Question: How do I fix broken links in Microsoft Office Products, like PowerPoint? 

Answer:

How do I identify if I have broken links? 

As a rule of thumb, the move from NetFile to Google Drive will affect the following types of links in your PowerPoint Presentations in the following ways:

• Links to websites like YouTube videos will not break
• Links to other Documents, such as Word or Excel, will break. 

The best way to identify if you have broken links is to go through your documents and click on the links that are there.

To do this

1. Right click on the Link
2. Select Open Hyperlink

If the target document or website opens, the link is not broken.  

If you receive the error below, the link is broken. 

How can I tell where my linked document is now?

The first step to fixing a broken link is to figure out the new location of the file that the broken link pointed to. Locations of files and folders are represented by folder/file paths.  The tool OIT uses to move your data from NetFile to Google Drive preserves NetFile's folder hierarchy and relative file locations. This means finding where the files are now located will be familiar and simple, since the paths in Google Drive are almost identical to the paths that were in NetFile. 

Take the following imaginary class folder: FA18-OIT-101. Inside of this folder, there is a Syllabus (Word Document) and three folders; Week 1, Week 2, and Week 3.  Each week folder has folders, lecture  and/or assignment materials inside of them (See LucidChart Diagram here for a graphical representation). In your Week 1 Folder, your first Lecture PowerPoint is called Intro to Links.pptx. In this PowerPoint you have a link to open your Syllabus, which is called oit-101 Syllabus.docx.

To find the computer path of the oit-101 syllabus.docx, Right Click the link, and select Edit Hyperlink. In the window that opens, towards the bottom of the window you will see an address bar. That path there is where the target file is. 

In this example, the path of oit-101 syllabus.docx in NetFile is \\fs.nd.edu\~YourNetID\Private\FA18-OIT-101\oit-101 Syllabus.docx. The \\fs.nd.edu\~YourNetID portion of this path denotes that this file is in Your NetFile Drive (\\fs.nd.edu\). 

Note: If you do not see a full path like in the example above, but instead see a format that has many periods and slashes (e.g. \..\oit-101 Syllabus.docx), that is a relative path. The two periods ".." mean 'Parent Folder', which is the folder your document is contained in. In this example, "\FA18-OIT-101\oit-101 Syllabus.docx" and "\..\oit-101 Syllabus.docx" are equal paths. It is unlikely that you will see this. 

When the file is moved to Google Drive, the path changes slightly. The path of oit-101 syllabus.docx in Google Drive is Google Drive\Migrated_From_NetFile\Private\FA18-OIT-101\oit-101 Syllabus.docx. The \Migrated_From_NetFile\ portion of the path replaces \\fs.nd.edu\~YourNetID\, but everything else starting with \Private\ is the same.

Therefore, to find the location of my oit-101 Syllabus.docx in Google Drive, I would double click on the Migrated_From_NetFile Folder -> double click on the Private Folder -> double click on the FA18-OIT-101 folder -> and then look for the oit-101 Syllabus.docx Word Document.  

How do I fix a broken link?

Once we know where the location of the file the link needs to point to, we can edit the PowerPoint to reflect that data. 

There are two ways of fixing these issues:

1. Embed your data, instead of link to it (Highly Recommended)
2. Re-establish the Link with the new external data location.

1) Embed Your Data (Highly Recommended)

Embedding your Data/Content into your PowerPoint brings the target data/content into your presentation in such a way that it will not break if source/target folders and files are moved, deleted, renamed, or edited. This does, however, make your PowerPoint larger in size. 

1. In your Document, delete your link to your external source data
   
   
2. Go to the Insert Menu at the top of the screen
   
   
   
   
3. Find the Text option of the Insert Menu
   
   
   
   
4. Click the Insert Object Button
   
   
   
   
5. The Insert Object window should appear. On the left, choose the Create from file option, and Click Browse.
   
   
   
   
6. Browse to where your document you would like to embed is, select it, and click OK. Using the path identified earlier, start from your Google Drive File Stream > My Drive > Migrated_From_NetFile > Private, and proceed down the path specific to you to find your document. 
   
   
   
   
7. You should now notice that the Insert Object Window has a path listed in it now. Click OK. 
   
   
   
   
8. You should now notice that your document's content is in the middle of the screen. You can double click on that content to have it expanded, and open to view and edit. 
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   

2) Re-Link Content 

Note: Depending on where you are keeping your files, and depending on how you are accessing them, the links may be broken on some machines, but work on others. 

1. Find your broken Link
   
   
   
   
2. Right Click the link, and choose Edit Hyperlink
   
   
   
   
3. Browse to the new file location and Click OK. This is the file path that you identified earlier for this link.