How do I embed video in PowerPoint with relative paths?

Question

I'm using PowerPoint 2003. Does anyone know how to embed a video in a PowerPoint presentation in such a way that it can be moved to another computer?

Possible solutions I'm considering:

• Actually embed the video file into the powerpoint file. This would be ideal, but I don't know how to do this.
• Insert a reference to the video into the presentation. I need this to be a relative path, though, not an absolute path.

Answer 1

Seems like relative paths are supported, they are just not straightforward to implement. For example if your Powerpoint presentation is in the MyFiles folder, and the MyMovie.avi is in the Media folder inside MyFiles. The trick is to edit the xml files inside the Powerpoint file:

• Make a copy of your presentation as Presentation.pptx (just to keep the original safe).
• Rename your Presentation.pptx file into Presentation.pptx.zip
• Open the resulting zip file by clicking on it.
• It will open as a folder. Inside it, go to ppt, then slides, then _rels
• You will see files called slide1.xml.rels etc.
• Copy (drag and drop) all those to another place, outside the archive.
• Now open the file corresponding to the number of your slide with video with some editor (for example, Notepad).
• Look for the line that says something like: Target="file:///C:\MyFiles\Media\MyMovie.avi"
• If your Powerpoint presentation is in the MyFiles folder, and the MyMovie.avi is in the Media folder inside MyFiles, then change the above line to: Target="Media\MyMovie.avi"
• Save the slide1.xml.rels file (or whatever number it was), then drag it back to that archive (that is actually a Powerpoint file), and then rename the archive back to Presentation.pptx
• This is it. Now you should be able to carry around the folder MyFiles with the presentation and with the Media folder inside it that contains your video.

Works for me on Windows 7.

Good luck!

Answer 2

This would be why Microsoft has the "Pack and Go" Wizard - running it on a PowerPoint will collect all linked videos, fonts, sound files, etc. and package it on a CD you can take anywhere or in a self-extracting file that you can take where you need to go.

At your discretion it can even embed the viewer so you don't have to worry about if the target computer has an app that supports your presentation.

Answer 3

If your video is in the same folder as your presentation, the link should continue to work even when moved.

P.S. You have to move the video file too.

Answer 4

1. You cannot embed video into powerpoint, you need to link it.
2. Relative paths are also not supported,

The idea is to convert the PPT to a Flash Video.

Answer 5

In PowerPoint 2000 and earlier, there was a feature called "Pack and Go" which you could use to package a presentation in a folder with its attachments and a PowerPoint Viewer application that an end user could use to view the presentation.

In PowerPoint 2003 and later, the feature is called "Package for CD".

Answer 6

Use the Control Toolbox to insert the movie; this way you have total control over path, size etc.

• Activate the Control Toolbox toolbar (in View menu), click on "More Controls" at the bottom right.
• Scroll down and select "Windows Media Player" and draw a rectangle on the slide where you want the movie to appear.
• Right-click the movie window and select "Properties".
• In the properties window you can change the path, screen size and if you want the media player to appear with or without controls, etc.

Answer 7

PowerPoint 2003: According to the official documentation,

If the presentation is located anywhere in the file path at which the movie file is located, PowerPoint stores the movie file as a relative path in the presentation... For example, you have a presentation that is located in the following folder: C:\Documents and Settings\User\My Documents

You insert a movie from the following folder into this presentation: C:\Documents and Settings\User\My Documents\My Movies

In this example, the following path is inserted into the presentation: .\My Movies\Movie_name.avi