can also provide a relative location such as:

"\music\music.mp3"

with the "music" folder as a subfolder of the Powerpoint presentation
folder.

Of course, the music files do actually have to be on the CD. This leads
to licensing issues, but that's another topic.

> When I tried to go into the creator to change the filename using a
> wildcard,
> or by using "..\" as the first characters in the filename (like
> "..\songname.mp3", the program wouldn't let me save it in that format.
>
> How do I force Powerpoint to use any user's CD-Rom as the default location
> when searching for a file? If I just put "F:\songname.mp3" as the
> filename,
> other people who play the CD may not have the CD-Rom with a device name
> of
> "F:"-- it may be D:, or E:...

See above. You clearly realize that providing an absolute location is the
wrong thing to do, so you must provide an effective relative location.

 

[Paul]

Re: Creating a Data CD

Big_Mack1 wrote:
> I'm posting this in the XP forum because most of the people who will be
> getting my CD are still using XP, and I want the Data CD to be able to open
> and play on most of their machines.
>
> Setup for my question:
> I created a Data CD which contains:
> (1)400 wedding photos,
> (2)a Powerpoint 2007 slideshow of the wedding, reception, and honeymoon,
> (3)and 3 mp3 files that were played during the ceremony, which are also used
> in my Powerpoint slideshow.
>
> My question:
> How do I get my Powerpoint 2007 creator to use the ->user's<- CD-rom as the
> "default" disk when searching for a music file which is embedded in the
> slideshow?
>
> The problem I'm having is that the CD plays the music on my machine just
> fine (because the original mp3 files still reside on my hard drive), but when
> I insert it into my wife's laptop, the music doesn't play during the
> slideshow because the Powerpoint tries to locate the mp3's on her ->hard
> drive<- instead of the CD.
>
> When I tried to go into the creator to change the filename using a wildcard,
> or by using "..\" as the first characters in the filename (like
> "..\songname.mp3", the program wouldn't let me save it in that format.
>
> How do I force Powerpoint to use any user's CD-Rom as the default location
> when searching for a file? If I just put "F:\songname.mp3" as the filename,
> other people who play the CD may not have the CD-Rom with a device name of
> "F:"-- it may be D:, or E:...

This doc, differentiates between embedded and linked multimedia content.

http://idea.uwosh.edu/nick/UsingMultimedia.pdf

This one mentions that Powerpoint 2003 has an option in the file menu.

http://t4.jordan.k12.ut.us/t4/index2.php?option=com_content&do_pdf=1&id=31

"One wonderful feature of PowerPoint 2003 is the Package for CD (File menu).
If you forgot to do the instruction in the previous paragraph, it helps
simplify these file path problems by copying all the files to one location
(a CD or folder) with your presentation and updating all the links for
the media files - definitely the best way to proceed if you're
distributing or moving your presentation from your computer. It also
has the added advantage of copying the free PowerPoint player program,
so people who don't own PowerPoint licenses can still watch your
presentation!"

If the multimedia content relies on uncommon codecs, or the presence of
player applications, then it could still break. It would almost be
tempting to convert the presentation, into a movie of some sort,
or use an "unbreakable" multimedia format. Some format that
any Windows platform would support, for example.

You would want the file paths to be "relative" and not "absolute".
For example F:\songname.mp3 is an absolute pathname, and if the
CDROM is actually G:, it would break. If, on the other hand, the
path was ./songname.mp3, that would be relative to the current
directory. You would hope whatever magic the "Package for CD"
option is going to work, is going to set the paths relative, so
as long as the associated files are in the same folder as the
main PPT, it'll work.

Paul

 

[Big_Al]

Re: Creating a Data CD

Patrick Keenan wrote:

> <snip>
> You can also provide a relative location such as:
>
> "\music\music.mp3"
>
> with the "music" folder as a subfolder of the Powerpoint presentation
> folder.
>

Not to nit pick, but don't you mean ".\music\music.mp3"?

"\music\music.mp3" would mean that the music folder is in root of the
current drive.

 

[Patrick Keenan]

Re: Creating a Data CD

"Big_Al" <BigAl@md.com> wrote in message
news:%23NisK%23wNJHA.728@TK2MSFTNGP06.phx.gbl...
> Patrick Keenan wrote:
>
>> <snip>
>> You can also provide a relative location such as:
>>
>> "\music\music.mp3"
>>
>> with the "music" folder as a subfolder of the Powerpoint presentation
>> folder.
>>
>
> Not to nit pick, but don't you mean ".\music\music.mp3"?
>
> "\music\music.mp3" would mean that the music folder is in root of the
> current drive.

Yes, you're right, so that would be two different ways to lay out the
content on the CD.

-pk

 

[Big_Mack1]

RE: Creating a Data CD

Thanks, guys.

To Patrick and Al, I tried using one dot, two dots, just a backslash, and
more, but when I went to save it, I got the dreaded "invalid filename" or
something like that. I eventually made another post in the Powerpoint group
and got a good answer there, too.

Basically, in PowerPoint 2007 (the version I said I am using), there is NO
SUCH "File" Menu. It's "hiding" in the Pizza in the top left corner. The
"Package for CD" Option is now concealed way down under the "Publish" Option.

Here's the link to the page where I answered a poster, and an explanation of
what I ended up doing:

http://www.microsoft.com/office/com...?dg=microsoft.public.powerpoint&lang=en&cr=US

My post is titled "Changing default location to CD"

Again, thanks for all of your help, guys...
Mack