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

Note: doesn't work for PowerPoint 2003, only for new pptx files (since 2007)

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

I found this thread via google, here is my advice, which works for Powerpoint 2010. Let's use the example of Trespasser:

• Your Powerpoint presentation is in the "MyFiles" folder.
• The "MyMovie.avi" is in the "Media" folder inside MyFiles.

So insert MyMovie.avi via the Powerpointmenu, but dont choose insert, choose, "relate with file" (i dont know the exactly english translation). This option is available in the file dialog, look here:

Now Powerpoint does the following:

If you move your presentation to another folder/computer, powerpoint first tries to open the video with the absolut path. On your computer this will work, if you dont delete/move the video. If powerpoint cant find the video, because you moved it or the presentation is on another computer, powerpoint will try to open it as a relative link.

So with Powerpoint 2010 just copy your presentation and your media folder to a new destination and it will work from scratch.

Answer 8

I wrote a small VB script that will strip the absolute paths from the media files and leave them as relative paths.

Global fso As New FileSystemObject

Public Sub ConvertMediaToRelativePaths()
    Dim i As Integer
    Dim sld As Slide, shp As Shape
    For Each sld In ActivePresentation.Slides
        For Each shp In sld.Shapes
            If shp.Type = msoMedia Then
                Dim path As String, fname As String
                path = shp.LinkFormat.SourceFullName
                fname = fso.GetFileName(path)
                shp.LinkFormat.SourceFullName = fname
                 i = i + 1
            End If
        Next
    Next
    If i > 0 Then
        MsgBox "Converted " & CStr(i) & " Video Source Paths.", vbOK
    Else
        MsgBox "No Videos Found.", vbOK
    End If
End Sub

This should work for both 2003 and later PowerPoint. Much easier that the solution Trespasser outlines.

NOTE that VBA needs a reference to "Microsoft Scripting Runtime (scrun.dll)" in order to use the FileSystemObject class.

Answer 9

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

Answer 10

There is much easer way how solve this problem. PowerPoint allowed to start a program over a hyperlink. Instead of a program select your video:

1. create a hyperlink
2. choose Start program
3. show all files instead of only programs
4. select your video
5. and change the link in the hyperlink setting window from 'C:\Documents and Settings\User\MyDocuments\MyVideo.avi' ---> '.\MyDocuments\MyVideo.avi'

It works ;)

Answer 11

Couldn't get any of these to work. The tool to export a CD didn't seem to bother changing the video URLS;

What I'm currenly going with is using SUBST to set a drive letter to the directory, and then create the videos relative to that drive letter. Not perfect, but at least I can just change the destination of the subst drive to relocate all the videos in one go.

One huge frustration was that once ppt had accepted a URL, it wouldn't let me change it. It would appear to accept the new filename in the properties box, but when you saved and reloaded the presentation, it had reverted to the previous name.

I couldn't try the hyperlink version since I didn't know how to create the hyperlink :-(