Word linking to Excel (hidden Excel)

[Doug Needham]

I've linked Word and Excel files. Under Windows 7, those paths are fixed rather than relative. So moving files to a new folder and/or renaming them causes the links to be broken. What I've resorted to is:

1. Revealing codes within the Word file.
2. Search and replace for the path of the new destination folder
3. Then update the links.

This methodology appears to be working fine, although it's far more difficult than the days of Windows XP when you could simply move files easily without breaking links. That's another story by itself.

Now to my problem: When I open the Word file, it is automatically opening the linked Excel file over and over again. It appears to be updating links within the Word document. This has not happened to me in the past. All of the links are set to "Manual" rather than "Automatic", so I'm not sure why it's opening the Excel file repeatedly.



Secondly, when it finally goes through this whole process, the Word file is now open. I notice that Excel is also running, but there is no file open. If I now try to open my linked Excel file, I'm prompted with an error saying that Excel cannot open two files with the same name at the same time. It looks as if my linked Excel file is "hidden", almost acting like a Personal.xlsx file.

There have also been times when I've tried to open my linked Excel file, and it's completely blank. I cannot see anything including books at the bottom, but I know that data/formulas are there because when I move the cursor around, the formula bar shows the contents of the cells. My solution to fix this has been under View, I select Arrange All, and then select Ok.

I hope there's a simple explanation for these issues and hopefully an equally simple solution.

Thanks

[macropod]

Word link paths have always been absolute. This behaviour has nothing to do with the Windows or Office version. Windows XP was no different (though a quirk in more recent versions of Office has allowed links to the same folder to behave relatively).

To edit links in Word file, you can click on File>Edit Links to File (in the lower right of the screen) - or you can add the Edit Links button to the QAT. Alternatively, to see how to implement relative paths in Word, check out the solution I've posted at: http://windowssecrets.com/forums/sho...External-Files. For Excel links you'll need the macro solution.

[Doug Needham]

I will gladly check out your solution on the links. This has been a thorn in my side for the past year when we upgraded from Windows XP to Windows 7.

Do you have any thoughts on why my Word file is automatically updating links to Excel by repeatedly opening the Excel file?

[macropod]

AFAIK, the process used for the docx format with Office 2007 & later, results in each link being evaluated iteratively, rather than all links to the same file being processed as a group. Where possible, you should try to reduce the number of links. For example, if the data for the same link is used multiple times, bookmark the first, then use cross-references to the bookmark instead of having a link for each instance. Similarly, if you need a table, construct it in the workbook, then use a single link for the table as a whole rather than linking individual cells.

[Doug Needham]

Thanks for the response.

I do employ both of those "tricks", but my documents still consist of +/-100 links to Excel.

Have you heard of LinkTek? http://linktek.com/word/broken-links-in-word/

[macropod]

No, I wasn't aware of LinkTek, but from what I can see from their web site it seems their LinkFixer products mostly do nothing more for MS Office files than freely-available Office macros can do. Some of LinkTek's solutions, such as the so-called 'inoculate' process also modify link source files (something that's generally unnecessary and may be regarded as undesirable) in ways that I doubt can be guaranteed to work. LinkTek also seem coy about what it charges - I can't see anywhere on its web site how much it actually charges for its products. I note too that LinkTek's claimed $1m saving for Yukon assumes all the work of repairing broken links would otherwise be done manually (i.e. the worst possible case), rather than assuming the IT staff would have the intelligence to automate as much as possible (e.g. via freely-available macros) ...