Linking to Any File in PowerPoint 2013 for Windows

Although you can link from one presentation to another in PowerPoint, you can essentially use the same concept to link to any other file! You can link to PDFs, Word documents, Excel sheets, video files, and anything else. The link will then open in the associated program. For example, a PDF will typically open in Adobe Acrobat or Adobe Acrobat Reader. Word files will open in Microsoft Word. Of course, this depends on whether you have a suitable program installed on your system.

Follow these steps to link to any file from within your slide in PowerPoint 2013 for Windows:

1. Place your presentation and the file you want to link to within the same folder. For example, we wish to link to a PDF from our presentation, and we placed the PDF and our PowerPoint presentation in the same folder, as shown in Figure 1, below.
2. 
   Figure 1: Place all files in the same folder
2. Open the presentation you placed in the folder. Now select an anchor on any slide. An anchor is any slide object that you can select, as explained in our Anatomy of a Link tutorial. As you can see in Figure 2, we selected a basic Rectangle Shape.
3. 
   Figure 2: Select your anchor
3. With your shape selected, access the Insert tab of the Ribbon. Then, click the Hyperlink button, as shown highlighted in red within Figure 3, below.
4. 
   Figure 3: The Hyperlink button
5. You can also press the Ctrl + K keyboard shortcut instead of clicking the Hyperlink button.


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4. Doing so will bring up the Insert Hyperlink dialog box, as shown in Figure 4, below. Make sure you select the Existing File or Web Page option in the sidebar, as shown highlighted in red within Figure 4.
5. 
   Figure 4: Link to another file
5. Next, choose the Current Folder option within the Look in area, as shown highlighted in blue within Figure 4, above. Select the file that you want to link to, and then click the OK button, as shown highlighted in green.
6. Now play the presentation in Slide Show view. Click the anchor to test the hyperlink.