Linking to Slides in PowerPoint

The programs provided as part of the Office suite do a pretty good job of working together. Of course, trying to get them to work together well can be a challenge at times, but once you know the little tricks, life is much easier.

For instance, let's say you wanted to insert a hyperlink in a Word document and have that hyperlink reference a slide in a PowerPoint presentation. The way you go about this depends on the version of Word you are using. If you are using Word 97, follow these steps:

1. Highlight the text to which you want to attach the hyperlink.
2. Choose Hyperlink from the Insert menu. Word displays the Insert Hyperlink dialog box.
3. In the Link to File or URL field, specify the full path and file name of the PowerPoint presentation file. (If desired, you can click on Browse to select the file.) For instance, you might enter something like C:\My Documents\Presentations\sample.ppt.
4. At the end of the file name, type a pound sign (#) followed by the slide number you want to use from the presentation. For instance, if you want to use the forty-second slide, your full entry might be C:\My Documents\Presentations\sample.ppt#42.
5. Click on OK.

In Word 2000 the steps are only slightly different:

1. Highlight the text to which you want to attach the hyperlink.
2. Choose Hyperlink from the Insert menu. Word displays the Insert Hyperlink dialog box.
3. Click on the Existing File or Web Page button at the left side of the dialog box.
4. In the Type the File or Web Page Name field, specify the full path and file name of the PowerPoint presentation file. (If desired, you can click on File to select the file.) For instance, you might enter something like C:\My Documents\Presentations\sample.ppt.
5. At the end of the file name, type a pound sign (#) followed by the slide number you want to use from the presentation. For instance, if you want to use the forty-second slide, your full entry might be C:\My Documents\Presentations\sample.ppt#42.
6. Click on OK.

In Word 2002 and Word 2003 the steps are different still:

1. Highlight the text to which you want to attach the hyperlink.
2. Choose Hyperlink from the Insert menu. Word displays the Insert Hyperlink dialog box. (See Figure 1.)



Figure 1. The Insert Hyperlink dialog box.

3. Click on the Existing File or Web Page button at the left side of the dialog box.
4. In the Look In area, make sure Current Folder is chosen.
5. Navigate through the folders, just as you would if you were using the Windows Explorer. You want to locate and select the PowerPoint presentation file.
6. When the PowerPoint file is selected, the full path to the file appears at the bottom of the dialog box, in the Address box. At the end of the address, type a pound sign (#) followed by the slide number you want to use from the presentation. For instance, if you want to use the forty-second slide, your full entry might be C:\My Documents\Presentations\sample.ppt#42.
7. Click on OK.

If you don't know the slide number that PowerPoint is using for a particular slide, you can use this method to insert the hyperlink:

1. Open your PowerPoint presentation.
2. Select the slide that will be the target of your hyperlink in Word.
3. Press Ctrl+C to copy the slide.
4. Switch to Word.
5. Position the insertion point where you want your hyperlink located.
6. Choose Paste as Hyperlink from the Edit menu.
7. Edit the new hyperlink, as desired.

WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (915) applies to Microsoft Word 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003. You can find a version of this tip for the ribbon interface of Word (Word 2007 and later) here: Linking to Slides in PowerPoint.