[ms office - 2010] Can you import pictures from a portable device (iPod/iPad)?

[DCUK6]

Hi,

 

Teacher came to me today because they couldnt import a picture into word or publisher from their ipod.

 

I found that if you copied the picture ont the desktop or memory stick then you can but not direct from the iphone.

 

In my computer you have the different categories (Hard disk drives, network locations, devices with removable storage, portable devices)

 

The iphones etc go into portable devices as does android devices. Any device in this categorycannot dirrectly import picture into word using the word insert tool.

 

 

USB devices go into another category and work fine.

 

Anyone else experience this?

 

Cheers

[LosOjos]

I might be totally wrong here, but it's my understanding that devices that show up as "Portable Devices" are effectively sharing their file system via a device defined interface - some will even transcode video when it's transferred over to them to make it compatible with the device. This also gives devices the option of opening up other features to attached devices, such as controlling playback on the device from a secondary device.

 

It's this added layer of obscurity between the two that causes Office problems I think, it needs access to the "raw" file.

 

In short, I don't think there's a way around it other than what you've already done i.e. copying the file to a "normal" drive.

 

In my mind, it's the difference between viewing an image on a webpage and downloading it to your machine; you can still see the image either way, but to do anything else with it, your machine needs a local copy*

 

* let's just ignore caching for the sake of example

 

EDIT: probably a more accurate way to describe it: a portable device is not a file system, but a server. You can request files from this server and it will send them to you. This removes the need to worry about the underlying file system of the device; you just get the files you asked for.

Edited November 13, 2014 by LosOjos