How can I break external links in PowerPoint 2007?

Question

In a PowerPoint 2007 presentation I have many external links. These are updated when the document is opened.

However, the source documents are now missing so I want to remove the external links, i.e. keep the existing information and not update.

How can I do this?

Esoteric - intended for or likely to be understood by only a small number of people with a specialized knowledge or interest. — , Mar 11 '16 at 18:20
@jeremy: and yet viewed over 36 000 times at time of writing. — Reinstate Monica - Goodbye SE, Mar 11 '16 at 19:46

score 9 · Answer 1 · edited Mar 24 '17 at 16:44

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Just updating this for Powerpoint 2010 (also works in PPT 2013). If you get this warning message "powerpoint references to external pictures have been blocked":

Find the offending links by File -> Info -> Edit Links To Files (in the bottom right of the Backstage view). (Also referenced in in Rhys's answer.) This will give you the name of the offending link, but annoyingly doesn't tell you which slide it is.
Since the PPTX file is actually a zip file:
- copy the pptx file
- rename the copy to have a .zip extension
- extract the contents (e.g., right-click -> Extract all files)
- search (e.g., using grep or Windows Explorer) through the contents of the XML files (one per slide) found at folder_where_unzip_was_done\ppt\slides, or the _rels directory below that.
You should search for the URL (or part of it) that was revealed by the "Edit Links To Files" utility noted above. In this way you can find and fix the offending slide.

edited Mar 24 '17 at 16:44

cxw

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answered Jun 10 '15 at 20:58

sobero

91

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Great. Glad you explained it patiently. What is the word you use when microsoft (or anyone) has made a funky advanced feature, like making dynamic image links that allow updating between its documents... which will be used by .001% of users, but which make Office awkward and weird for 90% of its users? Could there be a way to have things like macros and these oddball links be shut off by default, and then those few users that did need them would turn that capacity ON? :) – estephan500 Dec 09 '15 at 05:26
Worked very nicely for me! I found the links in the <unzip location>\ppt\slides\_rels\slide<number>.xml.rels file for the slide. – cxw Mar 24 '17 at 16:30

score 8 · Accepted Answer · answered Jan 05 '11 at 20:33

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Press the Office button, then goto Prepare and selecting Edit Links to Files (you may need to scroll down the list to find it). This will bring up the dialog showing the external links, which you can then break.

answered Jan 05 '11 at 20:33

Rhys Gibson

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score 1 · Answer 3 · answered Dec 13 '16 at 01:30

The answers I have found online do not seem to work well, nor do they seem to be available to PowerPoint for Mac. I've recently had this issue and found the following solution:

File -> Reduce file size...-> Keep current resolution

This has the effect of embedding the images at the current resolution, cropping them to view etc.

How can I break external links in PowerPoint 2007?

3 Answers3