I have a Word doc that has quite a few linked objects (to an Excel file). I need to move both the Word doc and the Excel file to a new computer, which means that the path that all of those links point to will have to be update to reflect the new drive and folder structure.



I can do this easily enough (Alt-F9 exposes the path and a simple find/replace allows me to change the link). But then when I hit Alt-F9 to look at the linked object again, the link is gone. Visually it looks fine, but if I right-click on a chart for example, there is no menu option for Update Link. It has now changed to only a menu option for Object. When I click on Object, I get an error message that says "This object is corrupt or is no longer available." I know that the path is pointing to the correct location.

Has anybody seen this? How can I switch over these links? There are too many linked objects (charts and tables) to copy/paste them in, so I need to find a way to update these paths.

Thanks for any help!

Hi joatmon,

When you did the Find/Replace, did you replace just the path, using '//' as the path separators?

An alternative approach is to add the 'Edit Links' button to the QAT and use that for changing them. This could be laborious with a lot of links, though.

__________________
Cheers,
Paul Edstein
[Fmr MS MVP - Word]

Thanks for the reply. I replaced both the path and the file name. I even went so far as to paste in a new linked Excel object and then re-type over my non-working object to EXACTLY replicate the linked text. The two strings are exactly the same (I have one immediately above the other), but the old one is still not an active link (it remains an object). I know this since when I right click on the link (whether in visual display or in text display (meaning either toggle of Alt-F9) ), there is no option for Update Link. There is only a choice for Object. When I click on Object, I get the error message about corruption.

No matter how I come at this, I cannot get this link to be active again. I've googled this to death. There seems to be some concern that this could be an Norton AV problem, but Norton is not on either machine. Plus, I hate when people blame AV interference - it's too easy and convenient.

There must be a solution to this. I wonder if VBA can help. I wound up manually re-pasting these links into the Word doc using only the destination computer, but I am VERY concerned that this problem will resurface in the future. I'd appreciate any help that anyone can offer.

Thanks again for the reply!